Recent alcohol abuse statistics reveal that alcohol abuse among teenagers is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Quite a few alcohol addiction professionals emphasize the point that beer, liquor, and wine ads generated by the media are a fundamental reason for the increase in teen alcohol abuse.
Other substance abuse experts think that the increase in adolescent alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and ease of access of alcohol in our society.
Still other alcohol addiction experts think that quite a few of our teens engage in injurious drinking because of the increased tension that they go through.
From a somewhat different viewpoint, because both parents in many families are employed, the lack of parental supervision certainly has to play an essential part in the expansion of youth alcohol abuse. And last of all, different chemical dependency professionals declare that the increase in teen alcohol abuse is due, to some extent, to our laissez-faire society.
Coping Skills and Excessive Drinking
One facet of teenage alcohol abuse that looks like it is under reported in the alcohol addiction research findings, alternatively, is the deficiency of educational courses that teach teens how to further develop their coping skills so that their excessive drinking behavior is radically reduced or gotten rid of.
More to the point, scientific research has uncovered the fact that there is an indirect connection between poor coping skills and hazardous drinking. Basically, this means that the poorer the coping skills, the higher the frequency of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a correct declaration, why isn’t coping skills instruction a major part of the academic prospectus in all of our high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools?
A Society That Stresses Adolescent Coping Skills
Let us create a scenario for the purpose of explanation. Let us imagine a society in which all individuals are taught how to develop first-class 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 more healthy and more creative manner, as opposed to others who fail to execute their coping skills.
Stated differently, students who reveal first rate coping skills will be more able to think proactively and engage in quality decision making as opposed to adolescents who, because they do not possess top quality coping skills, are drawn to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, additionally, if teenagers not only received top shelf coping skills education but also obtained an outstanding education that emphasized the short term and long term injurious outcomes 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 pronounced, would help teens keep away from the apparent appeal correlated with teenage drinking and, for that reason, would radically lessen the destructive drinking behavior undertaken by teens in our country.
Teen Alcohol Abuse: Conclusion
There are unquestionably a number of defensible reasons why so many of our teenagers drink in a hazardous manner. Such a knotty predicament demands a wide-ranging and relevant preventative and educational response by our politicians, educators, students, and parents so that our adolescents can learn how to cope with life’s problems in a more productive and accountable way rather than resorting to excessive drinking behavior to solve their problems.
