Alcohol abuse statistics demonstrate the fact that alcohol abuse among teens is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Numerous alcohol abuse professionals emphasize the point that liquor, wine, and beer ads constructed by the media are a significant reason for the spread of teen alcohol abuse.

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

Still other alcohol addiction experts assert that many of our teenagers involve themselves in hazardous drinking due to the increased tension that they are subjected to.

From a somewhat different perspective, due to the fact that both parents in a number of families work, the lack of parental supervision evidently has to play a primary role in the escalation of teenage alcohol abuse. And finally, a variety of substance abuse professionals affirm that the escalation of youth alcohol abuse is due, at some level, to our permissive society.

Abusive Drinking and Coping Skills

One element of adolescent alcohol abuse that appears to be poorly reported in the substance abuse research results, then again, is the scarcity of educational courses that teach teenagers how to upgrade their coping skills so that their destructive drinking behavior is fundamentally decreased or eliminated.

More to the point, science has displayed the fact that there is an indirect relationship between poor coping skills and hazardous drinking. In essence, this means that the poorer the coping skills, the greater the prevalence of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is an accurate declaration, why isn’t coping skills education an essential part of the educational prospectus in all of our junior high schools, elementary schools, and high schools?

A Society That Accentuates Adolescent Coping Skills

Let us construct a scenario for for the purpose of illumination. Let us imagine a society in which students are trained 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, students who are ”coping skills experts” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more creative way, as opposed to others who fail to put their coping skills into practice.

More precisely, students who exhibit sound coping skills will be more able to think logically and display quality decision making as opposed to students who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to develop outstanding coping skills, gravitate to the “quick fix” of hazardous drinking.

What would happen in the above “ideal” society, what’s more, if teens not only obtained exclusive coping skills instruction but also got a top shelf education that outlined the short term and long term injurious costs associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these kinds of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills training, it is asserted, would help teens steer clear of the noticeable appeal related to teen drinking and, consequently, would fundamentally lessen the abusive drinking behavior displayed by the youth in our country.

Teen Hazardous Drinking: Conclusion

There are positively a number of valid reasons why so many of our adolescents drink in a harmful manner. Such a complicated subject demands a thorough and more applicable educational and preventative response by our students, politicians, parents, and educators so that our youth can learn how to cope with life’s predicaments in a more productive and responsible manner instead of gravitating to abusive drinking behavior to solve their problems.