Alcohol abuse statistics show that alcohol abuse among adolescents is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Many chemical dependency professionals affirm that beer, wine, and liquor ads constructed by the media are a fundamental reason for the proliferation of teen alcohol abuse.

Other alcoholism authorities state that the increase in youth alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and convenience of liquor, beer, and wine in our society.

Still other alcohol abuse experts stress the point that quite a few of our teens get involved in injurious drinking because of the increased pressure that they are subjected to.

From a somewhat different viewpoint, because both parents in a number of families work full or part-time, the lack of parental guidance clearly has to play a significant part in the escalation of teenage alcohol abuse. And last but not least, an assortment of substance abuse consultants claim that the escalation of teenage alcohol abuse is due, at least partially, to our permissive society.

Coping Skills Education and Alcohol Abuse

One facet of teenage alcohol abuse that seems to be somewhat incomplete in the alcohol addiction research literature, however, is the paucity of educational programs that teach teens how to enhance their coping skills so that their abusive drinking behavior is substantially decreased or done away with.

More precisely, science has illustrated the fact that there is an indirect link between poor coping skills and abusive drinking. In essence, this means that the more mediocre the coping skills, the higher the occurrence of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a valid argument, why isn’t coping skills training an important part of the educational core curriculum in all of our high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools?

A Society That Underscores Youth Coping Skills

Let us create a scenario for the purpose of explanation. Let us imagine a society in which all people are taught how to achieve superior 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 experts” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more successful way, contrary to others who fail to execute their coping skills.

More explicitly, students who display outstanding coping skills will be more able to think logically and engage in top-shelf decision making as opposed to teens who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to implement good coping skills, resort to the “quick fix” of hazardous drinking.

What would happen in the above “ideal” society, additionally, if teenagers not only received exceptional coping skills instruction but also obtained a first-rate education that highlighted the short term and long term damaging outcomes associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these types of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills education, it is asserted, would help students avoid the clear charm interlinked with adolescent drinking and, consequently, would substantially decrease the excessive drinking behavior displayed by teens in our country.

Adolescent Risky Drinking: Conclusion

There are without a doubt several justifiable reasons why so many of our teenagers drink in a risky manner. Such a thorny problem demands a far-reaching and relevant educational and preventative response by our educators, students, parents, and politicians so that our teenagers can learn how to cope with life’s predicaments in a more rewarding and accountable manner rather than gravitating to dangerous drinking behavior to solve their problems.