Binge Drinker Aged 12

Before you read, discuss the following.

Are you surprised that a 12-year-old child could become an alcoholic?

At what age (if any) should you be able to drink: (a) wine? (b) beer? (c) spirits?

BINGE-DRINKING girl Sherrie Cooke has revealed the shocking rate of booze she used to sink in ONE NIGHT after getting hooked on alcohol aged just 12.

She began boozing with pals and got steadily worse over four years - regularly ending up in a helpless drunken stupor. A typical night's intake included 11 alcopops, 4'/2 pints of Stella Artois lager, five bubblegum-flavoured vodka shots and a quarter bottle of vodka. Sherrie admitted she often blacked out or felt ill. And after four years, she finally conceded she needed help.

She was sent on a three-week course to the School of Urban Wilderness Survival in North Carolina. And she so impressed organizers that on completion they gave her a scholarship to a top US boarding school. Sherrie, from Northampton - who now insists she is only a "moderate social drinker" - confessed: "I drank more than anyone else. I was a drunken teenager."

Months after she began drinking, the youngster stopped going to school. And by 14 her boozing was causing such chaos at home that her mum threw her out. Even then, Sherrie continued to go to bars which offered "all you can drink for £13" while she lived with her grandparents and friends. She spent £28 of her £45 income support on drink. Sherrie said she first got drunk after downing alcopops at a nightclub — dressed in her school uniform.

She said: "It got to the point I was drinking every day. When I went out I'd start with Stella, share a bottle of Vodka and a bottle of Archers schnapps then go out for more. I'd have a shot after every half of lager. I was really bad. I didn't realize 1 was an alcoholic till I went to America and looked back at my life. It was a waste of my life but I have a better adult life now.

"I want to do more with it. I've wasted two years of my life clubbing - I'm already bored of it and I'm only 16.

"This experience has taught me to appreciate things and realize there are other ways of doing and acting on things.

I'm not going to go back to that ever."

During her US course, Sherrie was forced to trek through mountains with no access to drink, cigarettes, drugs, friends or family. She carried a tent, food rations and clothes and spent two nights in isolation, setting up her own camp, lighting fires and cooking. Sherrie saw a counsellor and at last began to realize what she was doing to herself.

She now has her own flat and works in a call centre. She is due to start at the Massachusetts boarding school next month. Mum Linda, 42, said the course was "the best thing that could ever have happened to her."

Linda told how Sherrie's boozing left the family on a knife edge. She said: "It was pretty frightening. I had to protect my other children. Sherrie became extremely violent. She never went to school and camp home drunk. She would come in, thumping the doors, thumping the walls, smashing things and breaking things.

"Then she's start shouting at her siblings. It was unbearable."

Sun GP Carol Cooper said she had never heard of a youngster drinking so much.

She said; "This girl was clearly an alcoholic at 12. Young people get drunk more easily because their livers aren't as mature. They are therefore more likely to pass out or go into a coma. Sometimes the first symptom is coma or even death."

Anna Pelly, assistant producer of the TV show, said Sherrie had beaten her drink demons. She said: "She's got a promising future. We are all really pleased."

by Jacqui Thornton

2) Read the text and translate the following: беспорядок, изменять к лучшему (ситуацию, жизнь и т.д.), получить стипендию, слабоалкогольный газированный напиток, рюмка/ стопка, запой, алкоголь/ выпивка (разг.), подсесть на алкоголь, оказываться в беспомощном пьяном ступоре, прием внутрь (мед.), потерять сознание/ отключиться, признавать, по завершении (курса), человек, выпивающий изредка в компании, умеренный, устраивать хаос, вышвырнуть из дома, денежное пособие, выпивать залпом, ценить, тратить впустую, путешествовать по горам, без доступа к выпивке/ сигаретам/ наркотикам, суточный рацион, разбивать лагерь, посещать психотерапевта, школа-пансион, быть в ожидании, на краю (решения, исхода), бить,/ колотить, разбивать, брат или сестра, впасть в кому, перспективный.

3) Find the synonyms in the previous exercise: to value, to admit, reasonable, to correct, to break, to drink at a gulp, disorder, to visit a psychotherapist, to faint/ lose consciousness, alcohol

4) Explain the meaning of the words and use in sentences or a story of your own:

on a knife edge, a moderate social drinker, a binge drinker, to get hooked on, to throw out, a drunken stupor, income support, to pass out.

5) Fill in the gaps with the correct word or expression:

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