The dangers of alcohol punctuation for teenagers
Spain currently has more than 160,000 points of sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages, more than in the rest of the European Union. The alcohol it is so rooted in our social fabric that it has become part of our daily life, entering the world of social and labor relations. It is drunk when it stays with friends, to close agreements, to celebrate, to forget, when leaving work, before eating ...
The teenagers they are at the head of alcohol consuming groups in our country. It is estimated that between 60% and 70% of adolescents consume alcohol usually, reaching the highest levels in Madrid, Barcelona and the Basque Country. The vast majority starts between 13 and 15 years of age and 15% starts earlier.
Reasons why teenagers drink
Why do our teenage children drink? Consuming alcohol is a way to break the patterns of children and begin to adopt those of adults. With a drink in their hands, they tell everyone: "we are not kids anymore". If we want to understand the reason for the widespread abuse of alcoholic beverages On the part of the adolescents, it is necessary to understand that many of them do it for reasons of identity search: feeling older and also showing themselves older.
Another reason, equally important and in which the models shown by advertising have a great influence, is that lately drinking tends to be considered as something necessary to have fun. "Without beer there is no roll". It seems that fun is not conceived if there is no beer or any other type of alcohol in between.
Beer, cider ... which one do you start with?
Adolescent gangs consume alcohol for the most part to achieve an euphoric mood that increases the sense of fun, and which they themselves call "puntillo". It is not about the traditional consumption of alcohol, that of some canes when leaving work. The graduation of the drinks they consume increases progressively and parallels with age.
Young people of 15 and 16 years old usually drink beer or cider, depending on the geographical location, but when they are around 18-19 years, the consumption of mixtures of several alcohols, such as "panther's milk", is triggered. The exotic taponazos of tequila, vodka ... that are taken in a single drink, become fashionable. And the cubata becomes the true protagonist.
A for the 'dot of alcohol'
Alcohol in small doses stimulates the cortex of the brain. Thus, at the beginning we notice how our reasoning capacity improves. It seems that we think better ... but it is a very transitory effect and, immediately, the very narrow limits of amount of harmless alcohol are exceeded.
After the first beers, one goes through an initial feeling of euphoria, of well-being, with loquacity, development of the imagination and sympathy ... Ideal for a night of movida. But the problem is that this state is accompanied by a loss of the sense of self-control. In many cases, this situation leads to continue to drink alcohol with the wrong idea that if we are now well, with more alcohol we will be even better.
The result is catastrophic and known to all. With drunkenness concepts such as responsibility, elementary rules of coexistence and prudence are lost. The drunkenness may seem worse, but the "dot" is more dangerous: as there is still awareness, boys and girls think they are going well and can drive their bikes or cars.
Effects of alcohol in the body
Alcohol, by itself, is not good or bad, it depends on the amount and the organism that consumes it. Alcohol requires correct mechanisms for its correct elimination that mature over the years. Nobody would think of giving a plate of lentils to a newborn baby not because the lentils are bad, but because he can not assimilate them.
And the body is not mature (especially the main functions, such as the liver and, above all, the brain) to assimilate alcohol until, more or less, eighteen or twenty years. Drinking alcohol at an early age can lead to undesirable effects, not because of alcohol, but because of the lack of adaptation of the body to handle it.
Ricardo Regidor
Adviser: Guillermo Cánovas. Director of EducaLIKE
