Risks of alcohol consumption among adolescents

At the beginning of alcohol consumption in adolescence, three groups of factors influence: personal, precipitating and context factors. And, according to experts, the only effective protection is the family providing the children with the necessary strategies to say no, since the age of beginning of alcohol consumption at the age of 11 is anticipated.

Parents should pay fines and assume the civil and criminal responsibility of their children when they suffer more than one ethyl coma, the government prepares educational plans to try to stop the rise and the risks of alcohol consumption among adolescents ... These are some of the News that are in all media.

Damage caused by alcohol in adolescents

Adolescence is a period of rapid growth and physical changes, and is presented as a critical stage for the initiation of the consumption of addictive substances, substances that can mark in many adolescents psychological access to the world of adults. They go through a stage of maximum vulnerability, in which the neurological development has not been completed and alcohol negatively affects it.


In recent years there have been studies that link alcohol consumption to brain damage in adolescents. The main risk factors associated with underage drinking are the following:

- Alterations of relationships with the family, classmates and teachers.
- Poor school performance.
- Aggressions, violence, disturbances of public order.
- Adoption of high-risk behaviors, how to drive after having drunk, first cause of mortality in this age group.
- Sexual risk activities, which lead to unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
- Increase in alcoholic disease and of serious problems of dependency in young people.
- Alterations in memory and learning processes, with cerebral changes, both functionally and structurally, and with differences in the damage observed in boys and girls, produced by different consumption patterns.
- Acute alcohol poisoning (borrachera) is a clinical syndrome produced by the consumption of alcoholic beverages abruptly and in an amount greater than the individual tolerance of the person. Depending on the amount of alcohol ingested and the tolerance, acute alcohol poisoning can range from mild disinhibition to coma, with respiratory depression and death. Acute alcohol poisoning is the most common organic mental disorder induced by alcohol, and there is great social tolerance in alcohol, especially in adolescents, young people and on weekends and holidays.
- The day after the alcohol intake it is possible to differentiate the existence of organic and psychosocial effects with headache, appetite alterations, insomnia, lack of use of the next day.


Factors that explain alcohol consumption among young people

According to the data of the last surveys, up to 62 percent of children under 14 to 18 have made a bottle in the last year. Experts explain that at the beginning of the consumption of alcohol at an early age, mainly three groups of factors influence:

1) The personal. As your personal story; their ways of solving child conflict situations; the use of certain habitual defense mechanisms in the face of situations that destabilize their identity, etc.

2) The precipitants. As the subjective perception of the impact of the experiences that he has to live, from which he thinks that nothing ever happens until he believes that suspending an exam supposes the end of his existence. At this point it should be noted that adolescence is a very high level of subjectivity, especially in any aspect that refers to itself; the ability to cope with the handling of difficulties and challenges; the degree of cognitive ability and flexibility for problem solving, etc.


3) Those of context. As the existence or not of solidarity support networks that it has (mainly the family); the level of social integration, a stable group of friends we know, does not need to be personally, and we know the educational criteria of their parents; the ability to differentiate the real from the imaginary and to process the information in a coherent way.
The interaction of all these aspects will determine the peculiar way in which each adolescent will solve what degree of risks he will assume in his adaptive responses.

When do teenagers drink alcohol?

It is undoubted, and more scientific studies support it, that night is a factor that encourages drinking, and doing it without control. However we can not think that only during the night these behaviors occur. In the surveys mentioned above, it is stated that 36% of kids say they also consume alcohol during the week.
Before entering class, when leaving, in the afternoon in a park, in the pool, on the beach ...Especially in a circumstance in which they are in a group of equals and there is nothing else to do. It is very difficult to drink before or after a basketball training, a music rehearsal or jogging. Nor drink alcohol at the movies, or going shopping with friends.

Why do young people drink alcohol?

It is important to know the reasons that motivate these students to drink and the way they do it. This part of the analysis is also applicable to young people in general, not only minors, since the motivations to consume alcohol and the patterns of such consumption are similar and shared. In both cases, alcohol consumption has become part of the leisure culture of these groups.
First they say that they drink: to have fun, for pleasure, because I like its flavor.
And from higher to lower the following reasons would be: to feel new emotions, to forget personal problems, to overcome my shyness and relate better, to flirt, through boredom or lack of options to occupy free time, to forget family problems, to do the same thing that my friends do, because sometimes I feel bad (nerves, difficulties to sleep), because my parents forbid it.

The only effective protection against alcohol: the family

It is a cry from all instances, political, academic and social. Only from the family can we provide our children with the necessary strategies to know how to say NO. No to any behavior or attitude that confronts your beliefs and values. And it is not the discourses that educate our children. The greatest protector we can provide is knowing that we are deeply loved and special to ourselves. A well-built self-esteem that is firmly rooted in our love will prevent them from needing to get along with their friends or from the frustration of not knowing where to turn when they have a problem.

Marisol Nuevo Espín

Video: Risk Factors for Overdose in Adolescents with Substance Use Disorder


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