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Adolescent Alcohol Abuse: A Major Issue

October 23, 2009

Recent 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? More than a few alcohol abuse specialists think that wine, beer, and liquor advertisements brought into being by the media are an essential reason for the spread of teen alcohol abuse.

Other substance abuse authorities assert that the increase in teenage alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and accessibility of wine,liquor, and beer in our society.

Still other alcohol abuse consultants assert that quite a few of our teens get involved in hazardous drinking due to the increased apprehension that they experience.

From a somewhat different viewpoint, due to the fact that both parents in more than a few families are gainfully employed, the lack of parental guidance obviously has to play a fundamental role in the increase in youth alcohol abuse. And last but not least, an assortment of alcohol addiction consultants state that the rise in teen alcohol abuse is due, to some extent, to our “anything goes” society.

Coping Skills Education and Alcohol Abuse

One feature of youth alcohol abuse that looks as if it somewhat missing in the chemical dependency research findings, nevertheless, is the scarcity of educational programs that teach students how to improve upon their coping skills so that their dangerous drinking behavior is fundamentally lessened or gotten rid of.

More explicitly, science has shown that there is an indirect connection between poor coping skills and alcohol abuse. In essence, this means that the poorer the coping skills, the higher the incidence of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is a valid assertion, why isn’t coping skills instruction an important part of the educational core curriculum in all of our elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools?

A Society That Highlights Adolescent 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-class coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their senior 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 more healthy and more rewarding way, contrary to others who fail to put their coping skills into operation.

Stated another way, students who exhibit first-class coping skills will be more able to think clearly and demonstrate first-class decision making as opposed to students who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to learn top quality coping skills, are drawn to the “quick fix” of excessive drinking.

What would happen in the above “ideal” society, additionally, if teenagers not only received first class coping skills training but also obtained an extraordinary education that accentuated the long term and short term unhealthy costs associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills education, it is proclaimed, would help teens avoid the noticeable appeal interlinked with adolescent drinking and, as a result, would significantly decrease the abusive drinking behavior displayed by teenagers in our country.

Adolescent Risky Drinking: Conclusion

There are positively scores of legitimate reasons why so many of our teenagers drink in an abusive manner. Such a complex subject demands an extensive and relevant educational and preventative response by our students, politicians, parents, and educators so that our teenagers can learn how to cope with life’s difficulties in a more rewarding and accountable manner instead of resorting to destructive drinking behavior to solve their problems.

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