Youth Alcohol Abuse: A Hazardous Problem

October 6th, 2009 by author

Recent alcohol abuse statistics demonstrate the fact that alcohol abuse among adolescents is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Quite a few alcohol abuse authorities think that wine, beer, and liquor advertisements produced by the media are an essential reason for the increase in teen alcohol abuse.

Other alcohol dependency experts believe that the increase in teen alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and ease of access of liquor, beer, and wine in our society.

Still other alcohol abuse professionals articulate that quite a few of our adolescents get involved in harmful drinking because of the increased anxiety that they live through.

From a somewhat different perspective, since both parents in many families work full or part-time, the lack of parental supervision indubitably has to play a significant part in the increase in adolescent alcohol abuse. And finally, a variety of alcohol abuse authorities emphasize the point that the escalation of teen alcohol abuse is due, in some way, to our lenient society.

Excessive Drinking and Coping Skills Education

One aspect of teenage alcohol abuse that seems to be poorly reported in the chemical dependency research results, nonetheless, is the scarcity of educational courses that teach adolescents how to upgrade their coping skills so that their destructive drinking behavior is substantially lessened or exterminated.

More precisely, scientific research has uncovered the fact that there is an indirect link between poor coping skills and excessive drinking. In actual fact, this means that the more mediocre the coping skills, the higher the occurrence of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a correct claim, why isnâ€™t coping skills instruction an important part of the educational core curriculum in all of our elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools?

A Society That Highlights Youth Coping Skills

Let us construct a scenario for the purpose of clarification. Let us imagine a society in which all individuals are trained how to develop solid coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their final year in high school.

In such a society, when life gets difficult, people who are â€coping skills expertsâ€ will be able to respond in a healthier and more rewarding way, as opposed to others who are unsuccessful in their attempts to apply their coping skills.

More to the point, students who reveal superior coping skills will be more able to think clearly and exhibit excellent decision making as opposed to adolescents who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to learn quality coping skills, are drawn to the â€œquick fixâ€ of excessive drinking.

What would happen in the above â€œidealâ€ society, additionally, if teens not only obtained excellent coping skills training but also obtained an exceptional education that emphasized the long term and short term destructive consequences associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these types of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills instruction, it is declared, would help adolescents avoid the noticeable appeal related to underage drinking and, therefore, would notably reduce the injurious drinking behavior undertaken by adolescents in our country.

Adolescent Excessive Drinking: Conclusion

There are evidently numerous convincing reasons why so many of our teenagers drink in an abusive manner. Such a complex subject demands a thorough and more applicable preventative and educational response by our parents, politicians, students, and educators so that our teenagers can learn how to cope with lifeâ€™s difficulties in a more fruitful and responsible manner instead of resorting to excessive drinking behavior to solve their difficulties.