«Teenagers drink for the logic of the pack»

«You don’t drink for pleasure. How much to adhere to the logic of the herd. To not feel outdone. To have an “additive” that helps sociality especially after the long period of isolation from Covid-19. If we add to this the use of new narcotic substances, created to emphasize addiction, the result is easy to say.” This is the opinion of Giulio Corrivetti, director of the ASL Mental Health Department.

Doctor, in your opinion, why is the use of alcohol so widespread among very young people?

“The other day I asked an 18-year-old why she drank and she replied: because there’s nothing else to do.”

So what?

«We have two perspectives before us. There is a national law which prohibits the administration of alcohol to minors, but it is equally clear that there is an attempt to transgress and this phenomenon is rampant because we are in the presence of a strong emotional fragility. So we drink to seek consensus, to obtain the group’s approval. It is a modus that can lead to virtuous or, as in this case, criminal emulative behavior, depending on the social context in which it is inserted.”

Has Covid had an impact?

“Surely. The younger ones are emerging from a period of social isolation which has determined the need to find stratagems to facilitate relationships, to make being together simpler and more fluid. In this sense, alcohol performs an empathic function, it is a shock absorber of the void that ignores the desire to share a moment with one person rather than another. There is a form of depersonalization that pertains precisely to the logic of the herd. Then there is also another phenomenon to consider.”

Which?

«Today we no longer deal, in general terms, with the traditional alcoholic. The Northern European style of drinking together with methods of abuse prevails even among older adults. It’s a public social behavior paradoxically easier to control. A change in trend must be recorded, considering that, as far as minors are concerned, it is not only alcohol that is the trigger for aggressive behavior such as that which occurred in Piazza della Libertà”.

Are you referring to drug use?

«First of all, the abuse of alcohol alone in certain age groups entails health risks because the enzymes necessary for the metabolisation of these substances have not yet developed. Then experience teaches us that in many cases we are dealing with poly-abuse. Therefore alcohol is associated with substances that are not the old generation cannabinoids, the “pure” ones, so to speak, but substances that enter the market extremely quickly and create strong addictions. In laboratories there is not even time to understand what the classic cannabinoids are cut with as there are already new ones in circulation and this means that consumers are not even aware of what they are taking. Which makes it even more complex for professionals to work on the problem of addictions.”

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