Teen Alcohol Abuse: A Complex Problem
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? Quite a few alcoholism consultants think that liquor, beer, and wine ads generated by the media are a primary reason for the escalation of teen alcohol abuse.
Other substance abuse experts articulate that the increase in youth alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and ease of access of beer, wine, and liquor in our society.
Still other alcohol abuse authorities argue that many of our adolescents involve themselves in risky drinking because of the increased anxiety that they feel.
From a somewhat different perspective, since both parents in a number of families work full or part-time, the lack of parental supervision clearly has to play a significant part in the expansion of youth alcohol abuse. And last but not least, diverse substance abuse authorities stress the point that the proliferation of youth alcohol abuse is due, to some extent, to our “anything goes” society.
Coping Skills Training and Hazardous Drinking
One aspect of teen alcohol abuse that appears to be deficient in the substance abuse research results, on the other hand, is the shortage of educational courses that teach adolescents how to further develop their coping skills so that their dangerous drinking behavior is drastically decreased or exterminated.
Stated more precisely, scientific research has uncovered the fact 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 occurrence of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is an accurate proclamation, why isn’t coping skills education a primary part of the educational core curriculum in all of our elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools?
A Society That Puts Emphasis On Youth Coping Skills
Let us construct a scenario for for the purpose of illumination. Let us imagine a society in which students are taught how to achieve first rate 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, individuals who are “coping skills masters” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more rewarding way, contrary to others who fail to implement their coping skills.
More specifically, students who exhibit solid coping skills will be more able to think proactively and engage in top-shelf decision making as opposed to teenagers who, because they do not possess good 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 exclusive coping skills training but also received a first class education that accentuated the long term and short term destructive costs associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these kinds of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills training, it is declared, would help students stay away from the apparent charm related to teen drinking and, for that reason, would fundamentally reduce the risky drinking behavior displayed by teenagers in our country.
Teenage Alcohol Abuse: Conclusion
There are clearly more than a few compelling reasons why so many of our teens drink in an abusive manner. Such a thorny subject matter demands a broad based and more pertinent preventative and educational response by our parents, educators, politicians, and students so that our teens can learn how to cope with life’s predicaments in a more fruitful and accountable manner rather than gravitating to alcohol abuse to solve their problems.