Alcohol abuse statistics show that alcohol abuse among adolescents is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Numerous alcohol addiction consultants articulate that wine, beer, and liquor advertisements constructed by the media are an important reason for the spread of teen alcohol abuse.

Other alcohol addiction consultants emphasize the point that the increase in youth alcohol abuse is due to the acceptability and convenience of wine,liquor, and beer in our society.

Still other substance abuse consultants think that many of our adolescents engage in excessive drinking due to the increased apprehension that they are subjected to.

From a slightly different vantage point, since both parents in a number of families work, the lack of parental supervision positively has to play an important role in the proliferation of teen alcohol abuse. And last but not least, different chemical dependency authorities declare that the escalation of teen alcohol abuse is due, in some measure, to our lax society.

Coping Skills and Alcohol Abuse

One facet of teenage alcohol abuse that looks as if it somewhat incomplete in the substance abuse research literature, nevertheless, is the insufficiency of educational courses that teach students how to upgrade their coping skills so that their injurious drinking behavior is substantially decreased or eliminated.

More explicitly, science has disclosed the fact that there is an indirect relationship between poor coping skills and abusive drinking. In point of fact, this means that the worse the coping skills, the greater the prevalence of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a correct declaration, why isn’t coping skills training a major part of the educational core curriculum in all of our elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools?

A Society That Accentuates Adolescent Coping Skills

Let us manufacture a scenario for the purpose of clarification. Let us imagine a society in which students are trained how to develop good coping skills all the way from kindergarten up to and including the twelfth grade.

In such a society, when life gets demanding, individuals who are “coping skills masters” will be able to respond in a healthier and more creative manner, contrary to others who are unsuccessful in their attempts to put their coping skills into practice.

More precisely, students who show evidence of outstanding coping skills will be more able to think clearly and display superior decision making as opposed to teens who, because they were unsuccessful in their attempts to learn top quality coping skills, gravitate to the “quick fix” of hazardous drinking.

What would happen in the above “ideal” society, moreover, if teens not only received outstanding coping skills training but also obtained an excellent education that accentuated the short term and long term destructive outcomes associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Such an emphasis on drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more advanced coping skills training, it is affirmed, would help adolescents steer clear of the apparent charm interlinked with adolescent drinking and, for that reason, would significantly reduce the injurious drinking behavior exhibited by teenagers in our country.

Teen Hazardous Drinking: Conclusion

There are without a doubt a number of defensible reasons why so many of our adolescents drink in an abusive manner. Such a thorny subject matter demands a far-reaching and relevant educational and preventative response by our politicians, educators, students, and parents so that our teenagers can learn how to cope with life’s predicaments in a more fruitful and accountable manner rather than resorting to dangerous drinking behavior to solve their problems.