Youth Drinking in America

Recent statistics on peer pressure showed 55% of adolescents tried out alcohol for the first time because they felt pressured by their friends and less than a quarter getting hold of their own drink. Young adolescent came from different backgrounds and they have different views toward binge drinking. The pressure in human beings daily lives is apparently one of the most common reason that influences adolescents to binge drink. They use alcohol as a way to forget about their problems and issues and for these reasons, adolescents tend to look at alcohol as the way to reduce stress. However alcohol will only help for a short period of time and instead of helping out with problems, it will add on more issues such as financial and personal issues.

Teenage drinking is now one of the most serious problems that young people face. (Landau, intro) In 1977, Senator Frank J. Dodd stated: ?Alcoholism is one of the greatest health problems in the United States and is one that afflicts individuals in virtually all social and economic categories and varying age groups.? (Claypool, pp. 90 -91) From the time children reach the age of 13 ½, 63 percent of the boys and 54 percent of the girls have at least tried their first alcoholic beverage. (Claypool, p. 14) Alcohol use substantially increases each year throughout junior and senior high school.

Binge Drinking is an Epidemic Researchers have found many risk factors for drinking among teens and young adults. Adolescents long to have fun, and enjoy their youth years as much as they can. They reach out for things that make them feel older and more alive. Little do they know that the result of alcohol is detrimental to a fun easy-going lifestyle. According to Deborah Morrow (2017), binge drinking is when someone abuses alcohol, and they go over the 5/4 limit in two hours or less.

Teen alcoholism is a problem that has been plaguing the United States for many decades now. The legal age for alcohol consumption is twenty-one years old in every state of the United States, but this law is commonly broken. The fact that it has not been strictly enforced caused an outbreak of alcohol consumption between minors all over, and because of this, we have been accepting teenage drinking more than ever. The problem lies in the lack of law enforcement, the acceptance by parents and guardians, and the overall attitude of teenagers themselves. Although there are many ways to attempt to treat alcoholism, we find few solutions to be effective (Underage Drinking, 2012).

Although this article does show the magnitude of the problem of teenage drinking, it doers not touch many people or clarify what we can do about it and the lack of clarity is an important factor that limits its impact. To make its point the article uses facts and statistics to prove that teenage drinking is a huge problem in the United States. We learn, "Beer is the alcoholic beverage of choice for kids, preferred by 27% of all children," and, "1.1 billion cans of beer and 300 million bottles of wine coolers were consumed by junior and senior high school students." The article also uses statistics to prove the unfortunate consequences of drinking and states, "In 1997, 3,336 drivers 15 to 20years old died, an additional 365,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes.

Cary Woods and Cathy Konrad. Dir. Wes Craven. With David Arquette, Neve Campbell, and Courteney Cox. Dimension Films, 1996.

The legal drinking age should be at least 18, because children that young are still developing and alcohol has many negative effects on the body. Many Briton teens have been exposed to alcohol, but it is having a very bad impact on their overall health. British teenagers are the fifth most likely group in Europe to admit to binge drinking. The British girls are the heaviest drinking in Europe, while the boys fall in at third, behind Malta and Latvia. This increase in consumption has attributed to more cases of liver disease, which costs the NHS more than 1 billion Euros a year (telegraph.co.uk).

Each year most teen deaths have been caused from underage drinking in the United States, which is a big topic that the government is trying to prevent from happening. The government has set the drinking age to 21 but how are teens getting there alcohol? Teens are using fake Id’s to get their alcohol or even asking adults to purchase it for them, because of this, underage drinking has become a big issue in the United States. The age when young people are taking their first drink is becoming lower each year. Many studies report that preteens are experimenting with alcohol and many are already heavy drinkers.

<http://callisto.gsu.edu:4000/CGI:html> (5 May 1997). Johnson, Brian D.  "Souping up the Bard." Maclean's. 11 Nov. 1996. <http:Hcallisto.gsu.edu:4000/CGI:html> (5 May 1997).

In my generation drinking among underage kids is blamed on peers, accessibility, and adulthood. “Research shows that about 10 million Americans between ages 12 to 20 years had at least one drink last month” (April is Alcohol Awareness Month). Like all addictions, alcohol must first be experimented with. When a kid tries alcohol for the first time s/he will either like it and do it again, or not like it and not try it for a long time. Today’s youth have far more confusing and complex issues to deal with than those youth of earlier generations.