Teen Alcohol Abuse: A Major Problem
Alcohol abuse statistics demonstrate the fact that alcohol abuse among teenagers is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Numerous substance abuse authorities state that beer, wine, and liquor ads produced by the media are a fundamental reason for the rise in teenage alcohol abuse.
Other chemical dependency authorities declare that the increase in youth alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and convenience of wine,liquor, and beer in our society.
Still other alcohol addiction experts think that numerous young people get involved in injurious drinking because of the increased fretfulness that they experience.
From a somewhat different perspective, since both parents in quite a few families are employed, the lack of parental guidance certainly has to play a primary part in the rise in teen alcohol abuse. And last of all, diverse alcohol addiction consultants articulate that the spread of youth alcohol abuse is due, to some extent, to our “anything goes” society.
Alcohol Abuse and Coping Skills Training
One aspect of adolescent alcohol abuse that seems to be deficient in the alcohol addiction research results, to the contrary, is the nonexistence of educational courses that teach adolescents how to upgrade their coping skills so that their excessive drinking behavior is fundamentally diminished or gotten rid of.
Stated another way, scientific research has illustrated the fact that there is an indirect connection between poor coping skills and alcohol abuse. Essentially, this means that the worse the coping skills, the greater the frequency of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a correct affirmation, why isn’t coping skills training an important part of the academic core curriculum in all of our junior high schools, elementary schools, and high schools?
A Society That Emphasizes Youth Coping Skills
Let us construct a scenario for descriptive purposes. Let us imagine a society in which all individuals are taught how to develop sound coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their senior year in high school.
In such a society, when life gets demanding, people who are ”coping skills experts” will be able to respond in a healthier and more creative manner, contrary to others who are unsuccessful in their attempts to apply their coping skills.
Stated another way, students who reveal sound coping skills will be more able to think clearly and demonstrate top quality decision making as opposed to teenagers who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to implement quality coping skills, resort to the “quick fix” of excessive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, what’s more, if teenagers not only got excellent coping skills instruction but also received an outstanding education that outlined the long term and short term damaging outcomes associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these types of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills education, it is asserted, would help adolescents avoid the obvious appeal interlinked with teenage drinking and, as a consequence, would fundamentally decrease the excessive drinking behavior demonstrated by teens in our country.
Adolescent Risky Drinking: Conclusion
There are certainly several sound reasons why so many of our teens drink in a hazardous manner. Such a thorny subject demands a wide-ranging and relevant preventative and educational response by our parents, politicians, students, and educators so that our adolescents can learn how to cope with life’s predicaments in a more rewarding and responsible manner rather than resorting to destructive drinking behavior to solve their difficulties.
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