Teenage Drinking

Ever wonder why any kid would want to start up a habit of drinking alcohol, especially at such a young age. Well in this essay I will be talking about that. I will talk about the consequences of drinking and also why kids choose to drink. Also I will tell you some things that should help you parents out on keeping you kid away from alcohol and other addictive product, such as drugs and cigarettes. This essay will hopefully open some of your minds up, especially you narrow minded parents. Parents don’t seem to understand kids and the pressures we have. Some think they do understand, and that they went through it too. Granted, parents probably did go through stress and pressures when they were our age, but they are very different types of pressure. Maybe theirs were worse but who is to say that. Who is to judge which is worse when no one has lived through both as a teenager? So instead of arguing about it, I hope just to open your mind up to the possibility that the pressure today are different than  they were when you were a kid, maybe even worse.

Why do kids like to drink? Now that is a tough question, but most kids follow under the same two categories. The first category is stress. Some teens think that drinking is a way of getting rid of that stress, when really it is just creating more. Now parents think teenagers don’t have that much stress, but they don’t see that we really do. It’s very different for each teen, but keeping your grades up, keeping up in basketball practice, making sure your on time for work after school, it builds up a whole lot of stress. Some teens think that by drinking and getting drunk that it just takes that stress away, and it actually does for the night, but its still there the next day. And when you drink, you’re also adding to that level of stress. But we are teenagers; we don’t like to think at all actually. And when you have been drinking, you don’t have to think, or at least you think you don’t have to think. Anyways, the teenagers that do drink to get away from all the stress that the only way to stop it is to drink They get so stressed out about college recruiting that they forget all about their morals and limitations. Some find out the hard way that drinking and do any other kind of drug really jeopardizes their shot at making it in college. They start to get addicted to it and start to lose that motivation and talent that they need to make it.

Now the other reason is peer pressure. Peer pressure these days is getting to be a real issue. Some adults can’t see that though. They are too busy thinking “well my kid is different, I have taught them that it doesn’t matter what others think of them” to even see that most kids feel very alone and depressed in their early teen years. To us, it does matter what others think. We go to school with these people and many kids can and will make your life miserable if you aren’t just like them. Outside and inside. We have all seen the family sitcoms where the kid gets pressured into drinking by the “cool” kids. Now I won’t lie and say it’s always like that because it’s really not. Most of the time, our friends are what get us into it. Not the “cool” kids but our best friends. And since they are our best friends, we can’t say not to them, because then we would have no friends. Drinking is the “cool” thing to do. No, drinking is “the” thing to do. If you don’t, you’re lost. Now all of these things probably sound incredibly dumb and ridiculous but these things do come across the minds of teens, probably more than you would think. When we drink, we feel confident, and for those of us who are very insecure, that’s a great way to feel, so we drink more, and more, and more. Until we’re so drunk we can’t walk straight. For some strange reason, we think that if we drink more, we will feel even better. But really, once you hit that level of intoxication, it doesn’t go much farther than that. Only, in our minds, it does. We always think we can get more drunk and more crazy, but in reality, it doesn’t work that way. Peer pressure is big deal in a teenager’s life, and it’s kind of like a test of will. And parents usually are upset when their kids fails that test and gives into the peer pressure. But I just want to say that many kids do not pass that test. Most fail, but then learn from their mistakes sand learn to say no to it. And that is just as good as saying no the first time.

Now I know there are other reasons for teenage drinking, but those are the main two. Now I would like to talk about all the consequences I have found for teenage drinking, or adult drinking for that matter. After doing research I found this information: “A new study by the National Institution on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a component of the NIH, found people who began drinking before they turned 15 were four times more likely to develop alcoholism than those who started drinking at the legal age of 21.” Now for me…the only time I ever heard of alcoholism in health class and I always thought that alcoholism is much further down the road and I’m not going to drink forever. But I was kidding myself. I figured out that if I kept drinking now, I could easily get addicted and could eventually become an alcoholic. The crazy thing is alcohol can kill you just by itself, but it is also a factor in the four leading causes of death among persons ages ten to twenty-four: motor-vehicle crashes, unintentional injuries, homicide, and suicide. So by drinking, you are increasing your chances of ending lives, even your own. Alcohol can not only damage your health and well-being, it can also damage your mind. Alcohol has been known to cause many disorders such as: conduct disorders, you are risking your life and others. And these problems are not just for teenagers and kids….these disorders and problems can affect adults too, alcohol has no age limit, it goes after everyone who drinks. If you have ever drank in your life so much to where you got sick, which I know most adults have at least once, and maybe even gotten away with it, then you know that you learn your lesson real quick, you learn that drinking does make you sick and you rally don’t want to feel sick so no more drinking. That’s the way it was for me anyway. But whether you’re 13 or 29, it doesn’t matter what alcohol.

Other than help problems, alcohol can also lead to illegal problems, especially to minors. Now the legal age for drinking alcohol is 21, but even for those of your 21, you can be arrested on the spot. Driving drunk is not only stupid, and very dangerous, it is also illegal. Let’s say if you are out driving and just a little drunk and hit a pedestrian crossing the street, you can go to jail for up to fifty-five years for manslaughter. When you are a teenager, the law is very different for you. It is against the law for anyone under the age of twenty-one to be drinking or having an open container in their car while they are driving. If you do get caught with an open container they can arrest you for minor in possession (MIP) or Driving Under the Influence (DUI), both in which can get your drivers license revoked or suspended. Where I’m living, it’s not that bad. They understand teenagers make mistakes and they want to make sure we just learn from them. So they have this First Time Offenders Program, where if it is your first offense then they won’t put it on your record if you complete the program. The program consists of different kinds of classes, depending on why you had been arrested, there is also a pretty hefty fine, which if you do complete the program, you get some back. The minor also has to be on probation for four months, probation includes a pretty strict curfew of eight o’clock from Sunday night to Thursday night, and nine o’clock for Friday night and Saturday night. And for most teens that would really bother me, I know it bothers me but when you make a big mistake like breaking the law, you have to take responsibility for your actions. The law is a very tricky thing. Parents really want you to follow the law but in reality, most parents break the law once a day. Whether that is speeding one mile over the limit, or illegally turning. Parents love to be hypocrites, what they don’t get though is that, they think that by being so strict on us now, that we won’t make as many mistakes while we’re young so we can learn from them before we become an adult.

The next type of consequence I want to talk about when it comes to drinking, possibly being an alcoholic, is your family. Now that sounds like it wouldn’t be a consequence, but it is. See your family loves you, cares for you, and only wants what is best for you. When you drink, you start to lose control of your life, and your family will be there for you for the most part. But if you drink too much, they start to give up on you. They are hurting because you are hurting yourself, and you can not even see that. We have all seen the after school shows, where the drunken dad hits the wife or kids and finally really cares. They cared enough to stay with you and work through it until they couldn’t take anymore. Now really, the wife and kid were stupid to stay as long as they did, because drunk or not, you should never hit anyone. And when you’re drunk, you can start to feel very guilty and upset, and then you want to drink more. Then the depression comes, and you want to drink some more. It is like a cycle and you don’t want to be stuck in it. Physical abuse is not the only reason your family will give up on you. When you drink, your inside starts to change, and your attitude definitely takes a dive for the bad side. And most families will let it slide for a while because they love you and want to help you, but then they realize that they are just hurting you by telling it all slide by and hurting themselves. It is really sad to see a family torn apart just by some stupid drink that makes you do stupid stuff in the heat of the moment. Your family should mean a lot more to you than that, and if they don’t, then you don’t deserve that family. You need to love and respect your family, and bringing alcohol into the picture definitely does not show them your love and respect that they deserve.

And for the last of the consequences, I want to target college students; after all I will be in college in 2 years, and talk to them about binge drinking on campus. Now on a fact sheet I found at (http://www.cspinet.org/booze/collfact1.htm), it stated –that forty-four percent of college students had engaged in binge drinking in the past two weeks before the survey. Why did they drink? The study showed that some important reasons were drinking to get drunk, status that came with drinking, culture of alcohol consumption on campus, and peer pressure and academic stress. Now the last two I have already talked to you about. But the first reason, I admit, kind of surprised me. I’m not really sure why someone would drink to get drunk. I mean I have gotten drunk but it definitely wasn’t intentional. For someone to want to get drunk just confuses me. But I guess if you are a shy kind of person alcohol does help to open you up to more friends, but then again those aren’t the kinds of friends you need. Moving on, the effects that the study showed on those college students were, missed classes, falling behind in school work, had unplanned sexual activity, not used protection when having sex, damaged property, gotten in trouble with campus police, been hurt or injured, and last but definitely not least, driven a car after drinking. What these drunken students don’t understand is that their actions are affecting other people. For one, their parents. Their parents are probably paying his/her way through college and this is how they are repaying them, by getting kicked out of dorms because of alcohol. Not only do their actions affect their parents, it affects other students as well. The study showed that three out of four students responding to the study reported experiencing at least one adverse consequence of another student’s drinking during the school year. Some of their problems with it were: sleep or study interrupted, had a serious argument, had to take care of an intoxicated student, had property damaged, had been insulted or humiliated, had been pushed, hit, or assaulted, had experienced and unwanted sexual activity, had been the victim of sexual advance Assault or “date rape”.

Now that we’re done with talking about all the consequences, even though I know there are more out there, I want to talk about how parents influence their teen/kids decision on whether to drink or not. There are a lot of different types of handling teenage drinking. Some parents actually allow kids to drink at their house as long as they are staying the night. For me, that is just wrong, because for one, those kids aren’t old enough to drink to begin with. And two, if someone was to get sick; their parents could sue the other parents for allowing it to happen. Now to be fair most parents don’t allow their kids to drink in the house, but kids usually do find a way to do it. The way parents handle everything is really a key factor on whether or not we keep doing it. Grounding never works, never. Maybe talking to your kid calmly and finding out why they wanted to drink. For me I was afraid to say no, but my mom thought I was just trying to be cool, not knowing that I was just scared and after getting arrested I felt very alone, and my mom wasn’t there so that made me want to drink some more. Thankfully I have talked to my mom about why I did that night, and the drinking part of my life, I can happily say, is over. Parents need to know that yelling, screaming, insulting, or anything like that is not the way to go. You should take your time, cool off and make sure your decision in the end is the best one for both of you. And if you know your doing the right thing, then pay no attention to when your kid gets upset. We do that a lot when we don’t get our way. The point is to make sure your kid is happy being a kid, maybe you can just convince them that they need to be a kid right now and when they’re ad adult, they can drink but for now just have fun being twelve or thirteen or however old they are.

The last thing I want to talk about before I end my essay is about just teenagers in general. I want to know how teenagers to think, because that will help you decide on why your teen drinks or does drugs. In a teenagers mind, all we can think about is whether or not we are liked. Some of us are lucky enough to have that confidence without any kind of alcohol or drugs. Bu the rest of us feel lonely, like an outsider. And we hate that feeling, and even though none of these are excuses for drinking or anything like that, I just want you to understand so you can make a better approach next time your child gets in trouble. Teenagers have extremely fragile egos, and what’s about that is, my step dad, loves to make fun of me, especially about my gut. And I know he doesn’t mean it and he loves me, but at the same time, for a teen, everything you say and do, we take to heart, so please parents, just watch what you say and joke about. We do know that you love us, but how about showing us a little more often, and I don’t mean out in front of school when you drop us off. I mean when our boyfriends or girlfriends break up with us, or we get into a big fight with our best friends. The best way to show us that you care is to be there for us in our time of need. Help us through the time and give us advice, that’s what we really want, even though we might not ever admit it.

In conclusion, I hope everyone learned something about alcohol and teenage drinking. The thing to remember is when someone does ask you if you would like a drink, just say no! And if that doesn’t come out right, think about all the consequences that might come if you say yes. That might make it a little easier to say no. I hope parents learned something from this as well. Because teenagers do make mistakes, that is a given, and parents can too, even though they might not admit that. And we kids will always forgive you, so maybe you should take that into consideration next time we come home with a cop. Not really, I don’t plan on coming home with a cop anytime soon and if it did happen, I hope my parents really teach me a lesson because I will have deserved it. Now that is the end of my essay, I just hoped everyone learned as much as I did. I learned way more than I thought I would, and you know what, I’m a better person for it too.