Teen Alcohol Abuse: A Significant Issue
Alcohol abuse statistics show that alcohol abuse among teens is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Many substance abuse consultants believe that wine, beer, and liquor advertisements produced by the media are an important reason for the escalation of teenage alcohol abuse.
Other substance abuse consultants articulate that the increase in adolescent alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and accessibility of beer, liquor, and wine in our society. Still other substance abuse consultants affirm that quite a few of our adolescents engage in hazardous drinking due to the increased fretfulness that they go through.
From a somewhat different point of view, due to the fact that both parents in a number of families are gainfully employed, the lack of parental supervision without a doubt has to play a fundamental part in the rise in youth alcohol abuse. And finally, a variety of chemical dependency authorities stress the point that the spread of teen alcohol abuse is due, to some extent, to our lax society.
Excessive Drinking and Coping Skills Education
One facet of youth alcohol abuse that looks like it is under reported in the alcoholism research results, then again, is the shortage of educational programs that teach adolescents how to improve upon their coping skills so that their hazardous drinking behavior is drastically decreased or eradicated.
More precisely, scientific research has made obvious the fact that there is an indirect correlation between poor coping skills and hazardous drinking. Essentially, this means that the more mediocre the coping skills, the higher the prevalence of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is a truthful statement, why isn’t coping skills training a key part of the educational core curriculum in all of our elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools?
A Society That Accentuates Youth Coping Skills
Let us manufacture a scenario for the purpose of clarification. Let us imagine a society in which students are taught 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 stressful, students who are “coping skills masters” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more rewarding manner, contrary to others who are unsuccessful in their attempts to put their coping skills into action.
More to the point, students who display solid coping skills will be more able to think proactively and display top-shelf decision making as opposed to students who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to learn first-rate coping skills, resort to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, in addition, if teens not only received outstanding coping skills education but also got a first class education that outlined the short term and long term devastating consequences associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these types of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills training, it is declared, would help teens steer clear of the obvious charm correlated with adolescent drinking and, accordingly, would notably reduce the destructive drinking behavior displayed by teens in our country.
Teen Alcohol Abuse: Conclusion
There are evidently quite a few compelling reasons why so many of our teens drink in a destructive manner. Such a thorny issue demands an all-inclusive and more meaningful educational and preventative response by our educators, parents, politicians, and students so that our teenagers can learn how to cope with life’s problems in a more productive and accountable way instead of gravitating to abusive drinking behavior to solve their difficulties.
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- Posted by Linda
- Tagged Addictions
