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 addiction experts believe that alcohol ads generated by the media are an essential reason for the increase in teenage alcohol abuse.
Other substance abuse professionals think that the increase in teenage alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and ease of access of beer, wine, and liquor in our society.
Still other alcohol abuse professionals affirm that quite a few of our teenagers involve themselves in dangerous drinking because of the increased tension that they face.
From a somewhat different vantage point, due to the fact that both parents in quite a few families are employed, the lack of parental guidance obviously has to play a fundamental role in the spread of teen alcohol abuse. And last of all, various substance abuse authorities believe that the proliferation of adolescent alcohol abuse is due, at least partially, to our permissive society.
Coping Skills Education and Abusive Drinking
One element of youth alcohol abuse that seems to be somewhat incomplete in the chemical dependency research findings, then again, is the scarcity of educational programs that teach students how to augment their coping skills so that their abusive drinking behavior is notably lessened or done away with.
More explicitly, science has revealed that there is an indirect correlation between poor coping skills and excessive drinking. In essence, this means that the more mediocre the coping skills, the higher the incidence of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is a valid statement, why isn’t coping skills training a fundamental part of the academic curriculum in all of our junior high schools, elementary schools, and high schools?
A Society That Accentuates Youth Coping Skills
Let us create a scenario for for the purpose of illumination. Let us imagine a society in which students 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 stressful, individuals who are “coping skills masters” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more creative way, contrary to others who fail to apply their coping skills.
Stated another way, students who reveal sound coping skills will be more able to think proactively and demonstrate quality decision making as opposed to teens who, because they failed to obtain quality coping skills, gravitate to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, what’s more, if teens not only obtained first-rate coping skills training but also obtained a first class education that stressed the long term and short term devastating outcomes associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these kinds of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more highly developed coping skills education, it is pronounced, would help adolescents steer clear of the apparent charm interlinked with underage drinking and, therefore, would notably diminish the risky drinking behavior exhibited by the youth in our country.
Teenage Excessive Drinking: Conclusion
There are clearly many valid reasons why so many of our teens drink in a harmful manner. Such a thorny predicament demands an all-inclusive and more applicable preventative and educational response by our parents, students, politicians, and educators so that our teens can learn how to cope with life’s predicaments in a more rewarding and accountable manner rather than gravitating to destructive drinking behavior to solve their difficulties.

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