Recent 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? Quite a few substance abuse authorities believe that wine, beer, and liquor ads produced by the media are an essential reason for the escalation of teen alcohol abuse.

Other substance abuse specialists claim that the increase in teen alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and ease of access of wine, beer, and liquor in our society.

Still other chemical dependency consultants articulate that numerous young people involve themselves in excessive drinking because of the increased stress that they feel.

From a slightly different point of view, because both parents in a number of families are gainfully employed, the lack of parental supervision evidently has to play a significant role in the rise in teen alcohol abuse. And lastly, diverse chemical dependency specialists believe that the spread of youth alcohol abuse is due, to some extent, to our laissez-faire society.

Excessive Drinking and Coping Skills

One feature of youth alcohol abuse that looks as if it lacking in the alcohol addiction research literature, conversely, is the paucity of educational programs that teach adolescents how to augment their coping skills so that their destructive drinking behavior is radically lessened or done away with.

Stated differently, scientific research has demonstrated that there is an indirect correlation between poor coping skills and abusive drinking. Fundamentally, this means that the worse the coping skills, the higher the occurrence of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is an accurate contention, why isn’t coping skills education an essential part of the educational core curriculum in all of our junior high schools, elementary schools, and high schools?

A Society That Puts Emphasis On Adolescent Coping Skills

Let us construct a scenario for for the purpose of illumination. Let us imagine a society in which all individuals 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 complicated, individuals who are ”coping skills experts” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more creative way, contrary to others who fail to apply their coping skills.

More precisely, students who demonstrate superior coping skills will be more able to think logically and engage in superior decision making as opposed to teens who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to learn quality coping skills, gravitate to the “quick fix” of hazardous drinking.

What would happen in the above “ideal” society, in addition, if teenagers not only obtained exceptional coping skills education but also got a top shelf education that outlined the short term and long term damaging consequences associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these kinds of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more highly developed coping skills training, it is proclaimed, would help teenagers keep away from the clear appeal associated with adolescent drinking and, therefore, would notably diminish the excessive drinking behavior displayed by the youth in our country.

Youth Alcohol Abuse: Conclusion

There are definitely various convincing reasons why so many of our adolescents drink in a risky manner. Such a complicated predicament demands a thorough and more applicable preventative and educational response by our politicians, parents, educators, and students so that our youth can learn how to cope with life’s difficulties in a more rewarding and accountable way rather than gravitating to harmful drinking behavior to solve their problems.