Teen Alcohol Abuse: A Crucial Problem

Alcohol abuse statistics reveal 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 authorities stress the point that liquor, wine, and beer advertisements produced by the media are a key reason for the rise in teen alcohol abuse.

Other alcohol addiction consultants state that the increase in youth alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and convenience of liquor, beer, and wine in our society.

Still other chemical dependency authorities assert that many of our teens get involved in destructive drinking because of the increased fretfulness that they live through.

From a slightly different perspective, due to the fact that both parents in more than a few families work, the lack of parental guidance evidently has to play a primary role in the escalation of youth alcohol abuse. And finally, various alcohol abuse specialists argue that the escalation of teenage alcohol abuse is due, in some way, to our “anything goes” society.

Hazardous Drinking and Coping Skills Training

One facet of adolescent alcohol abuse that seems to be somewhat missing in the alcoholism research results, in contrast, is the scarcity of educational courses that teach teens how to augment their coping skills so that their hazardous drinking behavior is substantially decreased or exterminated.

Stated more precisely, scientific research has demonstrated that there is an indirect relationship between poor coping skills and excessive drinking. For all intents and purposes, this means that the more mediocre the coping skills, the greater the frequency of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a valid argument, why isn’t coping skills education a major part of the academic prospectus in all of our junior high schools, elementary schools, and high schools?

A Society That Emphasizes Youth Coping Skills

Let us create a scenario for explanatory purposes. Let us imagine a society in which students are taught how to achieve superior coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their senior year in high school.

In such a society, when life gets challenging, people who are “coping skills masters” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more rewarding manner, contrary to others who fail to apply their coping skills.

Stated more precisely, students who demonstrate solid coping skills will be more able to think proactively and exhibit excellent decision making as opposed to adolescents who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to learn good coping skills, are drawn to the “quick fix” of excessive drinking.

What would happen in the above “ideal” society, in addition, if young people not only received first class coping skills instruction but also got a top quality education that emphasized the long term and short term devastating costs associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more highly developed coping skills education, it is asserted, would help teens stay away from the noticeable appeal interlinked with adolescent drinking and, for that reason, would radically reduce the harmful drinking behavior undertaken by adolescents in our country.

Teen Risky Drinking: Conclusion

There are without a doubt numerous defensible reasons why so many of our teenagers drink in a dangerous manner. Such a complex issue demands a thorough and more meaningful preventative and educational response by our parents, politicians, students, 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 harmful drinking behavior to solve their problems.