The Minefield - your mission, if you choose to accept it is to:

Carefully plan your approach: The best defence is a great offence.

Most great nights out require a fair degree of planning. Especially the really important ones like your formal, graduation, 18th or, 21st birthday.

Sometimes things happen on a night out that are out of your control. This is usually where things can go wrong. Just because YOU can't control everything that happens on your night, doesn't mean that you can't think about stuff beforehand, like how you would go if things did mess up.

If you think about and plan how you might deal with a particular sticky situation, chances are that you'll have a better outcome. Think about the following situations and how you might deal with them:

• Losing your phone
• Ending up with no cash
• Losing your mates

Now think about what you might do if all three happened at once.

How would you get home if you got stuck somewhere unfamiliar? How would you contact family or friends if you end up by yourself and your mates have your phone/wallet?

It is important to negotiate the “rules of engagement” beforehand and stick to your agreement. Should you find yourself in a situation where people are trying drugs – remember that the safest strategy is not to use them.

Did you know that studies say it’s very unwise for a person to use drugs when there’re alone; that if a person has never used a particular drug before it’s hard to predict what the reaction might be or that mixing one drug with another (remember alcohol is a drug too) makes it harder to predict what the reaction might be?  

Click here for more Intel on drugs  

Carry only required rations: Do you really need drugs/alcohol?

You are more likely to have a great night out that you’ll actually REMEMBER, if you don’t cloud the picture with alcohol or other drugs.

It is easy to get caught up in the moment and do things we wouldn’t ordinarily do and often that you will regret – especially after drinking. Despite what you may think lots of young people have a great time without getting smashed… in fact without using alcohol or drugs at all.

Protect yourself at all times: from negative situations/people/consequences - how can your decisions protect you?

The best choice you can make is not to use drugs at all.

Despite this, some young people will decide to use drugs at some point. This decision is made for many different reasons like:

• thinking that it's the only way to have fun
• liking to feel /act different,
• dealing with painful experiences.

A number of people will use drugs only once, or for a short period of time, and will not have any significant problems. But for others, using drugs just one time can be extremely harmful and have very serious consequences. Often we don’t know whether or not we have any underlying problem, which can suddenly be triggered (a bit like an allergic reaction) by the chemical changes caused by using a particular drug.

Protecting yourself at all times is about being prepared, so it’s a good idea to take condoms and lube with you when you go out, if not for yourself, then for a friend.

Look out for your mates: look out for your relationships as well as your health

Alcohol has a two-part affect on the body. It starts as a stimulant, and then becomes a depressant. Alcohol impairs perception and judgement. This can make it harder to interpret other people’s words and actions, especially if you don’t know them well. This can increase chances of conflict with the people around you, both physically and verbally.

It’s important to stay in control of alcohol in order to avoid conflict as much as possible. The last thing you want is to be the friend who ruins everyone else’s night because you were fighting with other people and causing drama. You also don’t want to be the person sitting in the gutter out the front of the party in tears because your partner is too out of it to think straight or make any sense.

Return from action unharmed:

Mixing drugs is dangerous no matter what.

Alcohol is a depressant; so mixing it with other depressant drugs will slow down the central nervous system – sometimes to a dangerous level. This can result in confusion, injury, and dehydration and vomiting, even coma or death.

Using alcohol with stimulant drugs like caffeine, cocaine or amphetamines can make people think that they are sober, giving a false sense of security to make decisions like driving, or heading home alone or with a stranger.

REMEMBER - nothing except time will ever help your body absorb and process alcohol. You will still register exactly the same blood alcohol content reading that you would without the stimulants being in your system.

Being in control of your body and your decisions will also help keep you safer when it comes to being sexual with another person. Returning unharmed from action is what you want!