Research Paper
UNDERAGE DRINKING
Under –age drinking is a major stigma in any colleges today mostly due to the social tenets that accompany college life and the facilitators around. This is a pertinent issue and this research paper focusses on evaluating the development of underage drinking, its causes, effects how people view it in the outside world and how it can be treated or controlled.
According to an American health education journal by Dodd, Virginia (201), ‘why underage College students drink in excess: qualitative research findings ‘, participants attach positive expectations to alcohol abuse and the negative consequence as disincentives. This has cultivated a culture of much more drinking characters in universities and campuses. This research has shown that males between the ages of 18-20 drink more than females and both develop much more drinking habits over time. Expectancies include:
Social lubricant
The norm of being accepted in social circles and societies in campus makes students vulnerable to alcoholism alcohol related conditions .This in way provides a bind and one seeks to prove a point by standing up to the ‘group’ philosophy thus creating a scourge of massive and blind alcohol uptake by teenagers in campus.
Peer influence
Peer influence is also noted as a strong trigger of the alcoholism in campus as a result of meeting peer expectations and the teenagers merely doing it in order to please their peers and seem to appear on the same foot and platform socially.
Rite of passage
Alcoholism also stems from a belief that is attached to a ‘rite of passage’ a sort of initiation into a certain age group or class differentiated from the rest of the people around. This is a culture very common in campuses thus the overly forward attachment to alcohol thus the subsequent alcohol related problems.
DETERRENTS TO EXCESSIVE DRINKING
Social consequences
The behavioral patterns associated or exhibited by drunks in campus is an association may teenagers choose to distance themselves with in order to paint a picture of good character and thus avoiding bad publicity and ultimately reduced alcohol uptake.
According to a journal of addictions nursing (Taylor and Francis LTD)2011,a major problem with college students is binge drinking which leads to poor academic achievement and low self-fulfillment characterize by short term effects such as Alzheimer’s disease or short term memory loss and blackouts. This drinking stigma has been characterized also by rowdy behavior, violence cases, general vandalism and even violent sexual behavior with varied extent of contractual sexual diseases. Participants in this test showed impulsivity in stopping binge drinking with the perceived outcomes being majorly similar. This was done through the use of Prochaska and DiClemente's Trans theoretical model which eventually provides results showing binge drinking alters inhibitory control and suggests impulsivity interferes with intentional behavioral change in people therefore influencing the design of future alcohol prevention programmes.
Harvard review of psychiatry (Taylor & Francis Ltd). Jul/Aug2012, Vol. 20 Issue 4, p189-200. 12p reveals that alcohol is usually introduced during the formative years of a person between the ages of 18-24years usually the campus aged population which is underlined by the legal drinking age in the united states of 21 years. Brains at this stage are less sensitive to alcohol sedation and more sensitive to alcohol related effects in memory. History of alcoholism underscores the drinking situation and facilitates the psychiatric conditions that occur due to underage excessive drinking. Abstinence from such improves one’s brain capacity as well minimizing disruptions ingrain development during such age in life. This also reduces negative behavioral aspects of people.
An article from the daily telegraph far from harmless reads that parents are the main suppliers of the children with alcohol between the ages of 12-15 therefore contributing immensely to underage and subsequent minors drinking even in campus. This article reads in part that binge drinking before the age of 14 increases the chances of becoming an alcoholic. This has prompted authorities in other countries such as the United Kingdom to introduce stiffer warnings such as those in cigarettes. A Mediterranean model in the article provides that supervised drinking inculcates responsible use of alcohol. It further adds that public campaigns on the dangers of alcohol abuse should be done to enable families’ counters such a stigma. This will aid in help solve such a state of societal issue which is as a result of our cultural values strongly connecting with sports and celebration.
This article provides for parents to be as well responsible for their children’s teenage alcohol abuse as it contributes to a social and medical problem
A psychiatric study on adult children of alcoholics: Drinking, psychiatric, and psychosocial status in the source article Behaviors, provides information on the risk that the family history realizes in teenage drinking which by extrapolation leads to campus underage drinking. This study analyzed paternal alcoholism impact on the offspring outcomes more particularly psychiatric & psychosocial status of offspring.
In some studies there’s a relationship between the family history and alcohol related problems among the offspring and in other studies there’s been failure to corroborate the ris between the family alcoholism history and the offspring alcohol related problems. This therefore enables risk to be determined of placing the children under risk of alcoholism stigma and deviant drinking outcomes according to the study.
The underage drinking has been characterized by number of thorough reports are published, so that this act can easily be monitored. This has resulted into health side effects and even the related deaths. The information are is acquired from the epidemiology research. This bad behavior is associated with a lot of economic, social, behavioral and even health problems in the young generation. More the specific the most parts damaged by this drinking binge is the brain and the liver of an individual carrying out the activity intensively.
When the young people get indulged in this behavior, they practice breakage of rules, precisely drinking while under the influence of alcohol, that can lead to the occurrence of road accidents. The youths that are under the influence as well end up participating in risky sexual behaviors like having unprotected sex. This may result into HIV /Aids transmission and related disease infection. The youth as well may indulge into the sexual activity with more than one partner therefore increasing the chances of infecting and spreading the sexually transmitted disease from one person to the other. Apart from the infections, the females stand a bad chance of getting unwanted pregnancies. During the influence of the drink, the youths are likely to get involved in violence. This could result into the physical fights and the assaults.
There is the existing and persistent binge drinking and the alcohol use disorder in the period of the adolescence. It’s likely to be reported seven times more past year illicit drug use than the adolescence drinkers who are non-binge. The binge drinking has lately been reported to cause most of the disorders in the adolescences health .Among the disorders are the lifelong pathological changes in the young brains and the neurocognitive disadvantage in the young abusers. The age onset of alcohol drinking really affects the future drinking patterns of an individual and the level of rates to which one is prone to be affected by the alcohol risk behaviors and the health related problems.
Thesis statement
Underage drinking has been and still is a scourge in our current society. We ought as a society to find measures which will be easily used in the current societal set up to fight and ward off the alcoholism culture that has brought a myriad of problems to teenagers in the United States. Campus alcoholic behavior is not to be tolerated as this impacts negatively on campus teenage students; however this has to be done in such a way so as to prevent triggering a whole range of protests from the opposes. This may be done in my view through peaceful campaigns on the dangers and consequences of early alcohol abuse, to internalize these issues in the society thus enabling proper decisions to be made both individually and collectively.
As noted from the various articles early alcoholism impact adversely on the immature minds of campus students and the children who are either victims of a family’s history in alcoholism or the activities that revolve the campus social circles .Early alcohol addiction especially at formative years of individuals results to major impacts over long periods of time some are outlined below:
There are a lot of development activities that continue to phase out in an adolescents life. This phases could lead to the new challenges. This challenges are new and therefore require quick adaptability and flexibility in the young minds. This challenges are majorly categorized in the physical, relational, and the social context of an individual. Every aspect of change affects individual mind in one way or another. The major changes and the transformations that occur are outlined below.
- There are increasing responsibility in an individual’s life, his future and behavior.
- Being less dependent and moving towards acquiring a more mature with the initial family of origin.
- Moving towards achieving a more mature relationship with the peers.
- There are increased privileges. For instance one acquires a driving license. This means he or she can own a vehicle if it’s affordable to him/ her.
- An adolescent begins to date and therefore can enjoy and explore romance and sexual relationships.
- Living individuals home and living on your own.
- Preparing to onset the adult roles and responsibilities.
Liver cirrhosis is a common disease due to alcohol addiction with many people losing their lives at very early stages of life
- The gastrointestinal tract mostly bleed. This is due to the corrosion of the walls of the intestine by the acidity resulting from the alcoholic drinks.
- Most of the brain calls are damaged as part of the brain is characterized by memory and the mental stability and speech is impaired, the cells become weaker for an individual under the influence to co-ordinate.
- The GI tract cancer may be as a result of the constant pumping of chemicals in the alcohol inside the gastrointestinal tract therefore becoming dangerous.
- Memory loss that is occasioned by the part of the brain that controls memory. The individuals cannot remember what took place after a drinking spree.
- Depression that occurs most frequently and normally characterized by alcoholics both as a cause and an underlined consequence as people tend to venture into their innate circles of despair and doom with no hope of positivity.
- There is always a high blood pressure that come up as a result of the rate of stimulation brought about by alcoholism. This increases the heart beat more than normal therefore causing the blood supply in the body. This is a threat to a healthy living.
- Pancreatitis; this may be due to the sugar levels contained in alcohol that overwork the pancreas in its role in regulating the blood sugar level therefore causing the swelling.
- Nerve damage as well results as an alcoholic tends to be less responsive to changes that the body normally respond to for instance pain which alcoholics tend to develop a tolerance to. This impairs normal body function and creates a problem in normal body functioning.
- The degenerative disease of the brain and the changes that occur in the mental status that causes characteristics such as mental confusion, coma, vision impairment or even amnesia.
As explained it manifests itself that alcoholism is a degrading factor in society especially if done irresponsibly. This therefore underscores the need for precautionary measures against alcoholism right from early stages in life as well as follow up measures to minimize the risk of having the youth and teenagers fall to such a scourge.
References
Sinuk, F., & Taylor, C. (2011). Journal of addiction nursing. Adolescent Brain Development and Underage Drinking in the United States, 20(4), 189-200. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
Glassman, D. (n.d.). Why under age college students rink so much. Qualitative Research Finding American Journal, (N2), 93-101.
Daily Telegraph, The (Sydney). 01/29/2007.
