Literature Review
Factors Influencing Increased Drinking Problems in Adolescents It is obvious that alcohol is a popular substance among the youth age group. It is seen as fun, exhilarating and common in the midst of social gatherings. Underage drinking is seen all throughout society; movies, television shows, magazines, the internet...take a look outside on the weekends. It is a question among some adults as to why teenagers see the need to drink alcohol, so heavily for that fact, at such a young age when they have so many other options out there. Can one really understand the mind of an adolescent and figure out what causes them to illegally drink? What are the factors that influence them? Why are there so many alcohol problems? The brains of underage youth are more susceptible to damage from alcohol than an adult’s brain. An article called Cities, counties, and universities look for ways to prevent underage drinking goes into detail about the damages and effects of drinking alcohol at a young age. “Compared to people who wait until they’re twenty one years old to begin drinking alcohol, people that drink earlier are more likely to get unintentionally injured while under the influence” (Public Management, 2008). Harmful drinking increases the risk of chronic health conditions such as heart disease, liver disease, and cancer. There are about 65, 000 deaths per year that are due to drinking. Efforts made to prevent and treat adolescent drinking can likely have an enormous impact on public health later in the future. As children move from adolescence to young adulthood, they encounter dramatic, physical, emotional, and lifestyle changes. Developmental transitions, such as puberty and increasing independence, have been associated with alcohol use. So in a sense, just being an adolescent may be a key risk factor not only for starting to drink but also for drinking dangerously (Hingson, 2008). Also, an author of an article that looked at binge drinking and the harm from late adolescence to early adulthood, Dimitri A. Christakis said: “Alcohol disorders are among the three most common psychiatric disorders... (2004)”. Studies showed that a quarter of 14, 127, 266 youths that binge drank had alcoholic parents. Binge drinking is usually considered to be 5-6 drinks in one occasion. This being said, the emotional and dramatic lifestyles these people had faced (due to being raised by alcoholic parents/guardians) can very much be a cause. An incident such a perhaps the death of a loved one or a tragic event that occurred (bullying, sexual abuse, etc) can have a serious impact on ones drinking habits. This leads to alcohol dependency. The diagnosis of this is; tolerance, withdrawal, persistent desire, spending most time drinking and recovering, giving up activities (social, occupational), impaired control and lastly continuing to drink despite any problems that may have been caused by alcohol (Heeren, 2011). If one drinks at an early age, they’re more likely to be heavy drinkers according to the analyses of NLAES (a national probability survey sponsored by the National Institution of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism). Timothy Heeren, author of the article Age of Drinking and