What I Learned About Alcohol and Drug Addiction in High School
When I was a sophomore in high school, I enrolled into a drug abuse class. At that time period, I did not understand that alcohol abuse in truth was a sub classification of drug abuse. While taking this class and learning more about drug and alcohol abuse and above all about alcohol side effects, I read a lot about Alcoholic Anonymous, their meetings, how their programs have twelve steps, and how successful the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program has been for individuals all through the world. I also learned a lot about alcohol rehab and the diverse alcohol rehab facilities that are repeatedly available to people who engage in hazardous drinking.
Damaging Results That are Related to Alcohol Addiction and Alcohol Abuse
Some of the detrimental effects associated with alcoholism and alcohol abuse that I learned about in this class certainly worried me. The ruined lives and abundant problems experienced by most alcohol addicted people made me feel like I never wanted to drink alcohol when I became old enough. Stated briefly, I did not want to face the disaster and devastation that alcohol addicted individuals almost always go through.
Let this sink in for a moment. What fifteen-year-old teenager wants to face premature death due to his or her drinking behavior? What young person wants to become so out-of-control regarding his or her drinking that consuming alcohol becomes the object of one’s life? What adolescent wants to go to one of the local alcoholic rehabilitation centers to deal with alcohol-related problems before he or she becomes an adult?
What adolescent wants to go through alcohol withdrawal symptoms when he or she tries to stop drinking? Why would a person engage in drinking to such an extent that it would cause problems in every area of his or her life? Drinking later in life after a person has a career, a family, and develops personal responsibilities makes sense. But why would a young person want to sacrifice his or her education, employment, finances, and relationships for a life that revolves around hazardous drinking?
These issues were so important that I discussed some of them in class throughout the school year. What was completely astonishing to me was the number of students who openly didn’t care about the detrimental results of excessive drinking that I discussed. It was almost as if they couldn’t be troubled with the truth and how these consequences can shatter their lives. For the first time in my life I started to figure out a saying that my grandfather used to say to me throughout my teen and pre-teen years: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink.
It’s Beneficial, Important, and Liberating to Keep Away From the Damaging and Unhealthy Effects of Drug and Alcohol Abuse
And even at my young age, I also began to comprehend how liberating, important, and beneficial it is in life to keep yourself from the unhealthy and damaging effects of drug and alcohol abuse.
Teen Alcohol Abuse: A Crucial Problem
Recent alcohol abuse statistics show that alcohol abuse among teenagers is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Many alcohol abuse experts articulate that wine, beer, and liquor ads created by the media are a significant reason for the increase in teen alcohol abuse.
Other substance abuse consultants declare that the increase in teenage alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and convenience of beer, liquor, and wine in our society.
Still other chemical dependency experts stress the point that quite a few of our young people engage in harmful drinking due to the increased stress that they experience.
From a slightly different outlook, since both parents in many families are employed, the lack of parental guidance certainly has to play an essential role in the escalation of adolescent alcohol abuse. And last but not least, different alcohol abuse consultants declare that the spread of adolescent alcohol abuse is due, in some measure, to our permissive society.
Coping Skills Training and Excessive Drinking
One feature of adolescent alcohol abuse that seems to be poorly reported in the alcohol abuse research results, conversely, is the nonexistence of educational programs that teach students how to improve upon their coping skills so that their harmful drinking behavior is radically diminished or done away with.
Stated differently, science has disclosed the fact that there is an indirect link between poor coping skills and alcohol abuse. Fundamentally, this means that the more mediocre the coping skills, the higher the incidence of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is a valid affirmation, why isn’t coping skills training an important part of the academic curriculum in all of our high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools?
A Society That Highlights Teenage Coping Skills
Let us create a scenario for for the purpose of illumination. Let us imagine a society in which all individuals are trained how to achieve solid coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including the twelfth grade.
In such a society, when life gets complicated, people who are “coping skills masters” will be able to respond in a healthier and more rewarding manner, contrary to others who are unsuccessful in their attempts to put their coping skills into practice.
More specifically, students who reveal good coping skills will be more able to think proactively and engage in top-shelf decision making as opposed to teens who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to learn quality coping skills, resort to the “quick fix” of hazardous drinking.
What would happen in the above “ideal” society, moreover, if students not only obtained first-rate coping skills instruction but also received a top quality education that stressed the short term and long term destructive results associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills instruction, it is affirmed, would help adolescents steer clear of the obvious charm interlinked with teenage drinking and, as a consequence, would significantly diminish the destructive drinking behavior displayed by adolescents in our country.
Teen Alcohol Abuse: Conclusion
There are surely numerous defensible reasons why so many of our teens drink in a destructive manner. Such a complex subject matter demands a wide-ranging and more pertinent educational and preventative response by our parents, educators, politicians, and students so that our adolescents can learn how to cope with life’s difficulties in a more fruitful and accountable manner instead of gravitating to injurious drinking behavior to solve their difficulties.