Teenage Alcohol Abuse: A Profound 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? Quite a few chemical dependency consultants argue that beer, wine, and liquor ads produced by the media are a significant reason for the escalation of teen alcohol abuse.
Other alcohol addiction authorities think that the increase in teen alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and convenience of alcohol in our society.
Still other alcohol dependency specialists claim that more than a few of our adolescents involve themselves in harmful drinking because of the increased anxiety that they face.
From a somewhat different standpoint, due to the fact that both parents in many families work full or part-time, the lack of parental guidance unquestionably has to play a significant part in the spread of teenage alcohol abuse. And finally, a variety of alcohol dependency consultants think that the spread of teenage alcohol abuse is due, to some extent, to our lax society.
Alcohol Abuse and Coping Skills Training
One element of teenage alcohol abuse that appears to be deficient in the alcohol dependency research literature, alternatively, is the insufficiency of educational programs that teach teens how to further develop their coping skills so that their dangerous drinking behavior is radically reduced or done away with.
More precisely, scientific research has displayed the fact that there is an indirect link between poor coping skills and abusive drinking. For all intents and purposes, this means that the poorer the coping skills, the greater the rate of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a correct contention, why isn’t coping skills training an essential part of the educational core curriculum in all of our elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools?
A Society That Underscores Youth Coping Skills
Let us construct a scenario for descriptive purposes. Let us imagine a society in which all individuals are trained how to develop superior 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, students who are ”coping skills experts” will be able to respond in a healthier and more rewarding manner, as opposed to others who are unsuccessful in their attempts to apply their coping skills.
More precisely, students who reveal excellent coping skills will be more able to think proactively and display superior decision making as opposed to students who, because they failed to obtain top quality coping skills, are attracted to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, additionally, if young people not only received outstanding coping skills training but also obtained an extraordinary education that emphasized the long term and short term harmful outcomes associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Such an emphasis on drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills instruction, it is asserted, would help adolescents avoid the obvious appeal interlinked with underage drinking and, consequently, would significantly reduce the excessive drinking behavior shown by adolescents in our country.
Teen Abusive Drinking: Conclusion
There are clearly more than a few defensible reasons why so many of our teens drink in an abusive manner. Such a knotty subject demands an extensive and more pertinent preventative and educational response by our politicians, students, educators, and parents so that our teens can learn how to cope with life’s predicaments in a more rewarding and accountable manner rather than gravitating to excessive drinking behavior to solve their problems.
