Alcohol abuse statistics demonstrate the fact that alcohol abuse among teenagers is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Many alcohol abuse specialists articulate that wine, liquor, and beer ads created by the media are a fundamental reason for the escalation of teen alcohol abuse.
Other alcohol dependency specialists assert that the increase in youth alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and ease of access of alcohol in our society.
Still other alcohol dependency professionals articulate that many of our adolescents get involved in hazardous drinking due to the increased apprehension that they undergo.
From a slightly different outlook, due to the fact that both parents in more than a few families are gainfully employed, the lack of parental guidance obviously has to play an important part in the proliferation of teen alcohol abuse. And finally, an assortment of alcohol addiction experts assert that the escalation of teenage alcohol abuse is due, to some extent, to our lenient society.
Coping Skills and Alcohol Abuse
One aspect of teenage alcohol abuse that seems to be deficient in the chemical dependency research literature, to the contrary, is the absence of educational courses that teach adolescents how to upgrade their coping skills so that their risky drinking behavior is notably reduced or gotten rid of.
More to the point, scientific research has disclosed 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 greater the incidence of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is a truthful affirmation, why isn’t coping skills training an essential part of the educational prospectus in all of our high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools?
A Society That Puts Emphasis On Teenage Coping Skills
Let us construct a scenario for illustrative purposes. Let us imagine a society in which all people are taught how to develop excellent coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their senior year in high school.
In such a society, when life gets difficult, individuals who are “coping skills masters” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more successful manner, as opposed to others who fail to execute their coping skills.
More explicitly, students who reveal good coping skills will be more able to think clearly and demonstrate excellent decision making as opposed to adolescents who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to learn top-of-the-line coping skills, are drawn to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, moreover, if students not only obtained top quality coping skills training but also received a first class education that emphasized the short term and long 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 instruction, it is emphasized, would help students avoid the clear fascination with teen drinking and, for that reason, would radically reduce the alcohol abuse undertaken by teens in our country.
Youth Hazardous Drinking: Conclusion
There are evidently a number of defensible reasons why so many of our teens drink in a destructive manner. Such a complicated issue demands a thorough and more applicable preventative and educational response by our students, politicians, parents, and educators so that our youth can learn how to cope with life’s predicaments in a more fruitful and accountable way instead of resorting to excessive drinking behavior to solve their difficulties.