Adolescent Alcohol Abuse: A Profound Issue
Recent alcohol abuse statistics show that alcohol abuse among adolescents is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Quite a few substance abuse specialists emphasize the point that wine, beer, and liquor advertisements constructed by the media are a primary reason for the escalation of teen alcohol abuse.
Other substance abuse experts stress the point that the increase in teen alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and accessibility of beer, liquor, and wine in our society.
Still other alcoholism experts claim that many of our teens involve themselves in injurious drinking because of the increased tension that they face.
From a slightly different viewpoint, since both parents in quite a few families work full or part-time, the lack of parental guidance without a doubt has to play a fundamental role in the expansion of adolescent alcohol abuse. And last but not least, a variety of alcohol abuse experts declare that the spread of youth alcohol abuse is due, to some extent, to our permissive society.
Abusive Drinking and Coping Skills Training
One feature of youth alcohol abuse that seems to be somewhat incomplete in the chemical dependency research findings, conversely, is the insufficiency of educational courses that teach teenagers how to further develop their coping skills so that their dangerous drinking behavior is drastically diminished or eradicated.
Stated differently, science has uncovered the fact that there is an indirect correlation between poor coping skills and abusive drinking. Fundamentally, this means that the worse the coping skills, the higher the frequency of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a valid assertion, why isn’t coping skills training a primary part of the educational core curriculum in all of our junior high schools, elementary schools, and high schools?
A Society That Stresses Adolescent Coping Skills
Let us manufacture a scenario for the purpose of explanation. Let us imagine a society in which all individuals are trained how to develop outstanding coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including the twelfth grade.
In such a society, when life gets complicated, individuals who are ”coping skills experts” will be able to respond in a healthier and more productive way, contrary to others who fail to put their coping skills into practice.
More explicitly, students who display solid coping skills will be more able to think clearly and display top-shelf decision making as opposed to teenagers who, because they are deficient in good coping skills, are drawn to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, additionally, if young people not only received exclusive coping skills training but also got a first class education that highlighted the short term and long term unhealthy costs associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more highly developed coping skills instruction, it is asserted, would help teens avoid the apparent charm interlinked with underage drinking and, therefore, would significantly lessen the abusive drinking behavior demonstrated by the youth in our country.
Teenage Alcohol Abuse: Conclusion
There are clearly several sound reasons why so many of our adolescents drink in a destructive manner. Such a knotty subject matter demands a far-reaching and more applicable educational and preventative response by our educators, politicians, parents, and students so that our teens can learn how to cope with life’s problems in a more rewarding and responsible way instead of resorting to harmful drinking behavior to solve their problems.
