Happy Purim! L’Chayim?

All across the land, Jewish women are telling their husbands that since this year Purim is a Friday, absolutely, under no circumstances, can they drink like on a regular Purim, because “you better not be sick because . . .  no way! I’m not having you throwing up while we’re at the Shabbos table so, absolutely not.” (And if it’s not happening ALL across the land, it’s happening in my kitchen.) The confluence of Purim on Erev Shabbos happens every 3-5 years, I think, and it brings with it mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s Purim! Yippee! On the other hand, “I don’t like seeing you like that on any Purim, but ESPECIALLY not on Shabbos. Just, no!”

Something like that. I think that was the gist of it.

Every year there is discussion in the community in one way or another about alcohol and Purim and usually I stay out of it – I’m no role model. I’ve given my share of Purim-booze inspired hugs and brachos, so I have no business preaching. But this year, I want to tell a story.

. . .

I remember the exact day. I remember it because Shabbos had been my 50^th birthday and the call came on Sunday. When they found him in his house, he was already gone a day or two. It’s safe to say that the indirect cause of death was alcohol, even if it wasn’t the immediate cause.

We had been friends since elementary school. We were friends longer than some of his siblings had been alive. Which is to say, some of his siblings’ earliest memories are of me in the house and being around on Shabbos because we were brothers. Not biologically, but still. And then there I was, helping put him in the ground. I spoke at the grave. I put dirt on the coffin. I visited briefly with his siblings at the Shiva house on Long Island, and then I cried on the way back to Baltimore.

And I’m probably not really over it.

When we were in high school, we were American teenagers in the 80s and 90s making the kind of mistakes that teenagers made in those days. And still. Jon always went a little harder, always a little more. Maybe he was already an alcoholic in those days, but I didn’t know. He for sure didn’t know.

After high school, we were long-distance friends. I made my way to Ner Yisrael and got married and moved to Baltimore. Jon stayed in New York, started working, got married. We stayed in touch; Jon was especially good about calling Erev Rosh Hashanah. Our growing families had dinner together a couple of times, but mostly it was keeping up online and with phone calls. But the heart doesn’t care about trifling things such as space and time, and we remained very close friends.

During all that time we knew that alcohol was a problem. I’ll skip the 25+ years of this and that and just get to the part where eventually alcohol cost him a career, his marriage, it had a major negative impact on his relationships with his children and, because he was living alone when IT happened, his life.

I tell this story here because it’s been bubbling in my head for a while as I tried to figure out how best to tell it. And with Purim just around the corner, it feels like the time is right.

This is not a piece about why alcohol is bad. If it were, believe me, no one would be quicker to call me a hypocrite than my wife. I enjoy adult beverages. I’m not such a saint as to claim I’ve never gone too far or I’ve never “prayed to the porcelain goddess.” And I’m not oblivious to the fact that there was a really dark moment last year where I had to stop and wonder if I was an alcoholic too. I’m not writing about Jon to say that Purim is bad or alcohol is bad or that fun is bad.

But I am writing to ask you to think about how much and when.

What I’m about to say is backed up by science, observation, and common sense, but let me say it as plainly as possible. The earlier in life and more frequently a person gets drunk, the more likely they are to have a problem with alcoholism later in life. (Yes, I know it’s correlation and not causation. But it’s still worth worrying about.) [See studies linked below.] No one can say that getting drunk at a certain age is OK, but younger than that sets a person up for a life of alcoholism. What we do know is that the older a person is when they have that first exposure to alcohol, the better it is for their long-term health. And no one can say X number of drinks is the line where the problem starts, but we know fewer is safer.

It also makes sense. The fact that our teens’ brains are in one of the greatest moments of neuroplasticity means that when they get drunk, they are literally teaching their brains that this is what fun is. If a child is drinking because they are sad, stressed, or depressed, then they are also training their neurons that this is how we relieve symptoms. The brain is wiring itself to want alcohol to self-medicate. And you don’t have to be an educator or know a thing or two about neuroplasticity to observe that when kids learn that it’s fun or cute to drink to excess, that behavior gets repeated. We do the things that give us social acceptance in almost all cases. And just like we work so hard and spend SO MUCH MONEY to send our kids to schools that reinforce the values we admire because we know the environment matters. That’s the case here too. Environment matters.

The official definition of “binge drinking” is having five or more drinks within two hours. Here’s a question: Who is more likely to report binge drinking (5 or more drinks within 2 hours) in the last 30 days, a 16-year-old public school child or a 16-year-old Jewish Day School child?

Over the last 10 or so years, the Yeshiva League Schools in the tri-state area (and similar schools in other markets) have done surveys on exactly this. They avoided doing it too close to Purim or Pesach so as not to skew the data, and they’ve had similar results for at least three cycles of questions (which means the kids who took the survey in the first round in 10^th grade were no longer in high school when the latest data was collected) and the data is extremely reliable for reasons I’ll let them explain. So we have GOOD DATA on this.

Jewish day school students ARE MORE LIKELY (about 50% more likely) to report binge drinking and access to alcohol than their peers in public school on nationally normed surveys.

How do we feel about that?

For my yeshiveshe friends, do we think it’s more or less likely that the boys will have had a “binge drinking” experience in the last 30 days if we look at schools to the right of the Yeshivah League schools?

And how do we feel about that?

There are a lot of reasons that could contribute to alcoholism. Certainly, genetics plays a role. Trauma, abuse, mental health issues could all be contributing factors. But also, early exposure and repeated exposure play a role, and we do our very best to protect our kids from all the other variables in this equation.

I don’t know whether I would have saved Jon if I had been a better friend. Honestly, I don’t think so, because he had loving parents and loving, generous and committed siblings, and a wife who stood with him through so many years, and I don’t know if there was one more thing that I could have added to that. I do know that Jon knew I loved him, and I know he loved me too. But I guess in the end, love isn’t enough.

This year, Purim falls on Erev Shabbos, and probably in more kitchens than just mine, this confluence is inspiring discussions about Purim and drinking. May we all be blessed with a joyous Purim and a beautiful Shalom-filled Erev Shabbos.

Study from 2000

Study from 2006

Study from 2016

Binge Drinking Definition