Adolescent Alcohol Abuse: A Dangerous Problem

Alcohol abuse statistics show that alcohol abuse among adolescents is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Many alcohol abuse experts believe that wine, liquor, and beer ads brought into being by the media are a fundamental reason for the proliferation of teen alcohol abuse.

Other alcohol addiction specialists stress the point that the increase in youth alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and convenience of beer, wine, and liquor in our society.

Still other substance abuse consultants think that many of our young people engage in dangerous drinking because of the increased pressure that they feel.

From a slightly different vantage point, due to the fact that both parents in many families work full or part-time, the lack of parental guidance indubitably has to play an important role in the escalation of teenage alcohol abuse. And last of all, an assortment of alcoholism specialists state that the proliferation of teenage alcohol abuse is due, in some degree, to our lax society.

Coping Skills Training and Abusive Drinking

One element of teenage alcohol abuse that appears to be under reported in the substance abuse research literature, nevertheless, is the shortage of educational programs that teach adolescents how to further develop their coping skills so that their abusive drinking behavior is extensively lessened or exterminated.

More precisely, scientific research has uncovered the fact that there is an indirect association between poor coping skills and hazardous drinking. In effect, this means that the worse the coping skills, the greater the prevalence of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is an accurate assertion, why isn’t coping skills training a significant part of the academic curriculum in all of our junior high schools, elementary schools, and high schools?

A Society That Stresses Teenage Coping Skills

Let us manufacture a scenario for explanatory purposes. Let us imagine a society in which students are trained how to develop sound coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their final year in high school.

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

Stated more explicitly, students who reveal outstanding coping skills will be more able to think proactively and exhibit top quality decision making as opposed to teenagers who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to develop first-rate coping skills, resort to the “quick fix” of excessive drinking.

What would happen in the above “ideal” society, additionally, if teenagers not only obtained exceptional coping skills instruction but also obtained an extraordinary education that focused on the short term and long term destructive results associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these kinds of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills education, it is pronounced, would help teenagers keep away from the apparent fascination with underage drinking and, as a consequence, would radically diminish the risky drinking behavior shown by adolescents in our country.

Teenage Abusive Drinking: Conclusion

There are without a doubt many sound reasons why so many of our teens drink in an injurious manner. Such a complex problem demands a comprehensive and more applicable preventative and educational response by our politicians, educators, students, and parents so that our teenagers can learn how to cope with life’s problems in a more productive and responsible way instead of gravitating to excessive drinking behavior to solve their problems.