Alcohol and Teenagers
23/08/2011
Young people have the most impressionable brains so can easily fall victims to many misguided and false beliefs. One such notion is the assertion that drinking alcohol will make their lives more exciting.
Popular culture has promoted the idea that maturity is only achieved if a young person can consume a large amount of alcohol without being sick or falling unconscious. As a result, many teenagers do not even think about the dangers of alcohol consumption. Most teenage parties are entirely based around and run by alcohol. Binge drinking is the encouraged policy and most teenagers are determined that no one break that rule. If one of their number should happen to suggest that they stop drinking, the reaction of the majority of the rest of the group is likely to be extreme aggressive-defensiveness and alienation of the questioning individual.
Binge drinking is the term used to refer to heavy drinking done in just one day. Most countries’ health departments say that heavy drinking means the intake of more than five drinks, successively. Alcohol is readily accessible in most places so this is not a difficult feat.
The numbers of teenagers that binge drink is increasing rapidly by tens of thousands each day. Thanks to the increasing peer pressures of popular culture and the implied need to "grow up" more quickly, a significant proportion of these numbers are contributed by people who are under the legal drinking age in their area.
Teenagers have a variety of reasons for drinking. Some are just curious and excited to see how beer or wine tastes. Then there are some who, fed up with the complications of their family lives, have decided to take out their frustrations on the world, and to heck with the consequences. And then we have the ones who want to feel more sophisticated, thus the fake ids. But whatever the reason or however valid it may sound, all of them would fall on alcohol’s deaf ears.
Binge drinking teenagers need to be made aware that when they party too hard, they will not only subject themselves to a brutal hangover the next day but also start a dangerous and destructive process. Drinking alcohol will slow down a person’s rational tendencies and often prompts foolish and immediately regrettable decisions. A teenager’s developing organs may not have the chance to fully develop since alcohol will poison them early and put a stop to all functions. A life is bound to be at stake. It may not be the teenager’s own, but when it comes to drinking, one’s life is always on the line.
