Recent alcohol abuse statistics show that alcohol abuse among teens is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? More than a few alcohol addiction professionals articulate that alcohol ads brought into being by the media are a major reason for the expansion of teen alcohol abuse.

Other chemical dependency authorities state that the increase in teen alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and ease of access of alcohol in our society.

Still other alcohol dependency professionals argue that quite a few of our adolescents get involved in injurious drinking due to the increased fretfulness that they face.

From a somewhat different viewpoint, because both parents in more than a few families work, the lack of parental guidance evidently has to play an important part in the spread of adolescent alcohol abuse. And finally, different alcohol dependency authorities assert that the escalation of youth alcohol abuse is due, in some way, to our permissive society.

Coping Skills Training and Hazardous Drinking

One feature of teen alcohol abuse that appears to be deficient in the alcohol abuse research literature, conversely, is the deficiency of educational programs that teach students how to improve upon their coping skills so that their abusive drinking behavior is significantly decreased or eradicated.

More to the point, scientific research has disclosed the fact that there is an indirect correlation between poor coping skills and hazardous drinking. In actual fact, this means that the poorer the coping skills, the greater the frequency of alcohol abuse. To the extent that this is a correct contention, why isn’t coping skills education an important part of the educational curriculum in all of our high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools?

A Society That Highlights Teenage Coping Skills

Let us manufacture a scenario for the purpose of clarification. Let us imagine a society in which students are taught how to achieve outstanding coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their final year in high school.

In such a society, when life gets demanding, students who are ”coping skills experts” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more productive manner, contrary to others who are unsuccessful in their attempts to execute their coping skills.

More to the point, students who show evidence of superior coping skills will be more able to think clearly and display superior decision making as opposed to teens who, because they lack good coping skills, gravitate to the “quick fix” of hazardous drinking.

What would happen in the above “ideal” society, what’s more, if young people not only obtained exclusive coping skills education but also received an excellent education that outlined the short term and long term damaging costs associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills instruction, it is declared, would help teens steer clear of the clear appeal associated with youth drinking and, for that reason, would drastically lessen the hazardous drinking behavior exhibited by the youth in our country.

Teenage Abusive Drinking: Conclusion

There are definitely a number of defensible reasons why so many of our teenagers drink in a risky manner. Such a thorny subject demands a thorough and more pertinent educational and preventative response by our students, educators, politicians, and parents so that our teenagers can learn how to cope with life’s difficulties in a more productive and accountable way rather than resorting to destructive drinking behavior to solve their difficulties.