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3 June 2011
Alcohol Abuse among Teenagers
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Alcohol consumption among young people is one of the most topical contemporary
rit er issues. It should be admitted that it is a problem that concerns the whole society and not only certain individuals or small parts of the population. It has been pointed out by many scholars that it is not only children from problem families who engage in illegal drinking, so the
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reasons that make youngsters succumb to this unfavorable behavior are worthy of
examination. The goal of this paper is to identify the factors that drive teenagers to consume alcohol. tio
According to the National Research Council, a significant number of 12- to 14-yearolds are consuming alcohol. While those teenagers who drink usually don’t do it as often as
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adults, they tend to drink more excessively (Bonnie & O 'Connel 52).
One of the factors that contribute to the problem of teenage drinking is accessibility of
ev o alcohol. It is very easy for young people to obtain alcoholics, and the percentage of those who can get it without much difficulty grows significantly with age. More than 90 percent of twelfth graders have effortless access to alcohol (Johnston, O’Malley, and Bachman 53).
Thus, by the senior year of high school it no longer feels like a forbidden fruit, it is everywhere and it seems like a perfectly logical thing to give it a try. Besides, in the United
States children “grow up in a world filled with messages about alcohol” (Bonnie & O 'Connel
70). They are informed about the detrimental effects of underage drinking in health class and are warned by their parents, but the image of alcohol they acquire from the world around
Surname 2 them as a whole is still rather positive. It is presented as an ordinary and normal part of life both of adults and teenagers. As a consequence of drinking being both accessible and acceptable, occasional alcohol consumption becomes
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