Alcohol Effect on Teenagers Health Research Paper

Introduction

Teenage binge drinking (TBD) seems to have become a major concern for the American society. According to the statistical data, 16% of the U.S. teenagers have tried binge drinking, and 12% still do it on a regular basis (Mares, van der Vorst, Engels & Lichtwarck-Aschoff, 2011). A range of dangerous myths and stereotypes concerning the safety of TBD is quite popular among teenagers; as a result, TBD not only persists, but also gains increasingly more popularity among its audience.

Definition

One of the most notable things about the phenomenon concerns the fact that there is no single definition for the phenomenon. Most sources claim that binge drinking occurs among teenagers and that the term cannot be attributed to people over nineteen (Mares, van der Vorst, Engels & Lichtwarck-Aschoff, 2011). However, when it comes to specifying what binge drinking actually involves, a range of contradictory facts emerge. For example, certain sources define binge drinking as a consumption of a specific amount of liquor in one session (e.g., more than four, five or six drinks) (Main, 2009). Other sources declare that binge drinking is a phenomenon during which the process of drinking becomes unintentional and, therefore, impossible to control (Main, 2009).

Thesis

Despite the fact that teenage binge drinking leads to a range of serious consequences and is bound to trigger major health issues for drinking teenagers, the issue is often overlooked compared to other problems concerning teenage drinking; as a result, TBD is never addressed properly and has drastic consequences on young adults. In order to solve the problem, the attitude towards TBD must be overlooked and a comprehensive health education strategy based on raising awareness, intensifying family support and developing proper stress coping mechanisms must be provided.

Factors: What Induced TBD

The major problem with TBD is that there seems to be an entire mythology grown around it; some of the suppositions are admittedly true, yet most of the myths surrounding the subject are completely false, hindering people from developing an efficient strategy to fight the disease. For a health educator, it is crucial to realize that teenagers are prone to developing impressive resistance when it comes to addressing their binge drinking issue.

It is a common idea that the lack of awareness concerning the effects of binge drinking is what makes teenagers grow addicted to liquor. Such an assumption, however, is far from being true. Instead, teenagers do not seem to realize the seriousness of the consequences. Hence, the awareness strategy must be aimed at proving the point instead of repeating the ideas that the patients have heard a million times before.

Perhaps, one of the most dangerous myths about TBD concerns the easiness, with which people supposedly get rid of it. According to the latest questionnaires and opinion polls, a number of young people, who indulge in binge drinking, assume that they will be able to quit whenever they want (Main, 2009). However, as further researches display, very few of such young people actually want to cease drinking; more to the point, most of them are doomed to increasing the daily amount of consumed alcohol to the point where they become addicted to it (Main, 2009). In addition, a range of adults assume that teenagers will inevitably start drinking because of the “growing pains” and their rebelliousness (Main, 2009).

While the common myths created by the adults, which allows the latter to shut eyes to the fact that TBD exists, the myths spawned and supported by teenagers are much more dangerous, since these myths are especially hard to prove wrong – not because of their fallacies, but because of the unwillingness of young people to accept the truth. One of such myths is that TBD is not the “actual” drinking and that a teenager, who drinks only occasionally, though in quite heavy doses, is not subjected to developing a binge drinking issue (Main, 2009).

Apart from the misconceptions regarding the understanding of teenagers’ motivations for drinking and, therefore, underestimating the problem, people often fail to recognize alcohol dependency as a medical issue, because alcohol itself is rarely viewed as a drug. Indeed, as the recent research results show, 32% of adults consider alcohol consumption as something entirely out of the ordinary and do not see its regular use as a reason for concern (Mares, van der Vorst, Engels & Lichtwarck-Aschoff, 2011).

Alcohol, especially light liquor, is often viewed as an element of recreation; using alcohol drinks in order to experience relaxation, adults do not prevent teenagers from doing the same thing. Teenagers, in their turn, interpret such a response as an approval for continuing alcohol consumption and, in their turn, increase the amount of beverages consumed or the amount of times that they drink alcohol per day.

Unlike the previous issues, however, this one is by far the most dangerous myth affecting teenage binge drinking. In contrast to the previous ones, it affects the way in which a teenager will shape their attitude towards drinking in the future. As a result, the idea of using alcoholic beverages as a tool for relaxation is most likely to result in developing a serious drinking issue in adulthood (Mares, van der Vorst, Engels & Lichtwarck-Aschoff, 2011).

Consequences of TBD: Evaluating the Threat

As it has been stressed above, a range of people assume that TBD does not have any tangible effects on one’s adult life. Unfortunately, researches have shown that this is far from being true. Apart from the obvious dependency on liquor as the key method of recreation, people, who used to indulge in TBD, are most likely to develop a range of disorders at a relatively young age. Among the most common ones, kidney failure (Steele, Belostotsky & Lau, 2012), alcohol induced liver disease (Herring, Berridge & Thom, 2008) and even mental health disorders (Squeglia et al., 2012) are listed.

It should be noted that most of these issues remain dormant up until the age of thirty, when the effects of TBD finally take their toll and trigger malfunction of a range of organs of human body. Indeed, according to the results of the study carried out by Squeglia et al. (2012), TBD does affect people’s capacity to carry out the basic logical tasks as they grow up, even though there are considerable differences in the results for male and female TBD: as the researchers state, “females who develop heavy drinking patterns are more likely to have neural abnormalities that predate substance involvement” (Squeglia et al., 2012, p. 536), whereas male teenage binge drinkers are more apt to developing substantial attention issues, which are especially noticeable in the male teenage binge drinkers, who have thicker cortices (Squeglia et al., 2012, p. 536).

Therefore, TBD is harmful in not only that it contributes to developing liver and kidney issues in young adults, but also in that TBD suppresses the brain functions of the human body, leading to major cognitive and memory issues in early adulthood.

Solutions: Designing the Appropriate Strategy for Health Education

In order to address the issue efficiently, busting the myths will not be enough; while being an admittedly important step to take, this can be counted only as the first part of a major process for the TBD threat prevention. Apart from disclosing the truth to teenagers and their parents, it will be required to provide both with the information on binge drinking and its prevention: “A multifaceted approach, including a full range of prevention and intervention components, is required to safeguard the health of students from the effects of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs” (Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials Commission, 2009, p. 59). The key to efficient intervention is not to use a big scare tactics, but to report the key facts honestly, at the same time providing parents and their children with efficient strategies for binge drinking prevention, including the means to get rid of such factors as peer pressure, emotional distress, etc.

Health education as the key: strategies

When it comes to defining the means to enhance TBD awareness among both parents and their children, the issue of health education should be brought up. It must be kept in mind that, for young people in 9^th–12^th grades, the message must not be too on-the-nose; otherwise, it will not perform its key purpose. Hence, the following steps must be considered as the possible program for a course in health education on the TBD issue among nine-and twelve-graders:

Step one: Awareness campaigns.

As it has been stressed above, a range of myths concerning TBD is cycling among teenagers, thus, making the latter assume that TBD should not be a major concern. As it has been proven, this assumption is not only wrong, but also very dangerous, since it encourages teenagers to indulge in binge drinking and, therefore, leads to the development of early symptoms of alcoholic dependency in young adults.

Once the mechanism is launched, alcoholic dependency starts developing. Since a range of specialists claim that alcoholic dependency cannot be cured and can only go into the remission stage, the issue of TBD can be considered a major threat to both the health and the social life of young adults (California Department of Education, 2009).

Therefore, massive awareness campaigns regarding the threats of TBD must be launched, and discussions of the issue of TBD must be included into the curriculum of public schools. Teenagers have the right to know what is going to happen to them once they engage in TBD, and the school must provide this information to them.

Step two: Family support

No matter how hard teenagers might try to make their peers consider them fully independent, they, in fact, are linked to their family members very closely in terms of emotions and communication. Therefore, it is imperative that teenagers’ family members should provide sufficient support for their children and engage into the process of raising teenagers’ awareness.

It is crucial, though, that the family members should not be overbearing or overprotective; according to the DSM-V, overbearing is fraught with a range of serious consequences, starting from young people getting out of control and up to teenagers developing neuroses and other related disorders. In fact, the DSM-V manual suggests a very adequate method for parents to address or prevent the situation of teenage binge drinking:

Adaptive functioning is assessed using both clinical evaluation and individualized, culturally appropriate, psychometrically sound measures. Standardized measures are used with knowledgeable informants (e.g., parent or other family member; teacher; counselor; care provider) and the individual to the extent possible. (American Psychiatric Association, 2010, p. 37)

Apart from designing an efficient method of addressing the problem, the family members must also reconsider their own attitude towards alcohol consumption. Even though teenage binge drinking is often associated with college life when most students remain away from their parents, the latter may expand their influence to reach their child even if a teenager lives away. The parents, who have drinking issues themselves, on the other hand, have very little effect on their children; more importantly, with an example of drinking parents, a teenager is highly unlikely to quit binge drinking, as the American Psychiatric Association (2010) claims.

Therefore, it would be an appropriate step to start with defining the possible issues with alcohol consumption among the family members. It is imperative that a teenager should have a positive role model to relate to. It is only with the help of supportive parents, who either do not have or have got rid of alcoholic dependency that a positive environment for a teenager to quit binge drinking can be created.

Step three: Self-actualization

The third step can be interpreted as the reinforcement of the stages that have been listed above. It should be kept in mind that the complete remission and the following transfer from one lifestyle to another will require that a teenager should cope with a lot of stress. It is obvious that a person, who used to indulge in binge drinking, is going to experience much stress when abandoning the habit, which used to bring so much delight into their life. As a result, an efficient stress coping mechanism will have to be developed so that the patient should not experience chronic stress (Hahn, Payne & Lucas, 2010, p. 81).

Among the key suggestions for developing the proper coping mechanisms, the enhancement of self-actualization (Hahn, Payne & Lucas, 2010, p. 32) must be mentioned. The patient must reconsider their values and get their priorities straight, therefore, realizing that binge drinking only prevents them from reaching their goals; more to the point, TBD erases the progress made and deprives one of personality completely.

As soon as the process of self-actualization starts, the communication process with the family members must be enhanced; thus, the patient will be able to retain their psychological health. It is especially important that the emphasis should be made on the nonverbal elements of communication (Hahn, Payne & Lucas, 2010, p. 33)

Conclusion

Teenage binge drinking is a major problem for not only the United States, but also for a range of states all over the world. Because of a range of myths surrounding TBD, not only teenagers, but also a range of adults tend to treat the issue rather lightly. However, TBD poses a serious threat to young people, leading to major issues in the adult life; as a result, a comprehensive health education strategy must be provided to raise awareness among both teenagers and adults.

In order to prevent and address the issue, such a stress-coping mechanism as self-actualization of the patient can be suggested. As long as the patient has the support of the family and is provided with the information regarding the TBD, they are most likely to be safe from TBD and its consequences.

Reference List

American Psychiatric Association. (2010). DSM-V. New York, NY: American Psychiatric Association. Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials Commission.

California Department of Education. (2009). Health framework for California public schools. Sacramento, CA: California Department of Education.

Hahn, D. B., Payne, W. A. & Lucas, E. B. (2010). Understanding your health. 11th ed. New York City, NY: McGraw Hill.

Herring, R., Berridge, V. & Thom, B. (2008). Binge drinking: an exploration of a confused concept. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 62(6), 476-479. Retrieved from JSTOR.

Main, C. T. (2009). Underage drinking and the drinking age. Policy Review, 155(1), p. 33. Retrieved from ProQuest.

Mares, S. H. W., van der Vorst, H., Engels, R. C. M. E. & Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A. (2011). Parental alcohol use, alcohol-related problems, and alcohol-specific attitudes, alcohol-specific communication, and adolescent excessive alcohol use and alcohol-related problems: An indirect path model. Addictive Behaviors, 36(3), 209–216. Retrieved from ScienceDirect.

Squeglia, L. M., Sorg, S. F., Schweinsburg, A. D., Wetherill, R. R., Pulido, C. & Tapert, S. F. (2012). Binge drinking differentially affects adolescent male and female brain morphometry. Psychopharmacology, 220(3), 529–539. Retrieved from ResearchGate.

Steele, M. R., Belostotsky, B. & Lau, K. K. (2012). The dangers of substance abuse in adolescents with chronic kidney disease: A review of the literature. CANNT Journal, 22(1), 15–24. Retrieved from ProQuest.