Of the six of us in our family, four of us turned out to be addicts. I am a drug addict, my brother is an alcoholic in recovery and two of my sisters are dead because of alcohol.

I told my kids to go off and drink if they wanted but to think of the consequences.

Because if you think of them, there are a lot of things that will put you off the drink. I wish I'd found that out earlier in my life.

Halina Ashdown Shiels
MD,
Advanced Cosmetic Surgery
I remember my daughter sneaked off to the pub with her friends when she was about 15 and she was drinking.

But when she came home, I put the lock on the bedroom door until she promised me faithfully she wouldn't drink again.

And it worked.

I was the worst parent in the world for a while, from her point of view, but she appreciates it now.

I always think the parents have to stay in control and instill in their children a sense of respect.

As a parent, you have to have no qualms whatsoever when it comes to training your children about alcohol, because this is the rest of their life you're talking about.

George Hook
Broadcaster
Teenage drinking wasn't really an issue for us as my eldest child did the Junior Cert 20 years ago and my youngest son did it 10 years ago. It was a different time and a different issue. There wasn't that same mad drinking culture amongst kids. These days we are treating children as adults when they're still kids. I remember having a row with my eldest daughter about going to Wesley, and I did the whole hanging around outside the disco at 11pm thing, but it's very different now. I saw a mother dropping her child off there last Wednesday and the girl's chest was completely hanging out. I don't think she was doing her daughter any favours.