Recent alcohol abuse statistics reveal that alcohol abuse among teens is increasing in the United States. What are some of the reasons for this? Quite a few alcohol dependency specialists believe that alcohol ads generated by the media are an essential reason for the proliferation of teen alcohol abuse.

Other alcohol addiction experts affirm that the increase in teen alcohol abuse is due to the toleration and accessibility of liquor, wine, and beer in our society.

Still other chemical dependency experts claim that many of our teenagers engage in harmful drinking due to the increased disquiet that they undergo.

From a slightly different perspective, since both parents in many families are employed, the lack of parental supervision unquestionably has to play a fundamental part in the escalation of youth alcohol abuse. And last but not least, an assortment of alcohol addiction experts affirm that the spread of teenage alcohol abuse is due, at some level, to our lax society.

Alcohol Abuse and Coping Skills Education

One feature of youth alcohol abuse that appears to be somewhat missing in the alcohol abuse research literature, to the contrary, is the paucity of educational programs that teach adolescents how to upgrade their coping skills so that their risky drinking behavior is significantly lessened or gotten rid of.

Stated more explicitly, scientific research has shown that there is an indirect correlation between poor coping skills and alcohol abuse. Basically, this means that the poorer the coping skills, the higher the occurrence of alcohol abuse. To the degree that this is a valid allegation , why isn’t coping skills education an essential part of the academic core curriculum in all of our elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools?

A Society That Highlights Adolescent Coping Skills

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

In such a society, when life gets stressful, individuals who are ”coping skills experts” will be able to respond in a more healthy and more creative way, contrary to others who fail to apply their coping skills.

More to the point, students who display high-quality coping skills will be more able to think proactively and demonstrate first-class decision making as opposed to teens who, because they failed to obtain quality coping skills, gravitate to the “quick fix” of abusive drinking.

What would happen in the above “ideal” society, furthermore, if young people not only got first-rate coping skills education but also obtained a first-rate education that stressed the short term and long term devastating results associated with drug abuse and alcohol abuse? Emphasizing these kinds of drug and alcohol abuse facts, along with more highly developed coping skills training, it is declared, would help teenagers steer clear of the apparent appeal associated with underage drinking and, for that reason, would significantly diminish the injurious drinking behavior exhibited by adolescents in our country.

Teen Risky Drinking: Conclusion

There are clearly several sound reasons why so many of our teens abuse alcohol. Such a tricky predicament demands a far-reaching and more meaningful preventative and educational response by our parents, students, politicians, and educators so that our teens can learn how to cope with life’s predicaments in a more fruitful and responsible way instead of resorting to injurious drinking behavior to solve their difficulties.