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Alcoholism in Teens

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Alcoholism in teens
In my opinion there is no upside to teens using alcohol. The fact of the matter is that the number of teens using alcohol is a grim signal of what is going on in the American family. One of the major causes of teen alcohol is home life. If you where to talk to or take a poll of teenager using alcohol most or about 85%of them would tell you that they have an alcoholic family member living in the home with them (O’Connell, 2005). This is by far one of the most disheartening facts of teenage drinking, because in most cases of teen alcohol usage it is the parent that has dropped the ball. Another reason for teen alcohol usage is peer pressure. So many teen are forced in to using alcohol because of fear of not fitting into their particular circle of friends. It is this type of social bullying that has been the reason for so many teens deciding to use alcohol. Ninety percent of high school students said that they have at one time uses alcohol. A recent poll showed that 67 percent of high school students also said that they have used alcohol in the last week, and 38 percent said that they have taken 3 drinks in a row within the last 3 weeks (O’Donnell, 2005). This is important numbers because it gives us an understanding of why we have so much calamity going on among our young people today. The numbers say that there are over 3.3milion teenaged alcoholics in America today. There is not upside to teenage drinking and if we don’t do something about it now we will only have a generation of older alcoholics. In order for us to fix this issue we must begin to aggressively educate our children on the effects of using alcohol. So many times we focus only on the outward effects and never talk about the inner more physical effects of using alcohol. This education must start in the home first and then take place in the schools where most of this behavior starts. We must remember that these are kids that are using alcohol and not adults, and is very safe to say that most of the kids that use alcohol are not as emotionally prepared as the adults that use alcohol. It is in my opinion that if we are going to stop the epidemic of teen alcohol usage we must be honest and forthright with our kids about alcohol.

O'Connell, M. (2005). Underage drinking. Issues in Science & Technology, 21(2), 82-85. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

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