Add to your...
Recent alcohol abuse statistics show that alcohol abuse among adolescents is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Numerous alcohol dependency authorities declare that liquor, wine, and beer ads generated by the media are an important reason for the increase in teen alcohol abuse.
Other chemical dependency experts articulate that the increase in teenage alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and convenience of beer, wine, and liquor in our society.
Still other alcoholism consultants articulate that many of our teens engage in abusive drinking because of the increased apprehension that they are subjected to.
From a somewhat different point of view, because both parents in a number of families work full or part-time, the lack of parental guidance clearly has to play a primary role in the escalation of teenage alcohol abuse. And last of all, an assortment of alcohol addiction consultants declare that the increase in youth alcohol abuse is due, at some level, to our lenient society.
Coping Skills and Hazardous Drinking
One aspect of youth alcohol abuse that seems to be somewhat missing in the alcohol dependency research literature, nevertheless, is the paucity of educational programs that teach teens how to augment their coping skills so that their destructive drinking behavior is significantly reduced or gotten rid of.
Stated more explicitly, scientific research has uncovered the fact that there is an indirect link between poor coping skills and alcohol abuse. In essence, this means that the poorer the coping skills, the higher the incidence of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is a correct contention, why isn’t coping skills education a major part of the academic core curriculum in all of our junior high schools, elementary schools, and high schools?
A Society That Puts Emphasis On Teenage Coping Skills
Let us create a scenario for for the purpose of elucidation. Let us imagine a society in which all people are taught how to develop first rate coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including the twelfth grade.
In such a society, when life gets difficult, individuals who are ”coping skills experts” will be able to respond in a healthier and more successful way, as opposed to others who are unsuccessful in their attempts to put their coping skills into operation.
More explicitly, students who show evidence of first-class coping skills will be more able to think clearly and show signs of top quality decision making as opposed to teens who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to develop outstanding coping skills, resort to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, additionally, if young people not only obtained first-rate coping skills instruction but also received a first-rate education that underscored the long term and short term destructive consequences associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these types of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more highly developed coping skills training, it is emphasized, would help adolescents stay away from the obvious appeal correlated with teenage drinking and, therefore, would fundamentally reduce the hazardous drinking behavior demonstrated by teenagers in our country.
Adolescent Excessive Drinking: Conclusion
There are without a doubt many justifiable reasons why so many of our adolescents drink in an excessive manner. Such a thorny subject demands an extensive and more meaningful preventative and educational response by our educators, students, parents, and politicians so that our teenagers can learn how to cope with life’s predicaments in a more productive and accountable way rather than gravitating to alcohol abuse to solve their difficulties.
No related posts.