October 12, 2009
Youth Alcohol Abuse: A Significant Problem
Recent alcohol abuse statistics reveal that alcohol abuse among adolescents is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Numerous substance abuse specialists think that liquor, wine, and beer ads created by the media are a significant reason for the proliferation of teen alcohol abuse.
Other alcohol addiction experts state that the increase in youth alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and convenience of wine, beer, and liquor in our society.
Still other alcoholism experts articulate that more than a few of our young people engage in excessive drinking due to the increased fretfulness that they experience.
From a somewhat different standpoint, because both parents in many families work full or part-time, the lack of parental guidance positively has to play an essential role in the expansion of teen alcohol abuse. And as a final point, a variety of alcohol dependency authorities articulate that the spread of teenage alcohol abuse is due, in some measure, to our laissez-faire society.
Excessive Drinking and Coping Skills
One component of youth alcohol abuse that looks like it is somewhat incomplete in the alcohol abuse research results, to the contrary, is the paucity of educational programs that teach teens how to augment their coping skills so that their dangerous drinking behavior is fundamentally reduced or eradicated.
More to the point, scientific research has illustrated the fact that there is an indirect connection between poor coping skills and excessive drinking. For all intents and purposes, this means that the worse the coping skills, the greater the prevalence of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a truthful contention, why isn’t coping skills instruction an essential part of the academic prospectus in all of our elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools?
A Society That Puts Emphasis On Adolescent Coping Skills
Let us construct a scenario for illustrative purposes. Let us imagine a society in which students are trained how to develop first rate 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 healthier and more rewarding manner, as opposed to others who fail to implement their coping skills.
More to the point, students who reveal solid coping skills will be more able to think clearly and show signs of top quality decision making as opposed to adolescents who, because they failed to obtain good coping skills, resort to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, additionally, if adolescents not only got extraordinary coping skills education but also got a top shelf education that underscored the long term and short term harmful results associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills training, it is proclaimed, would help teenagers keep away from the noticeable charm related to underage drinking and, as a consequence, would notably reduce the abusive drinking behavior displayed by teens in our country.
Adolescent Hazardous Drinking: Conclusion
There are evidently several compelling reasons why so many of our adolescents drink in an abusive manner. Such a thorny problem demands an extensive and more pertinent educational and preventative response by our politicians, parents, educators, and students so that our teenagers can learn how to cope with life’s difficulties in a more rewarding and responsible way instead of resorting to risky drinking behavior to solve their problems.
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