Recent alcohol abuse statistics show that alcohol abuse among teens is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Many alcohol dependency experts argue that wine, beer, and liquor ads produced by the media are an important reason for the increase in teen alcohol abuse.
Other alcohol dependency experts stress the point that the increase in youth alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and convenience of wine, beer, and liquor in our society.
Still other alcohol addiction consultants state that more than a few of our adolescents engage in hazardous drinking due to the increased pressure that they feel.
From a somewhat different point of view, due to the fact that both parents in quite a few families work full or part-time, the lack of parental guidance positively has to play an essential role in the increase in youth alcohol abuse. And as a final point, different alcohol abuse authorities emphasize the point that the escalation of teen alcohol abuse is due, at least partially, to our lax society.
Hazardous Drinking and Coping Skills
One aspect of youth alcohol abuse that appears to be somewhat incomplete in the alcohol addiction research results, on the other hand, is the dearth of educational courses that teach teenagers how to augment their coping skills so that their injurious drinking behavior is notably decreased or eradicated.
Stated more explicitly, scientific research has demonstrated that there is an indirect connection between poor coping skills and alcohol abuse. In actual fact, this means that the worse the coping skills, the greater the frequency of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is a truthful line of reasoning, why isn’t coping skills education a key part of the educational core curriculum in all of our elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools?
A Society That Accentuates Youth Coping Skills
Let us construct a scenario for for the purpose of elucidation. Let us imagine a society in which students are trained how to develop outstanding coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their senior year in high school.
In such a society, when life gets difficult, people who are ”coping skills experts” will be able to respond in a healthier and more productive way, contrary to others who are unsuccessful in their attempts to put their coping skills into operation.
More to the point, students who demonstrate outstanding coping skills will be more able to think clearly and demonstrate top quality decision making as opposed to teenagers who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to develop outstanding coping skills, gravitate to the “quick fix” of excessive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, additionally, if adolescents not only got exclusive coping skills education but also got a first-rate education that highlighted the long term and short term devastating results associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these types of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills instruction, it is asserted, would help students keep away from the noticeable appeal related to youth drinking and, therefore, would significantly lessen the abusive drinking behavior displayed by teenagers in our country.
Teen Excessive Drinking: Conclusion
There are surely numerous convincing reasons why so many of our teenagers drink in an excessive manner. Such a complex problem demands a thorough and more meaningful preventative and educational response by our parents, students, politicians, and educators so that our teenagers can learn how to cope with life’s difficulties in a more fruitful and responsible manner rather than gravitating to destructive drinking behavior to solve their difficulties.
