Youth Alcohol Abuse: A Difficult Issue
Friday, July 31st, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
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 substance abuse authorities argue that liquor, beer, and wine advertisements produced by the media are a significant reason for the increase in teenage alcohol abuse.
Other substance abuse professionals stress the point that the increase in teen alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and ease of access of wine,liquor, and beer in our society.
Still other alcohol abuse specialists claim that quite a few of our young people involve themselves in injurious drinking because of the increased apprehension that they feel.
From a slightly different vantage point, since both parents in more than a few families work, the lack of parental supervision unquestionably has to play a primary part in the rise in youth alcohol abuse. And last of all, various alcohol abuse specialists articulate that the expansion of adolescent alcohol abuse is due, in part, to our “anything goes” society.
Excessive Drinking and Coping Skills
One element of adolescent alcohol abuse that seems to be somewhat incomplete in the chemical dependency research findings, nevertheless, is the deficiency of educational courses that teach teens how to enhance their coping skills so that their destructive drinking behavior is notably reduced or exterminated.
Stated more explicitly, science has displayed the fact that there is an indirect connection between poor coping skills and excessive drinking. Fundamentally, this means that the more mediocre the coping skills, the greater the frequency of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is a valid declaration, why isn’t coping skills training a major part of the academic curriculum in all of our junior high schools, elementary schools, and high schools?
A Society That Emphasizes Teenage Coping Skills
Let us construct a scenario for the purpose of clarification. Let us imagine a society in which all individuals are taught how to develop superior coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their senior year in high school.
In such a society, when life gets complicated, people who are “coping skills masters” will be able to respond in a healthier and more creative way, contrary to others who fail to put their coping skills into practice.
Stated more precisely, students who display sound coping skills will be more able to think proactively and exhibit superior decision making as opposed to students who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to implement top quality coping skills, are drawn to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, what’s more, if young people not only got top quality coping skills instruction but also received an outstanding education that accentuated the long term and short term damaging outcomes associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Such an emphasis on drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more highly developed coping skills education, it is emphasized, would help teens steer clear of the obvious attraction with adolescent drinking and, as a consequence, would significantly reduce the abusive drinking behavior demonstrated by the youth in our country.
Teenage Hazardous Drinking: Conclusion
There are positively quite a few sound reasons why so many of our teens drink in a harmful manner. Such a thorny predicament demands a comprehensive 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 rewarding and accountable manner rather than resorting to injurious drinking behavior to solve their problems.
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