Has someone every asked you to drink? Drinking can make teens feel good, but that lasts only a short time. Teenagers on most television shows today get drunk regularly, but those shows rarely explore the problems alcohol can cause. I will be talking about different types of ways, why drinking while you are a teenager.
Alcohol clouds your brain and hinders your ability to make decisions. Excessive drinking literally makes your brain shrink and can cause serious damage. Drinking can cause learning disabilities and damage your memory. It distorts vision and leads to blackouts. Teenagers often think that drinking will give more energy, but alcohol isn’t an energy drink; it’s a depressant.
Drinking alcohol affects your inhibitions and make one do what wouldn’t if you were sober. Many girls get pregnant and drop out of school because they make the mistake of drinking too much. Teenagers, age 12 to 17, who use alcohol, are more likely to report behavioral problems, especially aggressive, and criminal behaviors. Twelve percent of 15- to 17-year-olds reported having unprotected sex when drinking or using drugs. Drinking and driving is one of the top causes of death for teen boys. An alcohol, related motor vehicle crash kills one person every 33 minutes and injures someone every two minutes. The rate of teenagers driving drunk is so high that the government is trying to pass new laws restricting teen driving.
In high school, friends start pressuring us to drink. High school students see alcohol as glamorous and a way to become popular. Regardless of what they say now, things can change. Teens starting high school want to fit in. They often go from being the popular top dog in junior high to being “fresh meat.” Some people will do anything to be accepted, including potentially hurting themselves. An example of drinking gone wrong is drinking so much at a party and decides to drive home.
They think that one drink won’t do anything. A little bit of alcohol probably won’t kill, but it can lead to poor decisions. I’ve been pressured to do many things, including drinking and doing drugs. Drinking causes to be vulnerable. High school is the time to experiment with what one want to do in life, but if one experimenting with alcohol one could hurt someone, including you. Kids who were warned about alcohol by their parents and children who reported being closer to their parents were less likely to start drinking.