Alcohol is considered one of the deadly vices one can learn as a person enters his legal age of `18 or 21. It is also considered the deadliest drinks a person could ever consume as many have acquired health complications with too much drinking of the substance. Heart attacks, kidney and liver complications, and organ failure are the known complications due to alcohol. However, cases of teenage consumption of alcohol are slowly growing as alcohol is now easily purchased and obtained. Many have fell into the state of addiction and seek more alcohol drinks with higher alcohol percentage, putting them in more risk of shortening their life. The question now remains as to how potent alcohol could be for teenagers if the potency of alcohol in adults is deadly if not prevented. Given the effects of alcohol on adults, the effects of alcohol on teenagers would not only destroy them physically but also mentally as alcohol will tarnish their minds and their bodies.
In the United States, alcohol abuse is one of the concerning problems in teenagers up to the present. Almost 3 million teenagers in the country, no matter what the race, educational and socioeconomic status they have are all in the risk of subduing to risk caused by alcohol. Many teenagers prefer alcohol as their version of drugs, since it is easily obtainable through convenience stores and through shelves in the supermarket. Most high school students have already tried out alcohol as part of an experiment according to many studies. Studies have also shown that it is plausible that some high school students have drunk a bottle or two of alcohol regularly or occasionally if they are asked. It is a cause for concern for many as teenagers do not have the ability to use their alcohol tolerance, and process it to reduce the effects alcohol and bring. Without a working alcohol metabolism, teenagers are prone to submit to the adverse effects alcohol creates. Some teenagers would even succumb to the addicting factors of alcohol that may create dependence. Dependency in alcohol would then cause the teenager to drink more and eat less of the high-nutrient foods available. Overconsumption of energy is one of the immediate effects of alcohol as it does not affect one’s appetite, and at the same time, has high energy content .
Records have also shown that high school students whom have drunk alcohol, have more chances to engage in sex than the regular drinkers. Some even use alcohol to get high school girls to submit in these activities, especially if is going to be violent. Alcohol use is easily connected to sexual violence, teenage pregnancy, and early sexual activity. Alcohol influence can also lead to unsafe sex and accidental sex, with them forgetting to use contraception and understand the risk of the activity if their partner or their victim gets pregnant. For teenage women who get pregnant and drinks alcohol, it may also have some dire effects on the fetus. The common complication caused by alcohol in teenage women is the development of the Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, which causes foetuses to develop facial deformities, as well as intellectual and growth development problems upon birth. Foetal Alcohol Effects is also possible, however, as compared to FAS, it is the milder strain. Both effects are the major causes of mentally retarded children in the United States .
Teenagers who intake alcohol in higher levels is in the risk of developing alcohol’s major complications like high blood pressure and high blood levels. Two bottles of beer per hour are enough to raise blood levels up to 0.03% for those who weigh 140 pounds. Intoxication is usually the effect of a 0.03% increase in blood levels. There are also some people who immediately lose their control over the muscles, greatly reducing their reaction time and blocked thought capability. The capability to drive or use any device is also reduced, causing them to be vulnerable if they tried to drive alone or with someone equally drunk. If the blood alcohol level reaches up to 0.06%, the teenager is prone to get involved in traffic accidents and may die due to alcohol intoxication. Once the teenager reaches the level of blood alcohol level of up to 0.13%, the teenager’s capacity to speak, see, and move becomes weaker and is slower than normal. Anything higher than the regular levels may also cause some to faint due to alcohol in their blood. If this is not stopped, it may cause death due to alcohol poisoning. These effects are also same with young women, however, since young women have less water in their body, the increase in blood levels are faster as compared to young men .
Alcohol intoxication can also cause other possible health risks to teenagers caused by the environment around them. Studies have pointed out that with teenagers without the capacity to withstand the effects of alcohol; they eventually put themselves into risk in the form of accidents and injuries. These accidents and injuries, topped with alcohol intoxication, affects the severity of the complications the teenager could acquire. Brain injuries due to drunk driving or accidents rank the first in accidental complications alcohol intoxication can bring to teenagers. It is also recorded to be the cause of many homicides, suicides, and self-inflicted injuries by many teenagers. Some studies have even pointed out that drowning is also a cause of alcohol intoxication complication which may lead to death. Once tested, these teenagers have been recorded to have alcohol levels up to 0.10%. The table below shows the alcohol attributable fractions which show the health-risk done by alcohol through accidental actions or environmental risks:
Depression is another common effect alcohol can bring to teenagers, with the addition of drugs. When combined, both can cause teenagers to undergo depressive disorders, as well as copy mental illnesses. Alcohol often causes people to see illusions, which bring them into a depression upon remembering the story behind the illusion. Almost a third of all the teenage alcohol drinkers are prone to committing suicide due to the deliriousness it causes and the tendency of undergoing depression. For teenagers who are addicted to drinking every day, they can also develop withdrawal from their surroundings. Delirium tremens are the most common to some teenagers with low alcohol tolerance and for those who cannot get away from alcohol for more than a few minutes. They start to get hallucinations, and shake uncontrollably. Other symptoms of delirium tremens include restlessness, fever, excessive sweating, disorientation and severe seizures. Tremors, confusion, delusion, and even agitation can also be signs of delirium tremens. Depression can also add up once the teenager feels the effects of alcohol drinking to the people and things around them. They start to fail in their studies and cause falling out with their family and friends. Drunk driving can also add up to the teenager’s depression as he or she would have to face financial and legal problems, even casualties. Once they truly succumb to the failures around them, they would drink their depression away and eventually cause more complications to occur mentally .
The serious effects of alcohol that teenagers may acquire are long-term, and possibly incurable if not prevented immediately. The most common complication is liver damage or liver cirrhosis. The complication in the liver is usually caused with serum enzymatic markers caused by alcohol abuse in one’s teenage years. Liver complications are also dependent on the time the teenager started drinking and the alcohol content he or she intakes per drinking session. There have been already reports of teenagers who died due to alcoholic hepatitis or cirrhosis as caused by too much heavy drinking. If these complications do not occur, it is possible that these adolescents acquire these complications once they reach adulthood, and they are still drinking.
Long-term abuse can also cause pancreatitis, gastritis, and cancer. Alcohol abuse can also lead to cerebrum atrophy, which may cause mental disorders and reduction of mental capacity to work or function. Since alcohol is a depressant and sedative, it is capable of inducing sleep, which removes the body’s awareness and reaction time. Teenagers will become more aggressive and become slower due to the lack of coordination and reflex. Hypoglycaemia can also be acquired due to alcohol ingestion . Brain damage is also a long-term effect of alcohol to teenagers, especially if it is excessively done. Aside from the mental complications and the reduced agility of the body, brain irregularities can also happen due to too much drinking. Alcohol abuse can lead teenagers to have their cortical parts of brain to shrink, as well as inhibit frontal lobe functioning. There are also deficits in terms of motor, spatial, and common functions in the brain. There have also been records that some chronically heavy teenage drinkers develop short and long-term memory impairments. Due to these impairments also caused verbal and non-verbal memory deficits and acquire selective memory impairments .
If the risk of teenage alcohol consumption is not resolved or prevented, it is possible that the casualties caused by alcohol complications in teenagers will increase. Health complications for teenagers would also increase in severity, which may also cause casualties to increase and change teenagers completely. With teenagers having a different body structure and the incapacity to understand and care for the risks, parents and other adults close to the teenagers should guide them accordingly and entice them to stray away from the shadows of alcohol consumption. The government must also work on strategies to make sure their legal laws on when a teenager is allowed to drink are strictly enforced. Moderation and prohibitions on teenage drinking would not properly work if the adults do not help these teenagers to stray away from alcohol and other substances that can destroy their lives entirely.
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