Is your teen drinking? How are teens hiding alcohol use from their parents? Parents anonymously contributed to this list. Below are the most common excuses or covers that our teens employ to hide alcohol use.
Top 10 Strategies Teens Use to Hide Their Drinking from Their Parents:
1. Asking to sleep out
If your teen asks to sleep out after a party, he or she avoids any confrontation with you if you smell alcohol on their breath, see bloodshot eyes or a drunk demeanor.
2. Getting picked up to go out instead of driving
Many teens have absorbed the message, “Don’t drink and drive,” so having a designated driver means that one person doesn’t drink but the passengers do.
3. Carrying around a water bottle
Teens hide alcohol from their parents by filling the water bottle with vodka.
4. General sneaky behavior
Where do teens hide alcohol? Beware of hidden bottles of alcohol in the basement or outside, heavy looking backpack, saved empty soda bottles to reuse with alcohol.
5. Mixing alcohol with grape soda to disguise all alcohol odor
Grape soda, when mixed with alcohol, disguises any alcohol odor.
6. Filling up family liquor bottles with water so it looks like none is gone
Teenagers who drink from the family stash of liquor will add water to replace the liquor they drank in order to make the bottle appear to have been untouched.
7. Chewing mints and gum
The smell of mints or gum can be an attempt to mask the smell of alcohol.
8. Waking up with the flu
The sudden onset of the flu after a late night with friends may in fact be a hangover.
9. Inconsistencies in the plans for the evening
When parents ask their teen what they will be doing that night, or what they did the previous night and the answers don’t jive, they might be getting some double talk. If so, their teen may be hiding alcohol use from their parents.
10. Finding “spots” on the ping pong table from beer pong
Round circles on the Ping Pong table can indicate that a game of beer pong was played.
