Of everything covered in these lessons, alcohol is the one you are most likely to be around, at the ages and in the settings where it does the most harm. It is legal, advertised, and for most of you only a couple of years from being fully available. So this is not a lecture about a forbidden thing. It is the practical stuff: how to be around alcohol without it wrecking a night, a reputation, your body, or a friend. You are old enough to make real decisions about a legal drug, and real decisions need real information.
First fact, because it gets lost in the noise: most people your age are not drinking heavily. The stories and the socials make it look universal. It is not.
Alcohol is a depressant. It slows your reactions, blurs your judgement, and lowers your inhibitions, and it does them in that order, which is the catch: your judgement is already going before you feel properly drunk. That is why "I was fine, I felt totally in control" is exactly what people say right before the decision they regret. And it hits you harder than it hits an adult, for reasons that are pure biology: you are likely smaller, so the same drink puts more alcohol in your blood; your brain is still developing in the areas alcohol disrupts; and you have not built the slow, learned sense of your own limit that lets adults pace themselves. That combination is why young people end up on the floor rather than merely merry, and it is not weakness. It is chemistry and inexperience.
Ask a police officer what alcohol does on a night out and they will not talk about your liver. Alcohol multiplies whatever is already happening. The argument multiplies into a fight. The walk home multiplies into being lost, alone and vulnerable. The photo multiplies into a lasting problem. The friendly stranger multiplies into a situation you cannot get out of. The drink is only half the risk. The setting, the plan and the people are the other half, which is why a house party with no adults and no way home is a completely different proposition from the same drinks somewhere with people who would look out for you.
This matters and it is not awkward once it is said plainly. Someone who is very drunk cannot give valid consent to anything sexual. In law, sexual activity with a person who is incapacitated through alcohol is rape. There is no grey area in it, and being drunk yourself is not a defence. Alcohol is present in a huge proportion of the situations where young people get hurt this way, which is exactly why looking after a friend who is too drunk, getting them home safe, staying with them, not leaving them with someone, is one of the most important things you will ever do on a night out. It goes both ways: protect your friends, and never be the person who takes advantage of someone who cannot make a clear decision.
The habits that actually keep people safe are simple and worth deciding on before the night, not during it. Arrive together, stay together, leave together. Keep your phone charged and know how you are getting home before you go out. Never let a friend wander off drunk on their own, and never accept that someone who has passed out is "just asleep, leave them".
If someone collapses after drinking: put them on their side in the recovery position so they cannot choke on their own vomit, call 999, and stay with them. Alcohol keeps being absorbed after the last drink, so someone can get worse after they pass out. "Leave them to sleep it off" is genuinely how young people die from alcohol. Ring. Nobody gets in trouble for saving their mate's life, and you will never regret making the call.
1. You're at a house party and a mate is drunk to the point of throwing up and barely responding. Someone says just put them to bed. What do you actually do?
2. "I'm not drinking tonight" gets pushback. Write the version of your response you would genuinely say, out loud, with no drama attached.
Childline is confidential on 0800 1111 up to 19, about anything, including if someone's drinking at home worries or frightens you. If that is your house, you are not alone and it is not your fault, and Nacoa (0800 358 3456, nacoa.org.uk) exists for exactly that. Drinkaware and Talk to Frank have the straight facts. And in an emergency, 999, every single time.