When we first were asked what we wanted our topics to be for out graduation project, I

automatically knew what I wanted to research about: underage drinking. My family was close

friends with another family when we first came to Charlotte and they had recently came as well.

We all went to the same schools and sort of grew up together. My family is big. There’s five if us

and our friends’ family it was four. I was closest to the daughter who was a year older than me.

The two older brother’s were close to my older sisters of course, and my younger brother was

close with the youngest boy who was also his age. Four years ago, my family was invited to our

friends’ daughter 15th birthday party. I remember my brother and I being in her court. The night

was a blast. As we all headed home, the oldest brother, who was 19 at the time, took more than

usual to get home. Minutes passed to hours. We all began to get worried. Fast forward the gory

details, he had driven home drunk and spun out on the freeway. He died almost instantly. None

of us saw him drink at the party. We all thought he was fine. But we were wrong. I saw how

much his death affected my friend’s family. I never want to see that happen again to anyone.

Which is why I chose my topic as underage drinking and why it shouldn’t be lowered to 18. I

wanted to educate my peers about the dangers of underage drinking and how it impacts their

lives as well as their families.

I already kind of knew what alcohol can do to you when you drink at an early age, but the

research I was accumulating was surprising but yet upsetting to me. I had found out that 4,300

young adults die each year due to excessive underage drinking. This was as shocking and

upsetting as I was just in disbelief in how many teens die each year because they didn’t know

any better. Alcohol interferes with your decision making because your brain is still developing.

Everything that I found out, I had either already knew or learned.

 There are many reasons as to why the drinking age shouldn’t be lowered. I, however,

chose the top three: it increases alcohol related traffic accidents, it increases the chances of

young adults becoming alcoholics, and it cause harm to their developing brains. I picked these

because I feel like they were the most ‘popular’ as to why the legal drinking age is 21. In my

research paper, I feel like I could’ve stressed that importance more. I was more focused on the

facts and statistics that it just was that: a research paper. But I mean that’s what it was supposed

to be, and I am still very proud of it. It has facts, stats, and questions about alcohol and underage

drinking.

Overall, I do not regret sticking to this topic because I feel that I grew as a person

throughout writing it and got more hope for all teens and young adults to know better than to

drink underage.