Teen Alcohol Abuse
Most teenagers in the United States consume alcohol frequently and many of them experiment with other drugs. Half the junior and senior high school students drink alcohol on a monthly basis, and according to a statistics fourteen percent of teens drank to get intoxicated at least once in the past year and nearly eight percent of teens drink at least four to five alcoholic drinks in a row.
Binge Drinking
Binge drinking may be defined as drinking heavily in a short duration to feel the ‘high’ or get drunk. The amount of alcohol one needs to get ‘drunk’ in a session does vary from person to person. The marker to define binge drinking, used by the National Health Service is consuming twice the daily unit guidelines for alcohol in one session. The daily unit guidelines for men is 3-4 units which is equivalent to a pint and a half and 2-3 units of alcohol for women equivalent to 175ml glass of wine. Binge drinking for men would therefore be three pints of strong beer and for women two large glasses of wine.
Effects of Binge Drinking
Binge drinking rapidly increases the alcohol concentration in your blood and could make you drunk very quickly affecting your physical and mental health.
Effects of Binge Drinking:
- Loss of co-ordination leading to falls and accidents. For instance alcohol is the biggest cause of accidents at home.
- It can stop your breathing or heart.
- Alcohol related accidents are more common among the teens. (Nearly thirty percent)
- Binge drinking affects the functioning of your brain and memory and in the long run may lead to serious mental health problems.
- It has been observed that Binge drinking frequently leads to aggressive behavior
- Prior to committing sexual offences, burglaries and petty crimes, criminals are known to indulge in binge drinking
The age group 16-24 is most commonly found to indulge in Binge drinking and it is more common among men than women. Like in all other habits binge drinking when you’re young can become a habit.
Adolescent Alcohol Addiction
Detailed research has been conducted about the drinking patterns among the adolescents of different countries and studies have shown that those who drink in their adolescence and early 20s are up to twice as likely to be binge drinking 25 years later.
Rise of Alcohol Addiction in Teens
Since teenage is the age for experimenting many of them turns to alcohol and other drugs. Due to various reasons such as curiosity, peer pressure, expressing defiance, pleasure, boredom and so on many of them tend to get involved in regular consumption of alcohol resulting the rise in alcohol addiction.