Why Risk Can Feel Reasonable—and What May Help Rural Alabama Youth Choose Differently

The question beneath the behavior

The work began with a hard question: if young people know that certain choices can harm them, why can those choices still feel reasonable in the moment?

Abraham Humphrey proposed a multicausal explanation. He asked whether shifts in family expectations, social pressure, social media and influencer culture, weakened friendship and romantic connection, normalized cheating, gaslighting, and disrespect, and changing substance-use patterns might help explain why certain risks can feel reasonable to young people. He also asked whether vaping might help explain lower reported drinking among Gen Z. Life that Counts treated those observations as questions that generated tests—not as conclusions the data were made to confirm.

There is no defensible date when a generation ‘went bad.’ Reported sexual activity and alcohol use have fallen substantially over the long term. Reported persistent sadness and hopelessness rose. One plausible interpretation is that some forms of risk may now be more private, digital, immediate, or concealable; the evidence reviewed here does not demonstrate that risk migrated from one behavior to another. A highly visible minority can make a behavior feel universal even when most surveyed young people do not report it.

One working hypothesis is that risk may feel more reasonable to an adolescent when ordinary desires for belonging, intimacy, status, autonomy, or relief encounter exaggerated peer norms, inconsistent relationships, distress or trauma, digital pressure, limited confidential help, or an uncertain path into adulthood.

Evidence posture: Understanding what a behavior does for a young person in the moment is not the same as approving it. Coercion, exploitation, assault, and abuse are never the victim’s fault. This article denormalizes risk without demoralizing the young person.

What the evidence supported, challenged, and left unresolved

This matrix records the proposition tested, the evidence checked, and the bounded conclusion. It distinguishes evidence that challenged an initial explanation from mechanisms that remain plausible and questions that remain unresolved.

Narrative description: the trend claim was challenged; peer norms and connected relationships remain plausible mechanisms with important design limits; social media causation remains unresolved; vaping is not supported as the principal historical explanation for lower drinking; and accountable mentoring remains an untested practice hypothesis.

The trends challenged the easy story

Nationally, the share of high-school students reporting that they had ever had sexual intercourse fell from 47% in 2013 to 32% in 2023. Current sexual activity fell from 34% to 21%. Current alcohol use fell from 35% to 22%, and current marijuana use fell from 23% to 17%. Over the same period, persistent sadness or hopelessness rose from 30% to 40%. [1]

Source: CDC, 2013–2023 YRBS Trends Report. National high-school surveys show lower reported sexual activity, alcohol use, and marijuana use in 2023 than in 2013, while persistent sadness or hopelessness was higher. These measures do not describe every sexual, relational, digital, or substance-use experience.

Three different meanings of “normal”

Actual behavior is what peers report doing. A descriptive norm is what a young person believes most peers do. An injunctive norm is what a young person believes respected peers approve, reward, or expect. Those three do not have to match.

In an experiment involving 300 early adolescents from three rural, low-income Southeastern middle schools, 236 of 300—about 79%—gave a riskier hypothetical answer after seeing supposedly peer-endorsed responses in a simulated chat. The study had no control condition, could not rule out demand effects, and did not measure later sexual behavior. It does not prove that a particular peer message causes real-world behavior. [4]

Why a risky choice can feel useful

A useful prevention model asks what immediate function a behavior may serve: belonging and status, reassurance and intimacy, coping and relief, digital visibility, or a shortcut around an uncertain future. Prevention has to replace the function as well as prohibit the behavior.

National 2021 YRBS analyses found that high parental monitoring and school connectedness were associated with lower prevalence across many risks. These cross-sectional analyses do not show that monitoring or connectedness caused the differences. Life that Counts interprets those associations as consistent with—but not proof of—the hypothesis that standards may be easier to sustain when healthy behavior is connected to warmth, membership, respect, and a safe path for disclosure. [5][6]

Alabama evidence boundary

This article does not publish original Alabama YRBS estimates. CDC’s combined-dataset documentation identifies the weight, stratum, and PSU variables used for secondary analysis, but this article does not provide the analytic code, software and version, item-specific design-based confidence intervals, or a complete reproducibility package through which readers could audit original state estimates. Alabama’s participation history also shows that Alabama did not produce a representative high-school YRBS estimate in 2023. The national trends above are the evidence used for longitudinal comparison; Alabama data are discussed only to define the state-level evidence boundary. Neither source supports a Winston County youth-prevalence estimate. [2][3]

What is specifically rural—and what is not

Winston County is part of Alabama’s Appalachian region. Rural Alabama should not be treated as a smaller or deficient version of an urban community. It has distinctive constraints and distinctive protective assets. [7]

Current local indicators describe serious access and opportunity conditions. Winston County’s teen-birth rate for 2018–2024 is 35.0 births per 1,000 females ages 15–19, compared with 22.5 for Alabama and 14.6 nationally. In 2025, the county had approximately one mental-health provider per 4,774 residents, compared with 1:639 statewide and 1:287 nationally. Using 2023–2024 NCES data, about 65.7% of Winston County public-school students in grades PK–12 were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Estimated food insecurity was 20.2%. These indicators do not establish why any individual behaves as they do. Teen birth rates are not the same as current high-school sexual activity. [8][9]

Did vaping replace drinking?

Substitution may occur in particular situations, but temporal order does not support vaping as the principal historical explanation for the decades-long decline in adolescent drinking. Evans-Polce et al. found adjusted prospective associations between age-18 e-cigarette use and age-19 cigarette, marijuana, and nonmedical prescription-drug use, but not later or incident alcohol use; alcohol use was associated with vaping cross-sectionally. These findings are consistent with clustering or shared vulnerability, but they do not establish that vaping caused later substance use. [12]

Three complementary evidence lenses: YRBS, RELENTLESS, and RAMP

These datasets answer different questions and must remain analytically separate. They must not be merged into one trend, pooled sample, or direct effectiveness comparison. Sample size answers how much information was collected. Study design answers which inference the information can support.

More records. Different purpose.

Life that Counts collected substantially more RAMP and RELENTLESS survey records than the 419 records in Alabama’s 2021 public-use YRBS file. That does not make the program records stronger prevalence evidence. Sample size answers how much information was collected. Study design answers which inference the information can support.

RELENTLESS: bounded historical evidence

The effect estimates and p-values in this section are reproduced from Life that Counts’ historical evidence summary and were not independently recalculated from the underlying analysis files.

In 2019, RELENTLESS collected 434 pre-survey and 343 post-survey records in Alabama. The supplied summary table describes a multilevel repeated-measures regression but does not document participant-matching rules, outcome-specific analytic samples, or missing-data procedures. The reported Alabama estimates were +6.6 points for risk-avoidance attitude (p=.0003), +10.9 for risk-reduction knowledge (p=.0001), and +4.8 for risk-reduction skill (p=.0002); the +3.2 behavioral-intention estimate was not statistically significant. These historical self-report estimates are not percentages of participants who improved and do not establish causation.

The pandemic-affected 2020–2021 cycle included 183 baseline and 104 post-program records in Alabama, and 389 baseline and 247 post-program records across both states. It did not reproduce significant positive changes in the principal Alabama outcomes. A source-reported unfavorable change was an Alabama positive-future-attitude estimate of −4.6 scale points (p=.033). Participant-experience findings were 79.8% reporting clear material, 73.2% reporting that discussions or activities helped them learn, and 84.5% reporting feeling respected, all or most of the time. The combined file reported 247 post surveys but did not provide an item-specific denominator for every percentage; 247 is not the denominator for each item. Historical RELENTLESS findings are not current BELIEVE effectiveness findings. [15]

RAMP: descriptive historical evidence

Across three historical middle-school curriculum levels delivered in Alabama and Montana from 2020 through 2022, Washington Park Research and Evaluation compiled 2,541 entry and 2,204 exit survey administrations. Because entry and exit records were not linked to the same individuals, those totals do not establish participant completion, retention, or individual change. [16]

The historical report does not identify the precise reason Level 3 had more exit records than entry records. These counts must not be interpreted as unique participants, retention, completion, or within-person change.

These are level-specific post-program participant reports. Item denominators vary. The retrospective items were not measured at baseline, entry and exit records were not student-linked, and no comparison group, confidence intervals, effect sizes, or significance tests were reported for these items. Ninety-six early Level 2 exit respondents were not asked the retrospective items. The evidence supports statements about historical implementation, participant experience, and organizational learning—not causal effectiveness or the effectiveness of current BELIEVE content. [16]

What accountable relationships may change

The federal Sexual Risk Avoidance Education literature describes youth behavior as multilevel: individual development, parents and caregivers, peers and partners, school and community connection, and media all matter. The current NOFO requires a positive youth development approach and says projects should include trauma-informed approaches. These sources do not establish that a local practice causes outcomes. [17][18]

Mentoring in ordinary places: the practice hypothesis

In the gym, on the farm, and alongside an earthwork crew, John Williams has watched young men respond to being known, expected to contribute, corrected without rejection, trusted with responsibility, and invited to imagine a future larger than immediate impulse. Life that Counts’ working practice hypothesis is that these ordinary, repeated relationships may contain several protective ingredients emphasized in positive youth development: structured settings, close relationships, positive adult role models, meaningful skills, contribution, self-worth, and belonging.

That observation helps define a research question; it does not answer it. Life that Counts has not isolated which element produced which outcome, compared participants with an equivalent group, or established that mentoring caused changes in sexual or substance-use behavior. Practice hypothesis—not a demonstrated causal pathway: trusted-adult connection, program belonging, self-worth, emotion regulation, goal clarity, accurate perceived peer norms, relationship knowledge, refusal confidence, future orientation, and help-seeking confidence may be measurable mechanisms worth testing.

Life that Counts’ organizational position

Life that Counts treats sexual intimacy as meaningful and properly situated within marriage and stable family life. Its prevention posture includes medically accurate, age-appropriate education; the voluntary avoidance of nonmarital sexual activity and substance use; healthy relationships and future planning; and explicit protection against pressure, manipulation, threats, guilt, force, coercion, exploitation, dating violence, assault, and abuse. A past choice does not erase a young person’s dignity or determine their future.

A six-part social-norming framework

Measure locally. Find the truthful protective norm. State it precisely with population, geography, survey year, question, and timeframe. Use credible messengers. Pair the norm with practiced efficacy. Repeat and test whether perceived norms become more accurate and whether belonging, skills, intentions, help-seeking, and later behavior change.

Use language such as: “In the 2023 national survey, 21% of high-school students reported current sexual activity. Nearly four in five did not report current sexual activity.” “Choosing not to have sex—or choosing to stop—is a real and respected option.” “A past choice does not erase your dignity or determine your future.” Avoid shame, disgust, humiliation, rural stereotypes, fear-only messaging, or high-risk prevalence presented so prominently that it becomes an advertisement.

What this means for program design

A defensible rural Alabama theory of change is that youth are more likely to avoid nonmarital sexual activity and substance use when they experience accurate healthy-peer norms, warm and accountable adult relationships, meaningful belonging, practiced self-regulation and refusal skills, confidential pathways to help, and attainable educational, occupational, marital, and family futures. This is a theory to test, not a demonstrated BELIEVE effect.

Practical design choices include locally measured norm messages, credible peer messengers with clear boundaries, repeated small-group contact, warm caregiver monitoring, realistic skills rehearsal, meaningful alternatives and contribution, concrete local pathways into adulthood, honest referral limits, and measurement of mechanisms as well as behavior.

How we examined—and tried to disprove—the theory

1. Converted Abraham’s observations into separate testable propositions.

2. Checked whether measured behaviors had actually increased.

3. Compared like YRBS questions across reported years.

4. Preserved exact geography and survey year.

5. Distinguished behavior from visibility, perceived prevalence, and perceived approval.

6. Displayed observed years without inventing a smooth timeline.

7. Treated Alabama 2021 as historical statewide context, not a 2026 Winston County estimate.

8. Refused to use teen births as a proxy for current high-school sexual activity.

9. Used temporal order to test the vaping-substitution proposition.

10. Checked polysubstance clustering and shared vulnerability as rival explanations.

11. Separated association, participant experience, pre/post estimates, and causal impact.

12. Preserved favorable, null, and unfavorable historical findings.

13. Did not convert participant satisfaction into behavior change.

14. Treated direct observation as hypothesis-generating.

15. Treated federal language as program context rather than endorsement.

16. Kept organizational values separate from empirical findings.

The question we should carry forward

Life that Counts’ working interpretation is that the issue may be larger than whether young people have heard the rules: some may not consistently experience a community in which truth, belonging, adult integrity, self-control, forgiveness, and an attainable future reinforce one another.

The work ahead is larger than delivering a warning. It is to make the healthy choice credible, socially supported, practiced, and possible—to denormalize the risky behavior without demoralizing the young person. That is the testable promise behind Life that Counts’ next work, not a claim that one relationship has already proved the answer.