Effects of Alcohol Abuse in Youth Leading To Anti-Social Behavior - Literature review Example

?Running head: An investigation into the effects of alcohol abuse in youth leading to anti-social behavior. Effects of alcohol abuse in youth leading to anti-social behavior Juvenile delinquency and antisocial behavior among children and teenagers have been linked to a number of causes. Most of these causes are related to the family lives that children experience at home. Some of the causes include physical and emotional abuse by their parents, relatives or guardians, lack of proper parental guidance, alcohol and drug abuse by any member within the family, financial constraints leading to lack of necessities for the children, inappropriate conducts of parents, physical disability and absence of one or both parents from the home, among many other causes (Valsiner, 2007). Antisocial behavior can also be caused by external factors such as bullying or poor performance in school. Most of these problems end up affecting children psychologically, making them lean towards certain antisocial tendencies in order to deal with the situations they are facing. These include being introverted, being bullies themselves, taking drugs, engaging in criminal activities such as petty thieving or even prostitution, all in a bid to escape the reality of their situations (Krueger and Caspi, 1998). Children like these are vulnerable and need a lot of counseling in order to disengage from their antisocial activities. Many of these do not get this help and end up carrying these habits to their adulthood, exacerbating the problem and being much bigger nuisances to the society as a whole (Spear, 2000). Many end up in prisons or losing their lives because their habits are too deep-seated to turn their habits around. Therefore, the problem of delinquency in children is a problem facing society as a whole and its effects can be felt for several years if not addressed early. Alcohol abuse is one of the most problematic causes of antisocial behavior among young people (MacAndrew et al. 1969). This problem is further magnified by the fact that alcohol is not an illegal drug, and that there is only a limit to the age a person can take alcohol. This does not stop underage youth from devising ways of getting alcohol despite their age. This is further made easy by parents who stock alcohol in their houses; children can easily access these (Vanyukov and Tarter, 2000). Children become very curious about alcohol especially if they are around adults who drink in their presence. Whether these adults know it or not, such habits tend to influence children a lot and makes them want to experiment since children imitate adults’ behaviors despite what they are told to or not to do. Some parents satisfy their children’s curiosity by giving them small sips of their alcoholic drinks as they drink. This is a very damaging tendency, since children start taking alcohol at very young ages. As they grow up, these children’s tolerance for alcohol increases and by the time they are young adults they are serious alcoholics who find it hard to kick the habit out of their systems (Collishaw et al., 2004). However, a significant number of youth still abuse alcohol despite their exposure to alcohol being later on in life. Regardless of the time of exposure to alcohol, what is important is the antisocial behaviors that these youth engage in due to their abuse of alcohol. Alcoholism has actually been identified and classified as a disease that affects people because it has symptoms just like any other disease. Symptoms of alcoholism include headaches, fatigue, nausea and vomiting and other symptoms that are brought about by excessive consumption of alcohol. Abuse of alcohol by the youth has been as a problem by societies in many parts of the world. In order to curb this habit by the youth, many countries have resolved to put stricter rules on the consumption of alcohol, like age limits (Howard 2006). This is because alcohol, especially among the youth, has brought about problems to many societies. This is due to the fact that people under the influence of alcohol tend to exhibit some behaviors that they would not exhibit if they were sober. Alcohol tends to shed off inhibitions for people and this state makes it difficult for people to differentiate wrong from right, as well as making it difficult for inebriated people to control themselves from doing what is perceived as being right. The energy of the youth and their inexperience with alcohol makes them particularly vulnerable to such behaviors (Howard 2006). The youth, under the influence of alcohol tend to behaviors that not only endanger their lives, but also endanger the lives of other innocent people in the society. Many people’s lives have been ruined or lost because of things people do when they are drunk. For instance, many families have lost their loved ones or have had them maimed because of drunk drivers on the road. These are usually young people, who are too drunk to have proper judgment behind the wheel, yet they drive under the influence, driving recklessly or too fast, unaware of the danger they are posing to other people using the same roads (Clark et al., 2002; Cooper et al., 2003; Stallings et al., 2005). People under the influence of alcohol also tend to engage in antisocial behaviors such as criminal activities like armed robberies and petty thefts. The inhibition caused about by alcohol makes the youth think that they are invincible, causing them to commit these crimes. Most of them are usually not aware of what they are doing, and it is only after they sober up do they get remorse over what they have done(Clark et al., 2002; Cooper et al., 2003; Stallings et al., 2005). Unfortunately, to deal with this remorse, many youth binge on more alcohol in order to feel better, only for them to repeat their criminal activities, creating a vicious cycle created by alcohol. Alcohol also tends to bring out a violent nature in people. Many are the times that the police have been called to bars and parties to stop beer brawls started by the drunken patrons in the bars, clubs or in parties (Fishbein, 2004). These brawls usually have an inferno effect, since an argument between two people could easily erupt into a full-blown fight with people not involved joining the fights, and making the situations worse. The fact that broken beer bottles can easily be converted into dangerous weapons, without thinking of the consequences, makes such scenarios even more dangerous. Most beer brawls usually end up with fatalities, damage to property for the bar owners and animosity among people on ‘different’ sides. These cases are mostly reported in clubs or bars with large numbers of young people, mainly in colleges and universities (Brook, 1996). Various researches have been carried out to determine whether there is a correlation between alcoholism and antisocial behaviors among young people, or if there are other factors that come into play when young people are under the influence of alcohol. Many of these studies tested whether alcohol influenced antisocial behaviors among the youth, whether antisocial behaviors made the youth turn to alcohol, or that both affected each other in a cyclical manner (Fishbein, 2004). In most of the studies, the fact that alcohol and antisocial behavior were related was made obvious by the fact that many young people were not violent or criminal when sober, but easily picked antisocial behaviors when drunk. However, most of the studies conducted showed that the antisocial behaviours picked up by young people when drunk were only short term in nature. Furthermore, it was noted that the more alcohol a young person took, the more likely they were going to exhibit antisocial behavior. This situation was discovered to be made worse if the said youth were abusing hard drugs besides misusing alcohol (Hibell et al., 2003). It was also a conclusion that alcohol misuse and antisocial behaviors were cyclical in nature, each causing, and affecting the other. After consuming alcohol and engaging in antisocial behaviors when drunk, most young people expressed regret over their actions. This guilt leads most of them to further consume alcohol in order to deal with these guilty feelings. This leads them back to too much drunkenness and they go back to engaging in the activities that led them to star drinking again, and the cycle continues. Long-term misuse of alcohol has also been associated with fatal conditions such as liver cirrhosis, obesity and increased blood pressure. If a young person suffers from any of these conditions, they are more likely to become depressed and be a danger to themselves and others by engaging in antisocial behaviors. The need to get medication to treat their diseases, if they have no source of income to sustain their expensive medication could be a justification of their antisocial habits for these young people. Studies conducted to determine the correlation between alcohol abuse and antisocial behaviors tend to also look at the genesis of these problems. Several factors influence the abuse of alcohol, leading to antisocial behaviors (Abel and Plumridge, 2004). Researchers traced the origins of antisocial behavior back to the different influences which youth who were further influenced by alcohol to participate in those behaviors grew up in and recorded various findings. These different environments actually had significant influences on the young people’s behaviors and abuse of alcohol (Cooper et al., 2003). Different sub groups of the population showed slightly different results, leading to researchers to research into these differences and how the different factors influence alcoholic habits and any antisocial behaviors associated with them .One of the factors that has been considered as an influence of youth becoming alcoholics and exhibiting antisocial behavior because of this is social class (Young et al. 2007). Studies conducted showed there were significant differences on abuse of alcohol among people of different social statuses. It has been discovered by research that the working class young people are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior than people from any young people from any other social class. Young people in the middle class are less likely to exhibit antisocial behavior after drinking, because most drink as a matter of socializing, hence rarely abuse alcohol. Furthermore, it has been revealed that young people working in highly manual jobs are more likely to engage in physical antisocial behaviors, like getting into physical fights than people whose jobs are less manual (Makkai, 2001). Another demographic factor considered in these researches is gender. The physiological differences between men and women have been shown to influence their alcohol behaviors differently, their threshold to alcohol and their behaviors afterwards in relation to antisocial behaviors (Wells et al., 2006). Research has shown that men have higher thresholds for alcohol than women do. This means that men can take in more alcohol to get drunk than women can. However, research has also shown that women who take alcohol for longer periods tend to increase their threshold such that they can consume more alcohol to get drunk. Their reactions after taking a lot of alcohol are also different. Apparently, men are more likely to engage in antisocial behaviors than women after taking too much alcohol. They are more likely to get aggressive and convert their aggression into acts of violence towards other people and engage in criminal activities more often than women. Women on the other hand tend to be more aggressive under the influence of alcohol than men, but are least likely to engage into anything physical (Room, 2001). This has been attributed to the fact that women are generally aggressive, that drinking heavily among women is viewed as a defiance to set societal norms and that they are not expected to be drinking as heavily as men are. It has also been suggested that the settings under which young people drink also affect their behaviors. For instance, the youth tend to engage in antisocial behaviors more when they drink away from home and in public places than those who drink at home (Barnow et al., 2002). Furthermore, adolescents who drink at home under the supervision of their parents are more likely to be having alcohol-related problems later on in life than those who drink away from home without supervision and mostly in the company of their peers. In conclusion, though there is a relation between antisocial behavior and alcohol abuse among the youth, the different contexts under which they take place means that other factors come into play in these. Most young people however, perceive alcohol-related antisocial behaviors as being very small matters, an attitude that needs to change if such behaviors are to be reduced (Plant and Plant, 2006). References Abel, G. M., and Plumridge E. W. (2004). Network ‘norms’ or ‘styles’ of ‘drunken comportment’? Health Education Research.19:492-500. Barnow, S., et al. (2002). 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A longitudinal study of alcohol use and antisocial behavior in young people. Oxford; Oxford University Press. Read More