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? Quite a few substance abuse professionals emphasize the point that wine, liquor, and beer ads created by the media are a significant reason for the expansion of teen alcohol abuse.
Other alcohol addiction experts assert that the increase in teenage alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and ease of access of wine,liquor, and beer in our society.
Still other alcohol abuse experts argue that numerous teenagers get involved in alcohol abuse due to the increased stress that they undergo.
From a somewhat different viewpoint, due to the fact that both parents in a number of families work full or part-time, the lack of parental guidance clearly has to play a major part in the rise in adolescent alcohol abuse. And last but not least, diverse alcoholism authorities argue that the escalation of teen alcohol abuse is due, to some extent, to our lenient society.
Coping Skills and Hazardous Drinking
One facet of teenage alcohol abuse that appears to be somewhat missing in the chemical dependency research literature, alternatively, is the deficiency of educational programs that teach students how to improve upon their coping skills so that their destructive drinking behavior is extensively decreased or eradicated.
More specifically, scientific research has shown that there is an indirect association between poor coping skills and abusive drinking. In essence, this means that the poorer the coping skills, the higher the incidence of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is a correct line of reasoning, why isn’t coping skills training a significant part of the educational core curriculum in all of our high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools?
A Society That Underscores Teenage Coping Skills
Let us create a scenario for for the purpose of elucidation. Let us imagine a society in which students are taught 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 stressful, students who are ”coping skills experts” will be able to respond in a healthier and more creative way, as opposed to others who fail to put their coping skills into operation.
More to the point, students who demonstrate good coping skills will be more able to think logically and demonstrate quality decision making as opposed to students who, because they do not possess outstanding coping skills, gravitate to the “quick fix” of excessive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, moreover, if teenagers not only got excellent coping skills training but also received a first class education that emphasized the long term and short term negative consequences associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these kinds of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills training, it is declared, would help teens steer clear of the clear appeal correlated with adolescent drinking and, therefore, would substantially lessen the hazardous drinking behavior exhibited by the youth in our country.
Teen Risky Drinking: Conclusion
There are certainly scores of sound reasons why so many of our teenagers drink in a harmful manner. Such a complex subject demands a thorough and more meaningful 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 accountable manner rather than gravitating to hazardous drinking behavior to solve their problems.
