The Graham Parish story is a sad account of what can happen during a hard drinking session and a good example of what other young people can do to avoid a similar fate.
1. Be careful with drinking games.
They're all fun and games at first but they're designed almost without exception to encourage accelerated drinking the drunker you get.
They're essentially about some complicated mental or physical activity you have to perform repeatedly, with punishment doled out if you don't perform them correctly.
Obviously alcohol impairment makes this more difficult, so as you get drunker you'll be drinking more and drinking more quickly.
Welcome to vommit city, population 1.
2. Be warned about shots.
Anyone who has hugged a toilet after doing one (or 12) too many tequila shots will know what happens when you ingest too many spirits too quickly.
As opposed to a sipping drink, shots go down quick and are deceptive because at first you don't feel the affects and are liable to keep shooting them down to show off your mettle.
A 10 shot drink at the end of a night will in all likelihood end in a stomach pump or a quick trip to the morgue.
3. Responsibly serve alcohol.... to a degree.
Anyone living in the West will have heard this annoying phrase and will probably have been refused service from a bar when trying to order a neat triple whiskey.
It is annoying and more often than not someone will chime in and say:
"Why don't they let us just drink? Why do we have to live in a nanny state?"
Graham Parish it turns out was approved his 10 shot-in-one-glass drink by the barman and the manager on duty - who might by the way go down for manslaughter.
Bars have a responsibility to keep ther patrons alive; (un)fortunately alcohol is a drug that impairs decision making and can act as a poision if injested in huge quantities.
Sure, rage against the machine when a bar tells you that you can't have a shot after midnight, that you have to drink in plastic glasses or that the bar closes at 2am.
The right to drink 10 shots in one?
You won't be breathing right.
4. Be careful about mixing drink and drugs.
This is a common refrain from parents, teachers and the police. If you're going to take drugs be careful what you drink.
"Fuck it" says the 18 year old holding his third joint and a beer. 20 minutes later he's greening out, unable to walk and riding the porcelain express to puke town.
They may say "beer than grass you're own your arse, grass than beer you're in the clear" - but this is pretty anecdotal.
Don't believe me?
Really ask yourself who told you this old adage and whether you'd trust them to look after your small child.
Probably not.
All drugs (especially ecstasy which makes you want to drink) prop you up and make you feel more sober than you are.
You'll quickly drink more and more and then when the drugs wear off you'll find yourself drunker than you thought possible and prostrate on the couch while your friends play weird sexual tricks on you.
5. If what you're going to do sounds a like a news story, don't do it.
Everyone hates being told what to do; young people since school are constantly told how to have safe sex, not to do drugs and to drink sensibly. For a lot of people this washes right over them and part of feeling free for the first time is trying to do everything that we've been told not to.
Great.
It's true young people are going to live forever, or die trying; but the stories like Graham Parish or "Car crashes kills all teenagers on board" are all too common.
If you find yourself stumbling on a cliff with a bottle of vodka in your hand and you can imagine the headline, step back and don't become a news story.
Any more advice to our binge-drinking bretheren? Any more simple things to do to keep the fun coming that don't result in pointless deaths of young people? Tell us and remember....Disqus!