Teenage Alcohol Abuse: A Major Issue

Recent alcohol abuse statistics reveal that alcohol abuse among teenagers is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Numerous substance abuse professionals affirm that liquor, beer, and wine advertisements produced by the media are a major reason for the expansion of teen alcohol abuse.

Other alcoholism authorities articulate that the increase in teenage alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and ease of access of wine, beer, and liquor in our society.

Still other alcohol addiction specialists believe that quite a few of our adolescents involve themselves in excessive drinking because of the increased stress that they feel.

From a slightly different perspective, due to the fact that both parents in a number of families work, the lack of parental guidance unquestionably has to play an essential role in the rise in teen alcohol abuse. And last of all, different alcohol addiction specialists think that the increase in teen alcohol abuse is due, in some way, to our lenient society.

Hazardous Drinking and Coping Skills

One element of youth alcohol abuse that looks like it is somewhat incomplete in the alcohol abuse research results, then again, is the scarcity of educational courses that teach teens how to upgrade their coping skills so that their hazardous drinking behavior is extensively decreased or eradicated.

More explicitly, scientific research has revealed that there is an indirect correlation between poor coping skills and hazardous drinking. Basically, this means that the worse the coping skills, the higher the occurrence of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is a truthful argument, why isn’t coping skills education a primary part of the academic curriculum in all of our high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools?

A Society That Underscores Teenage Coping Skills

Let us create a scenario for for the purpose of elucidation. Let us imagine a society in which students are trained how to develop high-quality coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their senior year in high school.

In such a society, when life gets complicated, students who are “coping skills masters” will be able to respond in a healthier and more creative way, contrary to others who fail to put their coping skills into operation.

More to the point, students who show evidence of first-class coping skills will be more able to think clearly and show signs of top quality decision making as opposed to students who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to develop outstanding coping skills, resort to the “quick fix” of excessive drinking.

What would happen in the above “ideal” society, what’s more, if young people not only got excellent coping skills education but also obtained an excellent education that highlighted the long term and short term damaging consequences associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these kinds of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more highly developed coping skills instruction, it is proclaimed, would help adolescents steer clear of the obvious appeal interlinked with adolescent drinking and, for that reason, would substantially lessen the harmful drinking behavior undertaken by the youth in our country.

Adolescent Excessive Drinking: Conclusion

There are certainly scores of compelling reasons why so many of our teenagers drink in an abusive manner. Such a complex subject demands an all-inclusive and more meaningful preventative and educational response by our politicians, educators, students, and parents so that our youth can learn how to cope with life’s problems in a more rewarding and responsible manner instead of resorting to abusive drinking behavior to solve their problems.