Alcohol Abuse among Teens - Coursework Example

Alcohol abuse among teens July 23, Alcohol abuse among teens Overview Our current generation and the ones that are following are among those that seem to be growing up too fast. Experiences that usually occur in adulthood, such as alcohol consumption, are now being encountered during the unripened teenage years. The amount of teenagers who consume alcohol has risen drastically over the past decade, suggesting that underage drinking is no long just for teenagers who are out of control, but for teenagers in general. Furthermore, statistics reveal that underage alcohol consumption has gone beyond an occasional weekend activity and has hit levels of abuse, with many teenagers getting drunk as often as three times a week (Johnson & Boles, 2011). This onslaught of drunken teenagers has prompted a need to understand the dangers of teenage alcohol abuse, as well as prevention and treatment methods. Dangers of teenage alcohol abuse When people are teenagers, they find themselves at an age when they believe that they are invincible. To them, no action has dire consequences and dangers do not exist with mere experimenting (Windle, 2005). These beliefs could not be further from the truth of reality. Alcohol abuse alone brings with it a plethora of consequences that teenagers can face. Such ramifications include emotional and behavioral problems, addiction and dependency, and learning difficulties and even brain damage. As a depressant, alcohol has the ability to alter one’s mood. As teenagers abuse alcohol, they risk developing anxiety and depression; in the cases where these disorders already exist in an individual, alcohol can mask their seriousness. Studies show that teenagers who drink heavily are four times more likely to suffer from depression than non-drinking teens, and are three times more likely to attempt suicide (Black, 2010). Likewise, alcohol abuse can increase behavioral problems in teenagers, including violence and engaging in risky sex. The more that a teenager abuses alcohol, the more they subject themselves to aggressiveness, hyperactivity, and risky behavior, such as unprotected sex or sex with a stranger. Alcohol helps one to lose their inhibitions, and while this isn’t a benefit for anybody, it can become downright dangerous the younger that an individual is. In regard to addiction and dependency, studies have proven that “the younger a person is when they start drinking the more likely they are to develop a problem with alcohol (Tardiff, 2008).” Since children as young as ten and eleven years of age have their first experiences with alcohol, they have plenty of time to build up an addiction and dependency as they enter their teenage years. The more that teenagers depend on alcohol, the more they steadily abuse it. Alcohol consumption just becomes another daily activity to them. Alcohol, especially in large quantities, is vicious to the overall state of the brain. At one end of the spectrum, the most that alcohol-abusing teenagers will face is a decrease in how well they perform in school and an increase in falling behind and in dropping out of school. Since alcohol impairs drinkers, these teenagers will find difficulty on vocabulary, visual-spatial and memory tests. On the other end of the spectrum is brain damage, which consists of irreversible damage to the nervous system and mental disorders. These consequences not only come with heavy drinking among teenagers, but even with moderate drinking. Teenage brains are still developing and are unable to handle underage alcohol abuse. While the aforementioned consequences are equipped with their own horrors, there exists a danger that no longer effects a drunken teenager, but the public as a whole. A common misconception that teenagers have is that they are incapable of harming others with their drinking (Aretha, 2007), but once they place themselves behind the wheel of a vehicle, every individual on the road between points A and B of an intoxicated teenager’s journey becomes a potential victim of drunk driving. A recent study revealed that twenty-eight percent of 15- to 20-year-old drivers who died in car accidents had been drinking (Hyde & Setaro, 2011). This number is significantly larger when the amount of victim deaths are taken into consideration. Prevention Since alcohol abuse has become prevalent among teenagers, numerous prevention and treatment methods have been designed to help these suffering individuals. Heading the list of prevention methods is clear communication by parents, which involves relaying the risks and dangers of alcohol abuse. “Adequate parental supervision has been found to be a deterrent to alcohol use in youth (Colby, 2001).” If teenagers know the dangers before they begin consuming alcohol, they stand a greater chance of not engaging in underage drinking. Furthermore, the more involved that parents are in the lives of their teenagers, the less likely a teenager has at experimenting with alcohol. Keeping teenagers busy and active are other surefire ways to prevent teenage alcohol abuse. Sports, extracurricular activities, school and off-campus clubs, and volunteer work and charities keep teenagers away from experimenting with alcohol. These activities also help to establish a sense of purpose for teenagers. If their performance on a sports team will be altered due to alcohol, they will stay away from alcohol for the sake of their fellow teammates and their own role in the game. Such activities will also provide teenagers with safe havens among trusting and responsible people. Every 15 Minutes One of the most popular preventive methods is the program known as Every 15 Minutes, a two-day program that subjects high school students to the reality of drinking and driving. This program targets students who themselves drink and prompt them to make better choices about their alcohol consumption. The premise of the program is that, based on statistics, a person dies in an alcohol-related car accident every fifteen minutes. On the first day of the program, the Grim Reaper leads students, one every fifteen minutes, out of their classrooms. A police officer reads an obituary explaining the circumstances of the student’s death. The student shortly returns in white makeup, a coroner’s tag, and a black t-shirt. These students are not allowed to communicate or interact with anybody for the rest of the day. At the end of the day, a traffic collision is constructed on school grounds. “Injured” students are laying beneath overturned cars or sticking out from shattered windshields. Emergency personnel help the injured, coroners declare the dead, and police officers arrest the drunk individuals who caused the accident. After these events, the students are put up into hotels for the night, which stimulates being separated from family. The students write letters to their parents to tell them everything they had wanted to share with them before they died. Parents are encouraged to write similar letters to their children. During the second day of the program, the students are reunited with their family and these letters are shared, including thoughts that the students experienced during their ordeal. The assembly is then concluded with a speech on why drunk driving is deadly, but can be avoided, and how students can get help if they believe they have an alcohol problem. The impact of this program is emotionally jarring to teenagers as they watch their friends and loved ones lose their lives to the recklessness of drunk teenagers. Even though students are aware that this program is just a reenactment, students still break down as they see their best friends and siblings among the rubble of the constructed collision scene. Many students have claimed to have turned their lives around after witnessing the Every 15 Minutes program, stating that they were presented the greatest of reality checks to realize that their reckless behavior could mean the death of someone they love (Estroff, 2010). Treatment Treating alcohol abuse in teenagers becomes a desperate initiative as parents try to cease the damage being done to their children. Therapy is often the first step to treating alcohol abuse, which sets out to determine why the teenager has come to rely on alcohol. By pinpointing the cause of the need to drink, such as issues within the family, psychologists can help the teenager to overcome their struggles and find more productive methods of dealing with their situations. Family therapy is a popular form of therapy as it helps teenagers and parents see eye-to-eye, ensuring that the teenager will receive help from their parents after their therapy sessions. When children are involved, treatment is a joint effort of the family. Other treatment methods include various drugs to help with some of the symptoms of alcohol abuse. Anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications ease emotional problems that teenagers may have as a result of alcohol abuse. A variety of medications, such as Zofran and Naltrexone, are frequently used in treating alcoholism. These medications “decrease cravings for alcohol by blocking the body’s euphoric response to it (Ross, 2002).” Disulfiram is another medication that is prescribed to decrease alcohol cravings by “producing a negative reaction to drinking (Dryden-Edwards, 2011).” This latter medication is reserved for the teenagers who have gone too far in their alcohol abuse, but it has proven to be effective. References Aretha, D. (2007). On the rocks: Teens and alcohol. New York: Franklin Watts. Black, R. (2010, March 2). Pot and alcohol use rises among teens - and so do health risks: studies - New York Daily News. The New York Daily News. Retrieved July 21, 2012, from http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-03-02/entertainment/27057756_1_drug-free-america-teens-party-drug Colby, S. M. (2001). Adolescents, alcohol, and substance abuse: Reaching teens through brief interventions. New York: Guilford Press. Dryden-Edwards, R. (2011, May 26). Alcohol and teens: Treatment for alcoholism. MedicineNet. Retrieved July 21, 2012, from www.medicinenet.com/alcohol_and_teens/page4.htm Estroff, T. W. (2010). Manual of adolescent substance abuse treatment. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press. Hyde, M. O., & Setaro, J. F. (2011). Alcohol 101: An overview for teens. Brookfield, CN: Twenty-First Century Books. Johnson, P., & Boles, S. (2011). The co-occurrence of smoking and binge drinking in adolescence. Addictive Behaviors, 25, 779-783. Ross, G. R. (2002). Treating adolescent substance abuse: Understanding the fundamental elements. Eugene, OR: Resource Publishers. Tardiff, J. C. (2008). Teen alcoholism. Detroit: Greenhaven Press. Windle, M. (2005). Alcohol use among adolescents. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Read More