Alcohol
Robert's story

What are the reasons some young people drink? Robert was a member of an Olympic development soccer team in high school. When he wasn't playing soccer, he loved hanging out and partying with his friends.

“I drank alcohol, because it was all around me,” Robert says. “Everyone was doing it. All the seniors, juniors, and sophomores were drinking. At every party everywhere I went it was the norm. It was something I felt everyone did and was supposed to do."

Robert's mom and dad warned him about drinking. They said it was a dangerous thing for someone his age to do.

“I don't think I fully appreciated my father's words,” Robert says, “because I was very immature and young."

One night Robert and his best friend went to a party. They had been drinking, and Robert was driving too fast. The road was wet, and he slammed his dad's car into a tree.

“My right leg was cut off on the scene,” Robert says. “As I flew out of the car into the engine, my right foot stayed where the pedals were. I was essentially split in two. Blood was pouring out of my pelvis. All of my veins had collapsed in my body, and the doctor found one in my neck, and saved my life.”

Robert spent months in the hospital. He had plenty of time to think about what had happened.

“I finally realized how quickly you can go from the state’s select soccer team to a bed, to nothing, to a wheelchair,” he says. “I watched my mother and father and sister come in crying, out of their mind. That all came from my stupidity: I never saw the risk of hurting myself, or the people who were around me.”

Robert didn’t believe he could get hurt. He thinks other young people deny they are at risk, too: they abuse alcohol and think nothing will happen. Robert sees bad things that can come with drinking too much alcohol.

“You can really screw up,” he says. “You could easily get in the car with somebody, a friend who has been drinking. And you don't care, because you're drunk yourself. You would do things with a young lady that you would never do sober, and that could have serious and permanent consequences. You could get a girl pregnant. There is a huge risk involved with drinking to get drunk."