How Underage Drinking is Affecting Teenagers in Today's Society. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism about 4,300 people under the age of 21 died annually from injuries involving underage drinking (Negative Consequences of Underage Drinking). The amount of underage drinkers in today's society is much higher than 10 years ago and is becoming an epidemic.Drinking at an early age can affects teenagers in many ways including, brain damage, high blood pressure, cancer, and motor vehicle accidents. How alcohol affects the brains of underage drinkers. Many teenagers who drink at an early age are most likely to damage their brain because it is still developing and is vulnerable to becoming affected by alcohol use. …show more content…
Preventing this type of problem is very challenging because the legal drinking age is age 21 and teenagers still seek ways to get alcohol. There are numerous ways that alcohol consumption can be lower or stopped among teenagers including, environmental intervention, parents intervention, and school-based intervention. Environment intervention include raising the price of alcohol and keeping the minimum drinking age at 21 and also have a zero tolerance law for teenage drivers under the age of 21. Parents or family intervention includes, parents having conversations with their kids and telling them about the dangers of underage drinking and enforcing rules that will stop their kids from consuming alcohol at an early age. School-based intervention are programs that are created in schools to educate and motivates teenagers to stay away from alcohol. Even though these are ways to prevent underage drinking, the main prevention is parents. Parents are the ones that their kids listen to a lot. They need to have this conversion everyday with their kids because once alcohol damage their kids, they are dangerous for life. Many teenagers may think that their parents do not love them or want them to have fun, but the parents are the ones who have control over their kids, your kids are not supposed to control you. Parents should not allow their kids to party at night because that is when most of the underage drinking happen. Every parents want the best from their kids, but do you want your kid to die young, or live
The article “Adolescent Brain Development and Underage Drinking in the United States: Identifying Risks of Alcohol Use in College Populations” written by Marisa Silveri, PhD, aims to emphasize the the negative behavioral consequences with underage alcohol use. Silveri is a highly decorated professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who has been studying the neurobiology of brain development and consequences of alcohol and drug abuse using preclinical and clinical models for two decades. Her substantial background in psychology and neurobiology make her a highly credible source, and improves the author’s chance of making the point really stick. The article is easy to follow, and split up in subcategories that each cover a specific point the author is trying to make. Professor Silveri, with great credibility, uses logic and also emotional appeal to effectively convince the reader that alcohol use affects the brain negatively, and the importance to discourage the excessive consumption of alcohol by adolescents.
According to Center for Disease Control and Protection, about 4,700 people under age twenty one die from injuries involving underage drinking every year. Illegal alcohol consumption has been a major problem with high school students around the nation. Lowering the drinking age from twenty one would result in major consequences for America’s adolescents. By lowering the drinking age, alcohol would be more accessible to those who choose to participate in underage drinking. The desire to drink for teens and young adults between the ages of fourteen and twenty can be caused by peer pressure or an act of rebellion. One beer might not seem like a big deal at the time, but it could lead to a life of addiction and alcoholism.
Teenage drinking is something that goes on every day. No matter how many videos you show to kids about drinking they will still drink. Surveys show that the average teen seventeen and up spends $475.00 a year on liquor, mostly beer; that's more than books, soda, coffee, juice and milk combined. Most parents don't know about teenage drinking unless they catch their kids doing it. Parents usually say "oh, my my kid would never do that ", and they're the ones whose kids probably drink more that the average teen. One might ask, how do kids get alcohol? Alcohol is almost as easy to get as a carton of milk, except a teen has to get someone older like a friend, brother or even someone off of the street to purchase it. Another way underage teens get alcohol is a fake I.D. A lot of stores don't care, they just need to ask for an I.D. because they are being watched by security cameras. No matter what city your are in, one in every five stores will sell beer to a minor. If stores stop selling to minors they would lose a lot of business. Looking at the surveys I took at Lincoln on this topic it can been seen what teens think about teenage drinking. The results were shocking! The first Question I asked was "Have you ever drank alcohol?" Of the students surveyed, 16% said no and 84% said yes. The second question was, "How often do you drink?"
Nowadays, the practice of alcohol without permission in teenager is increasing especially among the age of 18-21 years old. Allowing teenagers drink when they are eighteen years old instead of twenty- one is the issue that was considered by the parents, adult, and the government. Most of them are worried that not letting teens drink may lead to the worse situations such as using drugs and other dopes. Some others said that letting teens drinking will reduce the amount of illegal drinking. For example, in my neighborhood, the young people often gather a crowd together to talk and drink when they have a free time or celebrating when they have a good news. In addition, one of them couldn’t control themselves and led
Underage drinking has many physical effects that will stay with you for the rest of your life. One of the physical effects is brain damage. According to the American Medical Association, even consuming small amounts of alcohol can result in severe brain damage. Underage drinking can cause damage to your central nervous system, which is what sends messages from your brain to the rest of your body
There has been an ongoing controversy in the United States on whether the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen like most of the world or if it should stay at twenty-one. Underage drinking has been a major controversial issue for years, yet why is it not under control? Teenagers are continuing to buy alcohol with fake identification cards, drink, get into bars, and drink illegally. As a teen, I have proof that these things are going on not only in college but in high school as well. There are a lot of factors that come together to why the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen; the most obvious reason is that too many people are drinking before they are twenty-one.
Lowering the drinking age to under 21 can cause young adults to be medically irresponsible. For example, young adults under 21 years old can violate properties or other valuable items that might cause them penalties because of underage drinking law. People at any age who has had alcohol and other drug problems often diagnosed with severe treatments and discrimination (Youth Facts). Youth Facts claims that people at any age have been determined with some type of treatment when they were overdosed with alcohol. In addition, drinking under the age of 21 can severely cause major health problems among themselves and to others.
These consequences include homicide, physical violence, sexual assault, and suicide. Based on the statistical facts, every year almost 700,000 college students are assaulted by other drunk schoolmates, more than 70,000 students between 18 to 24 are victims of sexual assaulted related to alcohol, and nearly 300 alcohol-connected teenager suicides happen in the whole states. Young people are usually lack of self-control and careful conscious, that’s why they can be more dangerous when they get drunk and cause many serious consequences to the whole society.
There are an estimated 3.3 million teen-age alcoholics in the United States. Adolescents who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcoholism than those who begin drinking at age 21. Youth who drink alcohol are five times more likely to smoke cigarettes, four times more likely to smoke marijuana, and three times more likely to use an illicit drug. Teens that use alcohol tend to become sexually active at earlier ages. Teens who use alcohol are more likely to be victims of violent crimes such as aggravated assault, robbery or rape.
Hanson, David J., Ph.D. “Drinking Alcohol Damages Teenager’s Brains.” Sociology Deprtment. n.d.. Web. 20 March 2014. .
...ately lose their lives. Many underage drinkers have been disappearing without being noticed by society. Males in their early teen years that turn to alcohol to feel empowered, often turn into full-blown alcoholics by the time they are 21—those that make it to 21—have an extremely hard time rejoining the sober population around them. The false sense of security, self-confidence, and maturity they once felt while being inebriated did not prepare them for what came after the life of crime and violence they chose to live. For those that are still under the spell of alcohol-making companies, and that are still living in the dark, thinking that that is the way of living may never get the wake up call. Many of underage drinkers will continue to increase the already large number of deaths involving alcohol; after all, they will only be a number on chart—a statistic a board.
If a child drinks alcohol they will most likely have problems in study habits and may be difficult for them to move onto adulthood. Some may have problems with their memory and can also have nightmares, cancer of the pancreas or may have heart related problems
Many teens think it is cool to drink so they can fit in, some even are pressured to drink and some even drive after drinking which causes more deaths and problems between a family. Teens often do not understand the effects of alcohol on the body and many people do not know how drinking occasionally has a good effect on the body. I truly believe that these problems will still continue as long as our society continues to look at drinking as a solution to their problems with little side effects or as an independent activity and it not being categorized as a drug. We must make an impact to change the attitudes and behavior patterns not only of teens, but the entire society.
To make the lower drinking age work, we will need the help of the parents, the teachers and every role model possible. We need to teach the younger generations the disadvantages of drinking regularly, but we must not prohibit it. We should not embrace it, but not take it away. We must teach the young adult/teen how to deal with the “forbidden fruit”. Teach them how to take a sufficient amount that will not hurt them or others. It is time to approach this situation in a different manner, not to prohibit it, and not to pretend that it is not happening. But by making the safest environment possible for this to be taken care of appropriately, will help significantly. It’s time to try to improve our life quality by equally being able to enjoy what life has to offer.
As the current legal drinking age remains to be 21, adolescents today are increasingly drinking large amounts of alcohol behind the backs of others. Along with this being illegal, alcohol-related dangers within our youth like dependency, disease, and irresponsible behaviors are problems that many are finding ways to prevent by increasing awareness; some people have even suggested that raising the drinking age would be the ultimate solution. However, is the constant routine of warning adolescents and preventing them from drinking really working? Based on the vast number of anti-alcohol programs in schools and existing laws forbidding the use of underaged drinking, today, there are still increasing reports. Instead of repeatedly preventing our