Teen Alcohol Abuse: A Major Issue
Recent alcohol abuse statistics reveal that alcohol abuse among adolescents is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? More than a few alcohol addiction authorities assert that beer, liquor, and wine advertisements produced by the media are an essential reason for the spread of teen alcohol abuse.
Other chemical dependency specialists state that the increase in adolescent alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and convenience of wine,liquor, and beer in our society.
Still other alcohol abuse professionals believe that numerous young people involve themselves in abusive drinking because of the increased pressure that they undergo.
From a slightly different viewpoint, because both parents in a number of families work, the lack of parental supervision surely has to play a significant role in the spread of teenage alcohol abuse. And lastly, diverse chemical dependency experts believe that the spread of adolescent alcohol abuse is due, in some degree, to our “anything goes” society.
Excessive Drinking and Coping Skills
One aspect of teenage alcohol abuse that appears to be lacking in the alcoholism research findings, on the other hand, is the paucity of educational programs that teach adolescents how to upgrade their coping skills so that their dangerous drinking behavior is extensively reduced or gotten rid of.
Stated more precisely, science has displayed the fact that there is an indirect correlation between poor coping skills and excessive drinking. Essentially, this means that the worse the coping skills, the higher the prevalence of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a correct declaration, why isn’t coping skills instruction a major part of the educational prospectus in all of our junior high schools, elementary schools, and high schools?
A Society That Emphasizes Youth Coping Skills
Let us manufacture a scenario for for the purpose of elucidation. Let us imagine a society in which all individuals are trained how to develop good coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their final year in high school.
In such a society, when life gets stressful, individuals who are “coping skills masters” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more productive manner, as opposed to others who are unsuccessful in their attempts to implement their coping skills.
Stated differently, students who demonstrate outstanding coping skills will be more able to think proactively and demonstrate top-shelf decision making as opposed to students who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to develop outstanding coping skills, gravitate to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, moreover, if students not only received top quality coping skills instruction but also obtained an exclusive education that focused on the long term and short term devastating costs associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these types of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more highly developed coping skills training, it is affirmed, would help teenagers stay away from the obvious appeal associated with adolescent drinking and, for that reason, would fundamentally lessen the excessive drinking behavior displayed by adolescents in our country.
Youth Abusive Drinking: Conclusion
There are surely several justifiable reasons why so many of our adolescents drink in a hazardous manner. Such a knotty subject demands an extensive and more applicable educational and preventative response by our educators, students, parents, and politicians so that our teenagers can learn how to cope with life’s predicaments in a more productive and accountable way rather than resorting to harmful drinking behavior to solve their problems.
