Adolescent Alcohol Abuse: A Critical Problem
Recent alcohol abuse statistics reveal that alcohol abuse among teens is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Numerous substance abuse authorities argue that alcohol advertisements produced by the media are a primary reason for the proliferation of teen alcohol abuse.
Other alcohol dependency specialists emphasize the point that the increase in teen alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and convenience of beer, wine, and liquor in our society.
Still other alcohol dependency professionals state that many of our teenagers get involved in destructive drinking because of the increased disquiet that they feel.
From a somewhat different perspective, because both parents in a number of families work full or part-time, the lack of parental guidance certainly has to play a key part in the escalation of youth alcohol abuse. And last but not least, various chemical dependency consultants claim that the increase in teen alcohol abuse is due, in some measure, to our lax society.
Coping Skills and Hazardous Drinking
One feature of adolescent alcohol abuse that appears to be lacking in the alcohol abuse research literature, to the contrary, is the insufficiency of educational courses that teach teens how to enhance their coping skills so that their destructive drinking behavior is fundamentally diminished or exterminated.
More explicitly, science has illustrated the fact that there is an indirect association between poor coping skills and hazardous drinking. In point of fact, this means that the more mediocre the coping skills, the greater the occurrence of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a valid contention, why isn’t coping skills instruction a significant part of the educational curriculum in all of our high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools?
A Society That Accentuates Youth Coping Skills
Let us create a scenario for for the purpose of illumination. Let us imagine a society in which all individuals are taught how to achieve 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 demanding, people who are ”coping skills experts” will be able to respond in a healthier and more productive manner, contrary to others who fail to put their coping skills into action.
More precisely, students who exhibit high-quality coping skills will be more able to think proactively and display first-class decision making as opposed to students who, because they do not possess first-rate coping skills, are attracted to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, additionally, if teens not only got first-rate coping skills training but also obtained an outstanding education that emphasized the long term and short term devastating outcomes associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills education, it is asserted, would help students stay away from the clear charm correlated with adolescent drinking and, accordingly, would significantly reduce the dangerous drinking behavior undertaken by the youth in our country.
Teen Risky Drinking: Conclusion
There are clearly numerous well thought-out reasons why so many of our adolescents drink in an injurious manner. Such a tricky problem demands a broad based and relevant educational and preventative response by our educators, students, parents, and politicians so that our youth can learn how to cope with life’s difficulties in a more fruitful and accountable way rather than gravitating to dangerous drinking behavior to solve their difficulties.