That’s the challenge for educator Paul Dillon, who spoke to years 10 and 11 at Great Lakes College Tuncurry campus last week.

The answer is, incidentally, you don’t.

“I’m not going to tell year 11 students to stop drinking,” Dillon says.

“I may as well bang my head against a brick wall.”

Anti-drug and alcohol campaigns come in all shapes and sizes. Kids are hit with the morbid - think the ad with a boy being zipped up in a body bag. There was the parental guidance ad. Dad: “What would you say if someone offered you drugs?” Son: “I’d tell them no. You never know what it could do to you.”

By the time kids reach year 11, they’re drug talk veterans. Many treat the talks like a trendy uncle - he’s smart when you’re little, but by the time you’re a teenager he’s an embarrassment and you don’t listen to a word he says. Dillon knows this.

“I can already see people rolling their eyes; not another drug and alcohol talk,” he tells his audience.

“But there’s bad information doing the rounds. It’s so bad it’s already caused deaths.”

He hacks into sobering-up methods. One involves giving the “patient” bread; two people recently choked when friends force-fed them.

The “put him in the shower” method is slammed, and Dillon tells of a girl horribly sliced when she fell through a sheet of glass.

Then he says drinking too much water can kill you. Same with going to bed drunk. Nearly everyone’s shocked.

“It’s strange to find out that bread stuff doesn’t actually work, but drinking water doesn’t either,” year 11 student Rachael* said.

“It’s good to know what to do if my friends get into trouble. I could probably look after them better now.”

For Dillon, comments like this unmask the Teenagers Gone Wild motif he blames on “the media”.

“A lot of [kids’] questions follow one theme: how can I keep my friends safe? We have such a caring group of young people,” he says.

“A terrible show I’ve been on called Today Tonight would like to tell your parents you’re all rolling in gutters vomiting on each other.”