The Boy Who Drank Too Much (1980)

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Absolutely Fantastic

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Apparently there were several of these type of films with Scott Baio. I only saw and remember this one. I believe it was aired at night by CBS so I do not know if it was an "afterschool special" or not but it was VERY well done. Scott definitely played a high school hockey player in this one with Lance Kerwin as his very understanding teammate and friend.What no one has mentioned is that it was one of my favorite actors from that era, Don Murray who did a great job of portraying Scott's dad, also an alcoholic. As I recall the movie made some really good points about how alcohol was poisoning the relationship between father and son.This is one of many excellent made for TV movies that came out in the 1970s...Brian's Song, The execution of Private Slovick,Sweet Hostage, Son-Rise, The Jericho Mile. The Lonliest Runner, Leave Yesterday Behind, and Helter Skelter just off the top of my head. As someone else mentioned, it is too bad there is not a cable channel that features these and other movies and miniseries from that era. The encore channels have dabbled in showing some of them but there is room for many more.

BJs Twit, that was ANOTHER other Afterschool Special! The one where Baio was a diver and missed the meet because of a drunk driving accident was called "All the Kids Do It". Jeez, how many of these were there? Anyway, I remember all three of these, and I remember hating Stoned, because obviously Baio's character had problems fitting in, and problems living in his brother's shadow, but all he "learns" is that getting high is the WRONG way to deal with that. Nothing about the RIGHT way. The message I got was that you should do drugs just so you can get clean, and THEN people will respect you for getting clean. What-ever.

sorry,tricky...but the plotline you speak of is STONED, another Scott Baio Afetrschool Special, where he smokes pot and then accidently hits his swimming brother with an oar. THE BOY WHO DRANK TOO MUCH has Scott as a hockey player. His father is an alcoholic, and he starts drinking too. At first he tells Lance kerwin that its "no big deal" then lance starts noticing that Scott drinks so often and to such extremes that it IS a problem. A memorable part is where they go to a friends party and Scott breaks out the booze. He starts hitting on his friends girlfriend and then ends up wetting his pants. the girl at the party starts screaming that "He wet his pants on my mothers rug!!!!" (a comical moment,weather they intended it to be or not) from there on it just gets worse for scott and he eventually ends up in rehab. I made my two young nieces watch this because I feel that kids should see movies like this one way or another. I know I learned more than one lesson from AFTERSCHOOL SPECIALS.

The real star is Billy Carpenter, Lance Kerwin. He supports a basically not very nice person well portrayed by Scott Baio. Billy is more convincing as the nice guy who cares, we need more of this positive role model.