Growing Up With Almohol: Growing Up With Alcohol

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Growing up with Alcohol
Drinking alcoholic beverages is an American pastime. This enjoyable and social pastime, however, has gone through a barrage of changes. Consider the following: Our forefathers brewed their own ale and whiskey, outlawed it, made it legal, and then made it legal again. The legal drinking age in Florida was raised to 21 in 1985. This law, however, has not remedied the underage drinking problem. Alcohol is simply a poison when introduced to the body and has a multitude of side effects.

In the journal of Economic perspectives, Christopher Carpenter and Carlos Dobkin published statistics which led to the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in July of 1984. One of the main factors of why the legal drinking age was raised to twenty one, was because “67% of nighttime motor vehicle accidents involved alcohol.” In the same journal, the authors go on to talk about that an increase of 10% in the number of suicides among 18-20 year olds when the minimum legal drinking age was 18, although they go on to explain that suicide rates increased by 20.3% when individuals turned 21.

With the information of this article, the legal age to drink doesn't help suicide rates. Just because the age of the drinker is higher doesn't prevent them from suicide. It seems as if you start drinking at a younger age you do more damage to your brain and neurological system yet have a better perception of knowing how your body reacts to alcohol.

According to MADD, the legal drinking age was raised to twenty one due to our young minds acting differently to alcohol. Teens with ultra-fast metabolisms react twice as quickly as an adult does. Most teens drink to specifically get drunk and not drink because they like what their drinking but more t...

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...egin to drink. A few drinks can calm down anexity and leave you feeling relaxed, yet this has been taken to the extreme very often. This practice can become abusive and will lead to alcohol abuse if it continues. According to WedMd’s latest article on Alcohol and Depression, “research is split on the decision if regular alcohol consumption leads to depression.” They also question if more depressed people are more willing to drink alcohol than a person who is not depressed.

In the next paragraph, the question of Does Depression Lead to Alcohol Abuse is proposed. Researchers agree that one-third of people with major depression also have an alcohol problem. In the same major study done by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “Teens who've had an episode of major depression are twice as likely as those who aren't depressed to start drinking alcohol.”

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