Alcohol abuse statistics show that alcohol abuse among teenagers is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Many substance abuse experts claim that liquor, wine, and beer advertisements generated by the media are a key reason for the rise in adolescent alcohol abuse.
Other substance abuse professionals declare that the increase in teenage alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and accessibility of liquor, beer, and wine in our society.
Still other alcohol abuse experts believe that more than a few of our teenagers get involved in dangerous drinking because of the increased disquiet that they go through.
From a slightly different outlook, since both parents in many families work full or part-time, the lack of parental guidance obviously has to play an important part in the increase in youth alcohol abuse. And lastly, an assortment of alcohol dependency experts claim that the rise in adolescent alcohol abuse is due, at least partially, to our lenient society.
Coping Skills Training and Hazardous Drinking
One element of teenage alcohol abuse that seems to be lacking in the alcohol abuse research literature, to the contrary, is the lack of educational courses that teach adolescents how to augment their coping skills so that their risky drinking behavior is extensively diminished or eliminated.
Stated another way, scientific research has demonstrated that there is an indirect relationship between poor coping skills and alcohol abuse. In effect, this means that the worse the coping skills, the higher the rate of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a truthful affirmation, why isn’t coping skills training a significant part of the educational core curriculum in all of our junior high schools, elementary schools, and high schools?
A Society That Highlights Youth Coping Skills
Let us construct a scenario for descriptive purposes. Let us imagine a society in which all people are trained how to develop superior coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including the twelfth grade.
In such a society, when life gets challenging, students who are ”coping skills experts” will be able to respond in a healthier and more creative manner, as opposed to others who fail to apply their coping skills.
More precisely, students who reveal excellent coping skills will be more able to think logically and show signs of top quality decision making as opposed to students who, because they do not possess first-rate coping skills, gravitate to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, what’s more, if adolescents not only got extraordinary coping skills training but also obtained a first-rate education that emphasized the short term and long term damaging results 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 pronounced, would help teenagers steer clear of the noticeable charm related to adolescent drinking and, as a result, would notably lessen the alcohol abuse exhibited by teenagers in our country.
Teenage Excessive Drinking: Conclusion
There are unquestionably a number of convincing reasons why so many of our teenagers drink in a destructive manner. Such a complex subject demands a comprehensive and more pertinent educational and preventative response by our parents, politicians, students, and educators so that our youth can learn how to cope with life’s problems in a more productive and responsible manner instead of gravitating to dangerous drinking behavior to solve their problems.
