Underage Drinking

Alcohol consumption by young adults leads to increased risk of accidental and violent injury. When teens early exposure to the behavioral pattern of alcohol consumption of parents of family history of alcohol problems, this will cause to increase the risk of behavioral drinking in adolescence. For instance, young people who exposure to physical and sexual abuse during childhood, consequently they turn later to drinking behavior as a solution to their trauma. Moreover, a heavy and binge drinking by young people can be a mechanism for coping with stress or anxiety. This will lead to engage in fights in public and at the school. Besides, alcohol is

“According to the CDC, about 90% of all teen alcohol consumption occurs in the form of Binge Drinking, which experts say peaks at the age of nineteen.” (qtd by Listfield). Binge Drinking is the consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol in a short period of time. The author, Emily Listfield, defines that the standard alcohol consumption over a two hour period is considered to be four beers for women and five beers for men. This has become a great distraction for college students nationwide and a major dilemma on college campuses. Nearly two hundred thousand students visit emergency rooms each year due to the abuse of alcohol, and more than one thousand seven hundred students die. In the article “ The Underage Drinking Epidemic”, Listfield identifies the problems that underage drinking can cause, the dangers that could happen, and four solutions on what parents can do to keep their kids from binge drinking.

Is the media’s portrayal of adolescent drinking accurate? Yes, it is. To many individuals, Alcohol is only a drink, but it is a lot more than that, it's an addictive drug. 60% of young adults have tried alcohol earlier than the age of 14, and the numbers of under aged drinkers is rising. Adolescents begin drinking for a lot of reasons - given that they are bored, due to peer pressure, and quite simply because there is nothing else to do. The national Drug research Institute observed females aged 14 to 17 have been worse abusers of alcohol than 18 to 24-year old guys. In other records, it suggests that eighty percent of under 18-year-olds drink, 50 percentage binge drink. Also around 10 percent of 12 year olds drink.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Many young people are facing the consequences of excessive drinking, at a too early age. Because of this issue, underage drinking is a leading public health problem. Each year, approximately 5,000 young people under the age of 21 die as a result of underage drinking including about 1,900 deaths from motor vehicle crashes, 1,600 as a result of homicides, 300 from suicide, as well as hundreds from other injuries such as falls, burns, and drownings (1–5).

drinkers," or people who have had more than four drinks in a row. Also, alcohol

     One of the biggest problems in our society is under age drinking. They tell us how we aren’t allowed to drink, that we aren’t old enough or mature enough to do it, but the more adults talk about it, the more teenagers want to do it. When a kid goes off to college, it’s

However, there’s more than enough facts to prove that statistically, underage drinking is a growing problem among us. Adolescents drink less frequently than adults, but in opposition, youths also consume larger amounts at a time. There are several different consequences resulting from drinking alcohol while underage, and social, neurological, and health repercussions are just three out of numerous effects. The hazards of underage drinking can only grow from here if there aren’t more steps taken to take control of the

In 2008, a National Institutes of Health Survey counted a total of 1.3 million children from the ages of twelve to seventeen that have experienced alcohol abuse just within the last year, and a total of 2.3 million young adults from the ages of twelve to twenty who have drunk five or more times within a single occasion. “At age twelve, 11 percent of boys and 9 percent of girls have commenced drinking, and 1 percent of them are classified as binge and heavy users. By age fourteen, the numbers are 31 and 33 percent use, respectively, and 6 percent of them are binge and heavy users. At age eighteen years, 73 percent have commenced drinking, 42 percent have used alcohol in the past month, and 39 percent are heavy users,” (Sherwood, 2012, p.1). However, the most common group in which abuses the use of alcohol is the college age. In 2007 alone, over 1800 college students were killed due to alcohol-related accidents, along

Some underage students feel the need to involve alcoholic beverages in their social gathering because of social media’s portrayal of party’s, peer pressure and other reasons. Little do they consider the problem of underage drinking, especially on college campuses or fraternity and sorority homes. First of all, students drinking underage are violating the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, which declared that only individuals over the age of 21 were legally allowed to consume alcohol. In Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality, by Elizabeth A. Armstrong and Laura T. Hamilton, their research depicts that at Midwest University, “The alcohol-fueled underage party scene on campus is mostly located in fraternities” (52).

Drinking alcohol when you're a teen develops brain problems, your brain is developing until your in your twenties. Alcohol affects the brain development which causes many problems (Underage Drinking). Teenagers happen to be more vulnerable to becoming addicted to alcohol because of the pleasure center in the brain. Drinking relaxes you and releases endorphins throughout the body causing teens to easily get addicted. Drinking alcohol causes you to make poor decisions which results in risky behavior. For example, Alcohol increases the risks for physical and sexual assault. Drinking puts you more at a risk to be a victim of assault or even commit it. Alcohol doesn't just make the risks for assault increase, it also ruins your life. Alcohol ruins relationships between people who care about you. “I have destroyed two relationships because I hurt them so much through my drinking, but I put drinking first. My family are so hurt that their daughter's killing herself for apparently no reason” (The Truth about Alcohol). Jamie use to be a teenage alcoholic, she said that alcohol wasn't just ruining her life, it was ruining her family’s life too. Making poor decisions doesn't just affect the person who is drinking but it eventually affects their family and the people around them. Jamie knew that her family was hurt by the choices she was making, she still continued to drink, she was addicted and

Alcoholism is a growing problem in the United States. It can, and oftentimes does, result in illnesses and deaths. “Alcohol is the world’s third largest risk factor for disease and contributes to 4 [percent] of the global burden of disease” (Marshall, 2014). In relation to alcoholism, specifically adolescent alcoholism is a growing concern in the United States. The age at which young people are starting to experiment with alcohol is younger than ever. Dr. Don Macdonald explains that this may most likely be due to the fact that it is legal for the majority of the population. Therefore, adolescents are able to access and get a hold of alcohol more easily than they can other drugs – such as marijuana, heroin, cocaine, etc.

Excessive drinking can lead to teenage alcoholism. People who begin drinking at the age of 15 are four-times more likely to develop alcoholism than those who start drinking at the age of 21. Most teens take their first drinks at the age of 13. Alcoholism begins by first tasting, then social drinking, next abusive drinking, and last becoming a problem drinker or alcoholic. Most teenagers do not know why they drink but most do anyway. Peer pressure has a lot to do with teen drinking because sometimes it’s hard to say no when your around friends.

What people under twenty-one refuse to understand is that binge drinking can be unquestionably serious. To teens, binge drinking can be ¨cool¨ and for some kids, in order to consume more alcohol, they play drinking games to give them a reason to drink more. At the time these young adultś did not realize what they are actually doing to their bodieś. Researchers will tell you that drinking heavily like this is dangerous to adults, but even more harmful toward teen bodies. Your brain doesn't start to fully develop until you are at least twenty-one so when you take in large amounts of alcohol, over time you can stop your brain from maturing. ( Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD))

Every teenager believes that drinking is ‘cool’. It is what the celebrities do and the glass that the drinks come in look so cute when you hold them in certain ways. So in order to be the image they have in their head they learn how to work the system. We may not be able to legally buy the alcoholic drinks we ‘need

Teenagers are not the brightest human beings. Teenagers are going through changes, different emotions, and hormones that they don’t necessarily know how to deal with. Many teens use alcohol and other bad things to cope with these issues. They are ignorant about the use of it and they think they are “so bad” when they do it. In both of the stories, “An Ounce of Cure” by Alice Munro and “Greasy Lake” by T.C. Boyle, the main characters are teenagers whose ignorance gets them in trouble. In both stories, the main theme is that the teenagers are confused about their identity and how to cope with stressors in their life, which leads them to abusing alcohol and getting in major trouble.