Alcohol Abuse Among Teens: Adverse Effects on Health & Future - Report Sample

Introduction

Drug abuse is on the rise among teens worldwide with alcohol as the most commonly used and abused drug by teens. Abuse of alcohol is a major problem that needs to be addressed because of its availability and ease of accessibility by many teens. The consumption of alcohol is caused peer influence among the youths and leads to addiction of the drug, therefore, affecting the future of the youth.

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Effects of Alcohol Consumption

Consumption and abuse of alcohol has adverse effects on the health and lifestyle of teens. The rate of abuse has dropped since the turn of the century but the effects of the drug is still tremendous to the society (NIAAA, 2017). In the United States of America, the minimum age requirement for alcohol consumption is 21, but cases of youth up to age 12 consuming alcohol have been reported. Studies have shown that adolescents aged 12 to 20 years drink 11% of all alcohol consumed in the United States (NIAAA, 2017). The most common way of consumption is through binge drinks that makes the youth remain intoxicated for a long period of time.

Due to the limitation of alcohol intake, the youth occasionally tend to consume the drug in large amounts as compared to the adults. The consumption exposes the teens to the effects that arise from the intake of alcohol. Some of the problems that arise due to alcohol consumption include addiction (Wang et al. 2015), which results from alcohol consumption starting at a young age. The habit of drinking continues until the teen cannot avoid the intake of alcohol even when they are grown up. Another problem is accident either by road or at home. When one is intoxicated, the ability of the body to function normally is drastically reduced, thus, making one prone to errors that results to fatal accidents.

Underage drinking makes the youth engage in immoral behavior such as sexual activities, therefore exposing them to the effects of unprotected sex such as pregnancy among the girls. This acts hinders their education as the teens have to raise their child and sometimes results in the parents dropping out of school, reducing their chances of reaching their full potential in life. (Wang et al. 2015). Alcohol consumption also results in poor performance of the teens in schools that result from absenteeism, and in the long run, the youths will have lower grades. Use of alcohol among the teens has severe health effects that include damage to the heart and the central nervous system, liver cirrhosis and cancer, and slow development of the brain and deteriorating memory. These cases hinder the ability of the youth to live to maturity as the health problems are life-threatening.

Alcohol consumption leads to depression among teenagers who increase the rate of dependency instead of securing their future. There are cases where teens have committed suicide as a result of depression. Alcohol has the same effects on adults, but the youth are the most affected because the adults have a higher ability to control themselves. It is a concern that we should address to safeguard the future of the youth because the problem is likely to worsen rather than improve if there is no action.

Statistics on the Target Population

According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA, 2017), by the age of 15, 29.8 percent of teens have consumed at least one drink of alcohol. By the age of 18, the percentage of alcohol intake by the youths rise to 58.0 percent. This figure is alarming because the teenagers are three years off the minimum required age for alcohol consumption.

The study also showed that 7.1 million of the teens aged between 12-20 admitted to drinking alcohol beyond just a few sips (NIAAA, 2017). The frequency of alcohol consumption by the youths is less compared to adults, but the teens consume 90 percent of their alcohol by binge drinking. 4.3 million of the teens consume alcohol through binge drinking, where males take an average of five drinks per occasion as compared to females who consume an average of four drinks at least once in a month. A lower figure of 861,000 reported binge drinking on five or more occasions during the last one month.

Evidence-Based Program

The evidence-based program that I will use is controlling the type of drinks that are available at school parties. By limiting the availability of alcohol, the percentage of teens that will have access to alcohol will reduce, therefore, decrease the incidents of alcohol consumption. There will be strict rules to ensure that those organizing school parties do not include alcoholic drinks in their refreshments. Also, the leaders should ensure that they provide enough non-alcoholic beverages at the party and prohibit the students from bringing other drinks to the party. By doing this, there will be control on the type of drinks that will be available at students parties. There will be punishment for those organizing parties that include abuse of alcohol.Another program I will use is to urge parents to keep their alcoholic drinks at home away from the teens. This move will reduce the youth’s access to alcohol, for those who get the drinks at home, because purchasing of alcohol will not be possible due to lack of proof of identification. I will also start the campaign to educate the youths on the effects of alcohol on their health and life. This campaign will create awareness among the teens who will know the dangers of alcohol intake, where the program will help educate the youth to refrain from abuse of alcohol.

Social Media Platform

Social media is currently the most effective method of creating awareness due to its ability to reach a wide target (Ye et al. 2020). The social media platform I intend to use for creating awareness is Instagram. I prefer the platform to other sites because most of the teens use the media as a form of interacting. I also plan to use pictures and videos in my campaign, therefore, making Instagram the most suitable site. Instagram will help create broader coverage because of similar interests among the youth tend to appear on the pages of the teenagers. This similar interests will ensure that a small group of Instagram users who react to the posts of the campaign will facilitate the spread of information through sharing and liking. The platform will allow me to share beautiful visual content which includes videos and pictures that have information regarding the effects of alcohol.

Health Promotional Strategies

There are several strategies I will adopt to ensure a reduction in the cases of alcoholism among teens. The first approach to use is to develop appropriate information about the effects of alcohol on a person’s health (Das et al. 2016). By doing this, the youth will be aware of the dangers they are exposing themselves to when taking alcohol. This strategy will help educate the teens of the future health problems they are likely to face when abusing the drug. This strategy will be helpful as it will make the teens have second thoughts on whether it is worth it to expose themselves to the dangers of alcohol intake.

Another strategy is to encourage the youth to resist the temptations of peer pressure. Teenagers should develop resisting skills where they learn to control themselves when facing pressure from their friends to take alcohol (Das et al. 2016). The resisting skills will help reduce the number of teens who abuse the drug because of peer pressure. This strategy will, therefore, enable the youth to have control over their lives when they have access to alcohol at home or school. The teens should also develop the behavior of choosing the right company to keep. If they are close to friends who are of the same opinion about alcohol intake, they are likely to avoid abuse of the drug because the friends they keep help avoid drinking alcohol. Having the right company will undoubtedly play an essential role in ensuring the youth avoid habits that lead to alcohol abuse. The teenagers should also develop personal attributes that distance themselves from activities they do not want to engage. If the teens have a clear focus on what they want to achieve, they should develop self-control which will play an essential role in ensuring that they remain motivated and devoted towards achieving the goals in their lives.The community and the school are critical and should actively involve themselves in helping the fight against alcohol abuse among teens (Li et al. 2015). When they both join forces to fight the drug abuse, it will be a huge step in ensuring the cases of alcohol abuse is low. They will also help in reducing the ability of teens who are below 21 years of age, have access to alcohol. Underage teens access alcohol by requesting those above the minimum age to purchase the drug for them. When the community joins the fight against liquor among teens, those who usually buy the drink for the youth will desist from such activities, therefore, limiting the teenagers from accessing alcohol.

Another strategy is to encourage youth leadership, where the teens are motivated by role models. This move will ensure the youth remain focused on their studies and desist from behaviors that lead to exposure to drugs. When the youth become occupied, there will be less time for holding events like parties which are the main reasons why teens take alcohol. Parents should also improve their child relation to enable them to detect when the behaviors of their children changes. This act will allow the parents to realize the changes in the conduct of their kids and act towards correcting them before it is too late. The close relationship between the parent and the child will help develop family bonding where discipline is continuously maintained. It will also help the parent monitor the conduct of the child, especially during adolescence, which is the period where most cases of alcoholism in teens occur.

Monitoring the Success of the Campaign

The campaign against alcohol abuse will adopt the use of using social media, specifically Instagram. The primary way of measuring the success of the movement is by checking the number of interaction on the platform (Schulenberg et al. 2017).

If the number of teens who like or share the videos and images continually increases, the movement is paying off because the number of teens the message is reaching will be high. The success of the campaign will involve monitoring the number of followers on the page (Schulenberg et al. 2017). An increase in the number of followers indicates broader coverage of the campaign against alcohol abuse. Use of media impressions to determine the success of the campaign is critical (Appel, 2020). It is a method to determine the number of times the audience observes a post. This method will help gauge the number of teens who have interacted with the social media post.

Conclusion

Creating awareness on the impact of alcohol on teens is a significant step in the efforts to reduce the cases of alcohol abuse. The movement seeks to reach out to the youths to educate them on the effects of the drug on their health and personal lives. Therefore, it is vital that the teenagers are informed of the dangers resulting from abuse and urged to avoid the use of the drug.

References

Appel, G., Grewal, L., Hadi, R., & Stephen, T. (2020). The Future of Social Media in Marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48(1), 79-95.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1

Das, J, Salam, A., Arshad. A., Finkelstein. Y., & Bhutta, Z. (2016). Interventions for Adolescent Substance Abuse: An Overview of Systematic Reviews. Journal of Adolescent Health, 59(4), S61-S75.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5026681/

Li, Q., Babor, F., Zeigler, D., Xuan, Z., Morisky, D., Hovell, F., & Li, B. (2015). Health Promotion Interventions