Recent alcohol abuse statistics show that alcohol abuse among adolescents is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Quite a few alcohol addiction consultants declare that beer, wine, and liquor ads produced by the media are a fundamental reason for the proliferation of teen alcohol abuse.

Other alcohol dependency professionals articulate that the increase in teen alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and ease of access of beer, wine, and liquor in our society.

Still other substance abuse authorities think that many of our teens get involved in abusive drinking due to the increased anxiety that they feel.

From a somewhat different outlook, since both parents in many families work, the lack of parental guidance evidently has to play an essential role in the expansion of teenage alcohol abuse. And finally, various alcohol abuse professionals stress the point that the escalation of teen alcohol abuse is due, in some way, to our lax society.

Excessive Drinking and Coping Skills

One feature of teen alcohol abuse that looks like it is under reported in the substance abuse research results, nevertheless, is the deficiency of educational courses that teach students how to further develop their coping skills so that their injurious drinking behavior is notably lessened or gotten rid of.

More to the point, science has made obvious the fact that there is an indirect link between poor coping skills and hazardous drinking. In effect, this means that the more mediocre the coping skills, the higher the frequency of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a truthful affirmation, why isn’t coping skills education an essential part of the academic curriculum in all of our elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools?

A Society That Highlights Teenage Coping Skills

Let us create a scenario for for the purpose of elucidation. Let us imagine a society in which all people are trained how to achieve good coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including their senior year in high school.

In such a society, when life gets demanding, individuals who are ”coping skills experts” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more productive way, as opposed to others who are unsuccessful in their attempts to put their coping skills into practice.

Stated another way, students who demonstrate first-class coping skills will be more able to think logically and demonstrate top-shelf decision making as opposed to teens who, because they lack top-of-the-line coping skills, gravitate to the “quick fix” of hazardous drinking, alcohol abuse, and teenage alcoholism.

What would happen in the above “ideal” society, moreover, if adolescents not only obtained first class coping skills instruction but also obtained an excellent education that stressed the short term and long term harmful consequences associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Such an emphasis on drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills education, it is pronounced, would help teenagers avoid the apparent charm associated with teenage drinking and, therefore, would radically decrease the dangerous drinking behavior demonstrated by teens in our country.

Teenage Abusive Drinking: Room for Success, Hope, and Optimism and the Need For Productive Goal Setting

There are indubitably scores of well thought-out reasons why so many of our teens drink in an injurious manner. Such a complicated issue, if optimism, success, and hope are to be realized, demands successful goal setting and a comprehensive and more applicable preventative and educational response by our parents, students, politicians, and educators so that our youth can learn how to cope with life’s predicaments in a more rewarding and responsible manner rather than resorting to injurious drinking behavior to solve their difficulties.