My Fitness Edge

Recent alcohol abuse statistics reveal that alcohol abuse among teens is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Quite a few substance abuse professionals affirm that wine, beer, and liquor advertisements brought into being by the media are an important reason for the spread of teen alcohol abuse.

Other chemical dependency specialists stress the point that the increase in youth alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and convenience of beer, wine, and liquor in our society.

Still other alcohol dependency professionals claim that quite a few of our teens engage in hazardous drinking because of the increased fretfulness that they are subjected to.

From a slightly different viewpoint, because both parents in more than a few families work full or part-time, the lack of parental supervision without a doubt has to play a primary part in the increase in adolescent alcohol abuse. And last of all, different alcohol addiction consultants think that the proliferation of youth alcohol abuse is due, in some degree, to our lenient society.

Alcohol Abuse and Coping Skills Education

One component of adolescent alcohol abuse that looks as if it deficient in the alcohol dependency research results, however, is the deficiency of educational courses that teach adolescents how to enhance their coping skills so that their harmful drinking behavior is significantly decreased or exterminated.

Stated more explicitly, science has shown that there is an indirect relationship between poor coping skills and abusive drinking. Fundamentally, this means that the worse the coping skills, the greater the incidence of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is an accurate proclamation, why isn’t coping skills education a significant part of the academic core curriculum in all of our high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools?

A Society That Highlights Teenage Coping Skills

Let us construct a scenario for the purpose of clarification. Let us imagine a society in which all people are taught how to achieve sound coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their final year in high school.

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 execute their coping skills.

More explicitly, students who display superior coping skills will be more able to think logically and demonstrate quality decision making as opposed to teens who, because they are deficient in quality coping skills, gravitate to the “quick fix” of excessive drinking.

What would happen in the above “ideal” society, moreover, if students not only received extraordinary coping skills training but also received an exclusive education that outlined the short term and long term devastating outcomes associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Such an emphasis on drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more highly developed coping skills instruction, it is emphasized, would help teenagers keep away from the apparent appeal related to teen drinking and, therefore, would notably reduce the excessive drinking behavior displayed by the youth in our country.

Teen Risky Drinking: Conclusion

There are positively various valid reasons why so many of our adolescents drink in an abusive manner. Such a complicated issue demands a far-reaching and relevant educational and preventative response by our students, educators, politicians, and parents so that our youth can learn how to cope with life’s problems in a more rewarding and responsible manner instead of gravitating to abusive drinking behavior to solve their difficulties.