Teenage Alcohol Abuse: A Complex Issue
Recent alcohol abuse statistics demonstrate the fact that alcohol abuse among adolescents is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Numerous alcoholism professionals argue that liquor, beer, and wine advertisements brought into being by the media are a key reason for the proliferation of teen alcohol abuse.
Other alcoholism experts affirm 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 believe that numerous teenagers involve themselves in injurious drinking because of the increased disquiet that they live through.
From a slightly different standpoint, due to the fact that both parents in quite a few families are employed, the lack of parental supervision surely has to play an important role in the rise in youth alcohol abuse. And finally, various chemical dependency specialists stress the point that the proliferation of teenage alcohol abuse is due, in some degree, to our permissive society.
Coping Skills Training and Hazardous Drinking
One aspect of youth alcohol abuse that seems to be lacking in the alcohol dependency research literature, then again, is the nonexistence of educational courses that teach adolescents how to augment their coping skills so that their abusive drinking behavior is radically diminished or done away with.
More to the point, scientific research has displayed the fact that there is an indirect connection between poor coping skills and hazardous drinking. Fundamentally, this means that the poorer the coping skills, the higher the incidence of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is an accurate argument, why isn’t coping skills training a key part of the academic prospectus in all of our elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools?
A Society That Accentuates Youth Coping Skills
Let us create a scenario for for the purpose of elucidation. Let us imagine a society in which all individuals are trained how to develop high-quality coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their final year in high school.
In such a society, when life gets challenging, individuals who are “coping skills masters” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more successful manner, as opposed to others who fail to put their coping skills into operation.
More precisely, students who exhibit first-class coping skills will be more able to think clearly and exhibit top-shelf decision making as opposed to adolescents who, because they lack outstanding coping skills, gravitate to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, furthermore, if adolescents not only got first class coping skills education but also obtained a first class education that accentuated the long term and short term destructive consequences associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these kinds of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills instruction, it is proclaimed, would help teenagers steer clear of the obvious charm associated with youth drinking and, as a result, would drastically lessen the abusive drinking behavior undertaken by adolescents in our country.
Teen Hazardous Drinking: Conclusion
There are without a doubt more than a few valid reasons why so many of our teenagers drink in an injurious manner. Such a complicated issue demands a wide-ranging and more pertinent educational and preventative response by our parents, politicians, students, and educators so that our teens can learn how to cope with life’s problems in a more rewarding and responsible manner rather than gravitating to hazardous drinking behavior to solve their difficulties.