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 alcohol abuse professionals state that wine, liquor, and beer ads constructed by the media are a fundamental reason for the spread of teen alcohol abuse.
Other alcohol dependency professionals argue that the increase in adolescent alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and convenience of wine, beer, and liquor in our society.
Still other alcoholism consultants declare that quite a few of our young people involve themselves in hazardous drinking because of the increased tension that they go through.
From a slightly different vantage point, because both parents in more than a few families work full or part-time, the lack of parental supervision without a doubt has to play a major part in the increase in adolescent alcohol abuse. And lastly, an assortment of alcoholism authorities argue that the escalation of teen alcohol abuse is due, at some level, to our laissez-faire society.
Coping Skills and Excessive Drinking
One aspect of teen alcohol abuse that appears to be somewhat incomplete in the alcohol abuse research literature, however, is the absence of educational programs that teach students how to improve upon their coping skills so that their excessive drinking behavior is radically diminished or done away with.
More explicitly, science has demonstrated that there is an indirect connection between poor coping skills and hazardous drinking. In point of fact, this means that the poorer the coping skills, the higher the frequency of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a correct assertion, why isn’t coping skills instruction a major part of the educational prospectus in all of our junior high schools, elementary schools, and high schools?
A Society That Underscores Youth Coping Skills
Let us construct a scenario for for the purpose of illumination. Let us imagine a society in which all individuals are trained how to achieve outstanding coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their final year in high school.
In such a society, when life gets stressful, individuals who are “coping skills masters” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more creative way, contrary to others who are unsuccessful in their attempts to put their coping skills into operation.
More to the point, students who demonstrate first rate coping skills will be more able to think proactively and display top quality decision making as opposed to teenagers who, because they lack top quality coping skills, resort to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, moreover, if teenagers not only received extraordinary coping skills education but also obtained an exclusive education that outlined the long term and short term destructive consequences associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Such an emphasis on drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills education, it is proclaimed, would help teenagers keep away from the apparent appeal interlinked with youth drinking and, therefore, would fundamentally diminish the destructive drinking behavior demonstrated by adolescents in our country.
Teenage Excessive Drinking: Conclusion
There are without a doubt more than a few well thought-out reasons why so many of our teenagers drink in a destructive manner. Such a tricky problem demands a comprehensive and more pertinent preventative and educational response by our parents, politicians, students, and educators so that our teenagers can learn how to cope with life’s problems in a more productive and responsible manner instead of resorting to dangerous drinking behavior to solve their problems.