Book Review: Thinkin’ Drinkin’ By Chris Sorenson


Book Review: Thinkin’ Drinkin’: From the Teen Years Forward – A Rational, Safe, Worry- Free Approach to Lifetime Alcohol Use or Abstinence. Balboa Press, 2011. 213 pages. Author: Richard W. Thatcher, Ph.D.


In recognition of the limited attention paid to the almost routinely accepted norm of binge drinking, Richard Thatcher’s book offers up a preventive antidote with his book, playfully entitled, Thinkin’ Drinkin.’


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Thatcher, a sociologist and registered so- cial worker, celebrates the many benefits of drinking but insists that consideration of how to use it must be given the highest priority by teens and young adults. The al- ternative is to have the tail wagging the dog, the tail being composed of peer pressure, exaggerated emotions, advertising and pro- drinking messages embedded in literature, television, movies and the media in general. The Thinkin’ Drinkin’ strategy is a guide to empowerment, not only in drinking but in all compelling, alluring, and extremely pleasur- able activities which are, at the same time, laden with the possibility of extremely high risks. Consider drugs, sex, driving styles, and dangerous sports, as well as drinking. In addition, he argues that, at least among youth, binge drinking – 5 or more drinks per session or drinking episodes that extend to the point of impairment, whatever the num- ber downed - is a substance abuse prob- lem that is so commonplace that its impact vastly outweighs alcoholism as a factor in a wide variety of health and social problems. Thatcher assembles a wealth of statistics and references to empirical studies to sup- port his argument that episodes of intoxica- tion pose the most devastating threat to the well- being of teens and young adults among all mood-modifying recreational chemicals. His concern is that, when compared with alcohol dependency, street drug use, designer drugs, and the non- medical use of prescription drugs, binge drinking receives far too little attenton in the


media, in the education system and among parents and teens themselves.


So why is binge drinking given so little at- tention? Probably, argues Thatcher, because it is not tied up in the much publicized if wrongheaded American “war on drugs,” because it is not one of the new and there- fore “exotic” mood- modifiers and it is not, at the individual level, a bio-psycho- social illness like alcohol dependency. In addition, it is the very commonplace aspect of drink- ing that undermines our very interest in the subject. We are also a little too familiar with the subject on a personal level and all of us may subconsciously resist opening it up as a serious problem because there is alot of unadmitted guilt associated with our own past behavior. Most of us, at sometime in our young lives, have experimented with getting drunk, and most of us have done some pre2y stupid things when under the influence of alcohol. In short, there may well be a wide- spread tendency to just accept drinking to the point of impairment as simply a normal part of living but a normal behavior pa2ern with an problematic but inevitable under- side—an unfortunate part of normal social life that simply won’t go away.


Thatcher’s book challenges this complacen- cy, insisting that we must be concerned with binge drinking because there is data that the practice is on the rise, it is growing among females, who are especially vulnerable dur- ing intoxication, and because it brings with it an enormous freight load of grief. The book points out that, compared with other drugs, binge drinking is associated with far more deaths and maiming from highway accidents, fights, acts of domestic violence, as well as a variety of other antisocial and criminal behavior. Binge drinking is also significantly related to date rapes and other forms of sexual assault, as well as elevated levels of unplanned and unwanted pregnan- cies.


VOL. 45 NO. 1 | WINTER 2013


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