It’s a Friday night after a hard and stressful week of school; you are ready to go out and have a fun time with your friends. You’ve worked so hard and the anticipation of this weekend has gotten you through this taxing week. Even more exciting is the party one of the most popular kids at school is throwing. We’re all in high school and what doesn’t sound more exciting than to be with all your buddies for the night? You spend an hour getting ready and just really can’t wait to show off your new outfit to everybody. Automatically, when you show up some one offers you an alcoholic beverage but you deny it because you know better. However, the persisting doesn’t stop there and the guy you’ve had a crush on for so long wants to talk to you and being the “ gentlemen” he is doesn’t want you to be empty handed so you give into the peer pressure. One drink never hurt anybody, except by the end of the night you’ve had five or six and made some decisions that you truly regret. Not only that but you soon find yourself making those same mistakes over and over again. Drinking doesn’t just become something you do at a party, but instead you begin to drink every weekend. You don’t just have one or two drinks but binge drink, five or more drinks, and for the purpose of getting drunk.
Going out and partying might seem like fun and something every one’s doing, but one thing that some one in high school shouldn’t ever have to go through is the grievance of their friend’s deaths. Did you know that about 5000 teens die every year because of under aged drinking accidents such as car crashes, homicides, and suicides? Not only that but starting to drink at such an early age drastically increases your chances of becoming dependent on alcohol and having other such alcohol problems. In 98% of reported rape accounts, alcohol was shown to be used by either the victim or the predator. There are countless negative facts about teen drinking and many of them being so dreadful that they could seem like scare tactics even though they provide factual information.
The point is not to scare children so much by revealing horror stories but instead to make people aware of the true facts that occur with drinking.
Many teenagers have skewed views thinking that every one drinks when in reality the number is a lot less than stereotyped. If some one believes that every one abuses alcohol, than they can justify abusing alcohol much easier to themselves because this is a “normal activity.” I’m not saying that every one falls into this category of wanting to fit in. Just across the board teenagers have lower self-esteem and have strong feelings of wanting to belong in some group. As seen in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which is physiological needs, safety, and then being loved/ belonging, being a part of a group is the third most important category.
The issue present in under aged drinking is that teens don’t know when to stop and abuse alcohol. They don’t really knowing better or have the restriction to stop themselves. In 2005 the organization Students Against Destructive Decisions constructed a survey and found that 10.8 million kids from ages 12-20 reported that they had drank in the past month. Out of that 10.8 million, 7.2 million were binge drinkers. As you can see from this statistic, the problem is not just that teens are partaking in illegal activities but the abuse of this substance. Just like anything else in life, moderation is key. You probably shouldn’t sit on the couch every day watching hours upon hours of T.V., but watching your favorite T.V. show or movie is completely fine. However, starting to abuse alcohol at such a young age just allows the situation to escalate as you grow up into an adult.
Alcohol in moderation, when you are of the right age, and you know your limitations, is completely acceptable. Alcohol is not the problem but rather rebellious teens abusing the substance and then digging a hole for themselves that they just can’t get out with out help. Teens will continue to drink regardless, however, there are some steps for prevention that have been tried and are successful. The first is to get the correct information out about drinking. It might seem at first that every one in high school or college drinks but this is hardly the case. You just are looking from the perspective of one social group. Less than 30% is hardly every one, and is not even half of everybody. Just by spreading this information and getting the true statistics out will take much of the peer pressure students feel and relieve them of this social burden. Also, in school drinking responsibility should be taught. This does not require any student to drink just shows them when they are of age not to go crazy and hurt themselves but know how to drink socially. Programs that show how to drink responsible compared to programs that have a complete abstinence solution have turned out to be much more successful. Furthermore, these complete abstinence programs are not being realistic, and are not looking at the situations from both perspectives; therefore, it should not be surprising that these do not have much success.
Rape, suicide, homicide, and crimes are all horrible events that nobody wants to go through. When these crimes are committed, they all have a strong correlation of alcohol use. Not only that, but deteriorating school work could be linked to teens drinking all the time. 50% of students who make D’s and F’s reported to drink substantially.
Alcohol abuse is a huge problem in our country. The use of alcohol, as well, is the most commonly used drug. Again, alcohol is not the issue but the abuse of alcohol is, concluding, that prevention strategies should be more heavily strived in school. The distribution of correct statistics such as revealing to students that not every one in high school drinks should be told. Responsibility is also extremely important because if you are going to partake in adult activities, such as drinking, you need to have the maturity and accountability to act of this age.
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