Alcoholism in Adolescents

By: Niaja Hatcher

Sony Mathew

Trent Alfred

Nicholas Quintana

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract

Alcohol abuse in adolescents is a very big issue around the world and much of the youth population are suffering from it. With many leading causes to this topic a variety of outside influences can take a toll on the youth leading them to many different substance abuse. Particularly alcoholism in adolescents has been on a rise with many modulating stressors. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 43,000 youth are reported dead each year due to excessive drinking. Many may be questioning how alcohol gets into the hands of our youth if they are underage. Adult peers, neighbors and others who are around adolescents in their day-to-day lives are known for feeding alcohol to the youth. Another question that has been asked is why and what cause adolescents to abuse or drink alcohol. Among many others stress is most common cause for alcohol abuse. Family, friends, and the surrounding communities are considered to be the three main stressors with family being the common cause. There are also many effects to alcohol abuse in adolescents. As mentioned previously death, a lack in education, and health problems in the normal human body. With many causes and effects not much is being done to raise public awareness to this problem.

Using the CCNY database many articles were found pertaining to this topic. Keywords such as Alcoholism and adolescents were used to find relevant cases.

Research has shown many studies that were done supporting many aspects of  causes and effects. Neurobiological studies, statistics, and stress experiments have been completed and tested to find the root of alcohol abuse in adolescents. However, finding ways to prevent this from occurring is a very important factor that needs to further be researched. Some ways in which this can be done is by partaking in the different methods of prevention by raising awareness. There has to be a way that we can reach our youth and ensure that they will not allow alcohol to affect their lives.

Introduction

Underage drinking is the leading public health problem in the United States. Seventy eight percent of teens in the U.S. have been revealed to have drank alcohol. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, fourteen is the average age for adolescents to begin drinking alcohol. There are many causes to alcohol abuse in adolescents such as stress and family/parental influences. Due to these causes radical changes end up being made to these adolescents’ lives. Some of the effects being made when alcohol is consumed by young children are the damages made to their developing bodies and also their intelligence due to lack of interest in school and education. Such causes and effects will be examined and see how alcohol is influenced/ influencing adolescents.

One of the main causes of alcohol abuse is noted to be stress. Stress is generally defined to be exerted pressure or tension. More specifically stress can occur mentally and emotionally. Stress and puberty go hand and hand. In other words, stress can cause puberty, and puberty can cause stress. Since adolescence is a time when puberty occurs, it contributes to other stressors that adolescents may be dealing with. Family or personal issues, society, and maybe even peer pressure can also cause adolescents to be stressed, leading them to binge drinking or alcohol abuse. Many studies and experiments have been completed in the past to observe the relationship between stress and alcohol abuse in adolescents.

In many countries, alcohol is always abused by adults, such as late night drinking with friends or maybe day drinking, but recently the topic has been based on alcohol abuse with adolescents. The number of adolescents (teenagers) that have started to abuse alcohol has risen over the years, but what exactly caused it? There are adolescents with a family history of alcoholism or who associate themselves with heavy drinkers and are more likely to develop drinking problems. There are also people who suffer from a mental health and prescribe themselves with alcohol. Since drinking is very common in many cultures the effects vary from person to person, so it’s not always easy to figure out where the line is drawn between social drinking and problem drinking. There are reasons to believe that one of the biggest factors that may cause adolescents to abuse alcohol is due to family and there are multiple reasons to why family can lead adolescents to drink alcohol. One of the reasons is by not giving enough attention at home or it can also be that the parents are exposing the children to alcohol by consuming it in the house.

In the United States alcohol is consumed by more than 51.8% of americans and among those are also children from the ages of 12 and above, which is about 131.3 million people. It is said by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that by the age of 15, 33% teens have at least have had one drink. Is that also alcohol abuse? Alcohol abuse is a pattern of consuming alcohol where it interferes in day-to-day activities. One of these activities could be going to school for young adolescent kids.  The rate of alcohol consumption in adolescent children have been on a tremendously increasing scale. This is to the point where there is a decrease in school attendance and not graduating on time or never graduating at all. The studies that have been chosen for this topic of Alcohol Abuse in Adolescence brings awareness to the community to administer the youths’ behaviours and activities.

Consumption of Alcohol can lead to many health problems in the normal human body. Problems which can be neurological such as dementia or stroke, cardiovascular such as hypertension or atrial fibrillation, psychiatric such as depression or anxiety, social, cancer, liver diseases etc. These being the most common out of all the possibilities that could occur in a grown fully developed body. But in the instances with these children whose bodies and brains that are not fully developed, the consumption of alcohol can be more harmful or even detrimental. The impact of alcohol is much higher in the bodies of adolescence than of an adult. Not only health issues are at risk but also to become successful members of the society children need to gain knowledge through education. This cannot be done when there is a constant increase rate in truancy. Also a decline in academic achievement can be seen with use of substance and also the abuse of them. This is most likely due to the structural changes in the brain resulting in reduced memory and cognitive functions. So by looking at these studies it can be seen how important it is for children to not consume harmful substances such as alcohol.

As of late (2018), alcohol abuse in adolescents has been a big issue that is occuring around the world. Many people research the causes of what lead adolescents to abusing substances such as alcohol. Starting alcohol consumption at a young age can lead to health complications such as liver problems, blood pressure problems, etc. The effects this has on adolescents mental development is another reason to raise concerns since during the adolescent age period, this is a time when the mind is still developing. Negative effects on how the mind develops as a adolescent include how they act socially and ways of how they learn. There is nothing positive that results from consumption of alcohol as a young adolescent which is why research to prevent or reduce this abuse should be made a necessary priority.

Methods:

The research topic was focussed on alcohol abuse in adolescents that was caused based on what happened in their family environment. Databases like Google scholar.com, onesearch.cuny.edu and CCNY library database were used to obtain information on this topic. Among the multiple resources, Academic Search Complete in the CCNY libraries database was chosen as the main source. Many different search words were used since the topic was divided. For example, to find causes as why adolescents turn to alcohol keywords such as “Alcohol abuse AND Adolescents AND Stressors” were used. While on the other hand keywords such as, “alcohol abuse in adolescents caused by family”, “alcohol”, “family” were used to find specific articles on specific stressors. With the multiple results that came up, an in-depth search was done using keywords such as “affects” and “education” to find articles pertaining to the after effects of alcohol abuse. Furthermore, only articles between the years of 2012 and 2017 were used.

Dividing this topic into different aspects while many focus on only causes or effects, preventions and ways to help stop the issue is also significant. prevent or reduce alcohol abuse in adolescents. By searching “alcohol abuse in adolescents,” there were many results however, very few in relevance to preventions. For more outcome keywords such as “ways to prevent” or “ways to reduce” alcoholism in adolescents were used in the search engine. By doing this better results were obtained in relation to the topic. Finally, reviewing the article’s abstract was also a very helpful strategy to finding articles in relevance to this topic.

 

 

 

Body:

Stress

Many may not understand why stress might lead adolescents to alcohol abuse or may suggest that adolescents go to therapy but  “Gender-Specific Predictors of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Adolescents: The Role of Problematic Substance Use and Interpersonal Relationships” focuses on how posttraumatic stress disorders (PTSD) impacts both male and female adolescents. “Accordingly, this study aimed to contribute to this research field by examining specific types of problematic substance use, attachment strategies, and posttraumatic social support as possible gender-specific predictors of PTSD severity.” (Dagmar and Ask 2015, p.162). The study was carried out as cross sectional with male and female participants aging from 15-18 years of age. “males (n=863) and females (n=1,125)” (Dagmar and Ask 2015, p.161). Each participant received an email with a questionnaire packet containing all of the study’s information. A consent form was also attached to ensure each participant is aware of what they will be doing throughout the packet . The participants were also given gift vouchers for their participation. This was a good strategy because most participants will not see the significant outcome of the study and rewarding them with the gift voucher would make them more willing to complete the packet. These questionnaires were measures in relation to trauma, substance use, and psychological circumstances.  According to the results section “Most participants in the sample reported consuming alcohol during the previous year of the study (86.8 %)” (Dagmar and Ask 2015, p.165). It is also noted in the results that the higher the mental disorder problems, the higher the substance abuse occurs. Although Table 1 shows that males have a higher PTSD prevalence rate, Table 2 provides data that shows alcohol being the highest and most common substance abuse within both genders of  all trauma measures (Dagmar and Ask 2015, p.166). This study can be very helpful when researching alcoholism in adolescents because not only does it examine different PTSD levels, but it focuses on the effects within both genders, which not many studies have done.

As the previous study focuses on the impact of stressors within both genders it insinuates that the effect of stressors on males are higher than the effects on females. For example a study conducted in 2015 only contained  male participants.This study on the other hand provides neurologic information about how males are impacted by stress. “Life stress in adolescence predicts early adult reward-related brain function and alcohol dependence” focuses on stressful life events; reward; fMRI; adolescence and alcohol dependence. The study agrees that alcoholism in adolescence is caused by stress, but concentrates on the effects of stress on different parts of the brain and what causes male adolescents to be alcohol dependent. The main part of the brain that was examined was the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Research by the National Institute of Health has proven the mPFC to “learn associations between context, locations, events, and corresponding adaptive responses, particularly emotional responses”. In which researchers of this study mainly focus on the emotional responses aspect of the mPFC. Within the study the sample size initially consisted of 186, 20 year old men from the Pittsburgh Mother and Child Project (Shaw, 2015, p.417) and  consisted of families in the working class making about $12,565 a year. At the beginning of the experiment 29 participants  were omitted from the fMRI scan, due to inconsistency throughout the study or failing to obey the terms of the study. This leaves 157 participants left and 5 of them did not complete the problematic alcohol use assessment. So, the experiments analyses is based on 152 male participants that answered different questionnaires, completed a rewards tasks, and completed a magnetic resonance imaging acquisition. Omission throughout the study is important because not obeying the rules of the study would have a major impact on the results. Results for this study found that “higher levels of problematic alcohol use were associated with reduced response in the mPFC” (Shaw, 2015, p.419). It can be said that with less emotional response of the mPF, adolescence often turn to alcohol use because they do not know how to cope with stress. In the discussion the article mentions that common adolescent stressors are associated with decreased neural response to reward in mPFC (Shaw, 2015, p.420) and therefore this lead the male participants to alcohol dependence. With stress related alterations in brain reward functions being related to problematic alcohol use the data is consistent to the hypothesis of study.

             The next study that has been reviewed on why adolescents abuse alcohol is an example of a stressor and its effects. “Vulnerability to alcohol use disorders following early sexual abuse: The role of effortful control” was completed  in 2011. It compares the effect of child/ adolescents sexual abuse (CASA) to alcohol dependence. The first part of this study focuses on the effortful control (EC) which allows”individuals the ability to deploy attention willfully allowing one to take in additional information and plan more efficient coping.” (Klanecky and McChargue, 2011, p.163). This article supports the claim of child or adolescent sexual abuse leading to vulnerability and having impact on the EC. During their experimental research Klanecky and McChargue discovered that adolescents with a history of CASA have demonstrated increased early alcohol use and later alcohol use disorders (Klanecky and McChargue, 2011, p.160). So they observed the relationship of vulnerability on EC. The information and statistics about child/adolescent sexual abuse  was obtained from studies that were done in the past. With a method of analyzing other studies and carefully observing the EC vulnerability components, the study was able to prove that the more severe the sexual abuse in an adolescent occured the more vulnerability there was. This is one cause that makes adolescents prone to alcohol abuse. Figure 2 shows the results of their research (Klanecky and McChargue, 2011, p.166). Still many may question why alcohol. Well, according to The National Institute on Drug Abuse, adolescents are “biologically wired” to seek new experiences and take risks, as well as to carve out their own identity. Trying drugs may fulfill all of these normal developmental drives. At the end of the experiment it can be interpreted that after a child/ adolescent has been sexually abused the effort control puts them as a higher vulnerable stage. From this study, Klanecky and McChargue was able to serve outcomes for future studies and research. Some were “(1) bridging developmental research and clinical interests in early trauma and alcohol use and, (3) promoting a more comprehensive understanding of how individual differences in development may increase vulnerability to alcohol use disorders.” (Klanecky and McChargue, 2011, p.171).

            The study “Psychiatric Problems and Trauma Exposure in Non Detained Delinquent and Nondelinquent Adolescents” focuses on delinquent and non-delinquent adolescents. Similar to the previous studies this one focuses on the psychiatric disorders, substance use problems, and trauma exposure. While reading through this study it has been analyzed that it is significant to the topic of “alcoholism in adolescence” because observing delinquent adolescents can have  significant results on why adolescents become alcohol dependent. For example, becoming or being a delinquent can be caused by stress and the negative consequences of delinquency can lead adolescents to alcohol abuse . The study also focuses on both genders with a wide spread of demographics and the first sample was drawn from a single, urban, juvenile facility aiming to “examine whether delinquency status remained a significant correlate of clinical problems when trauma exposure was also considered.” (Adams, 2013, p.324) The experiment was carried out by doing a nationwide telephone interview with 12 to 17 year olds, gathering “prevalence data on specific emotional and behavioral problems and exposure to trauma among youth in the United States.” (Adams, 2013, p.325). The study initially recruited 6,694 participants but, due to inconsistency of either the parent or the child the study settled at 3,614 participants. The interview surveys included many measures. Some were delinquent behavior, PTSD, alcohol abuse and different traumatic events. As predicted, delinquent adolescents endorsed higher rates of PTSD, and alcohol abuse as shown in Table 1 (Adams, 2013, p.327). While observing results  there was no association between delinquency and gender, violence exposure, or other trauma exposure were observed. For example, the results do not support the idea that just because an individual is a female and she suffered some kind of trauma exposure, it lead her to being a delinquent. Instead the results show that trauma exposure lead the individual to some kind of PTSD which then they became alcohol-dependent.

Familial/ Parental Influence

Most adolescents are introduced to alcohol through friends and many have been intoxicated due to peer pressure but in reality many teens have been influenced by their own families. Plenty of families drink alcohol at family parties or reunions but family members don’t tend to notice the impact it has on the younger members. In the article, “Intergenerational Hazardous Alcohol Use and Area Factors: The HUNT Study, Norway” is based on the Nord–Trøndelag Health Study that collected data of adolescents and their biological parents and how alcohol was influenced. As a result of the studies, it “varied to some extent with gender, and which measure of parental alcohol use that was applied. Among girls, intoxication was associated with ever seeing parents intoxicated (adolescent report), maternal and paternal heavy episodic drinking (parental reports), paternal intoxication (parental reports), and high area-level heavy episodic drinking. Among boys, intoxication was associated with ever seeing parents intoxicated and paternal heavy episodic drinking.”(Haugland,Holmen,Krokstad,Sund,Bratberg, 2015, pg: 1757). Throughout this study it affects the female more than it does to the male but not to say that the age plays a big role in this study. However, there has also been found that there were “frequent drinking and high alcohol consumption (in terms of annual volume) among boys were in that study associated with paternal alcohol misuse.In this current study, intoxication among boys was associated with heavy episodic drinking among parents. The variety of measures of both offspring and parental drinking behavior may be a possible explanation for why findings vary between studies.” (Haugland et al., 2015). All in all, teenagers who sees someone as a role model or just anyone who they are close to and are drinking alcohol  they will be influenced to also drink alcohol as they grow up.

Alcohol does a lot of damage to your body, it begins with a heavy feeling in the extremities, he or she feels relaxed, confident, happy, sociable and the pleasurable effects of alcohol are undeniable. In the article “Parent–adolescent conflict interactions and adolescent alcohol use” by Chaplin TM ,Sinha z, Simmons Ja, Healy SM,Mayes LC, Hommer Re, and Crowley Mj, has one important factor in adolescents as to see the development of problem alcohol use is their family environment. One of the observations made was the “Negative parenting may particularly induce, an angry, externalizing, outward-directed emotional response to parent-child interactions”(Chaplin, Sinha, Simmons, Healy, Linda, Mayes, Hommer, Crowley, 2012, pg:610). This could lead to the falling out of the relationship between the parents and adolescent. According to this article, the study found that between parents and adolescent there has been an  increase of emotional and physiological responses in which there is less support and  the structure of parenting changes with a higher blood pressure and anger responses towards one another. “This study was the first to examine associations between parenting behaviors, adolescents’ emotional, cardiovascular, and HPA axis response to parent–adolescent conflict interactions, and alcohol use initiation. We found that parenting that is low in support and structure was associated with higher arousal responses to family interactions and, furthermore, that greater arousal in response to these interactions was associated with youth alcohol use.”(Chaplin et al., 2015). So basically it shows that when most parents show less support to their kids or don’t interact with them as should be, adolescents uses alcohol as a response to their parents actions.

Teens tend to drink as early as the age of thirteen and as they continue to attend high school, the more addicted they get, and they tend to make the worst decisions.  When these teens are at their senior year they drop out and college isn’t an option anymore. After they make this substandard decision to drink alcohol and drop out of school, their life just flips and now even family members have a hard time trying to get them to be sober again and get their life together.

In previous studies, the frequency and severity of childhood maltreatment are related to high risk behaviors. This includes aggression, emotional and behavioral problems, meaning the more use of alcohol for teens the more aggressive they become and the more they start to act out. Teens that were exposed to alcohol at a young age would be the ones who would become addicted to the substance and eventually start abusing it, which is also considered maltreatment. In the article it talks about surveys the writers took from over 40,000 kids in grades 7-12. And in those surveys they had asked three questions that would eventually help them figure out the stats for the average teen that abuses alcohol due to problems at home. In the article, “Exposure to childhood neglect and physical abuse and developmental trajectories of heavy episodic drinking from early adolescence into young adulthood” it states, ‘ (1) sexual abuse—“by the time you started 6th grade, how often had one of your parents or other adult caregivers touched you in a sexual way, forced you to touch him or her in a sexual way, or forced you to have sexual relations?”; (2) physical abuse—“how often had he/she slapped, hit, or kicked you?”; and (3) neglect—“how often had he/she not taken care of your basic needs, such as keeping you clean or providing food or clothing or how often had he/she left you home alone when an adult should have been with you?”(Shin,Miller,Teicher, 2013, pg:32). But since children placed in out-of-home care tend to represent children at the higher end of the severity spectrum, severity of CM was measured by the number of times respondents had experienced out-of-home placement after a maltreatment investigation.

The high prevalence of suspected cases of adolescents alcohol abuse happens to be 25.5% which happens to be alarming. This is the first epidemiological study to propose a plausible and inclusive predictive model for adolescents alcohol abuse. Knowledge of predictive characteristics of alcohol abuse is essential for early detection of cases in adolescence. In “Abusive Alcohol Consumption among adolescents. A predictive model for maximizing early detection and responses” it states how “ About 25.5% of the adolescents were classified as positive for alcohol abuse. Being male, being 17–19 years old, not living with mothers, presenting symptoms suggestive of binge eating, having used a strategy of weight reduction in the last 3 months, and, especially, being a victim of family violence were important predictors of abusive consumption of alcohol.”( Ferreira,Moraes,Braga, Reichenheim, Veiga, 2018, pg:99). The use of weight reduction strategy was considered when adolescents reported using at least one of the following strategies in the 3 months before the interview: laxatives; diuretics; cause vomiting to eliminate excess food ingested with the intention of losing weight or not gaining weight; eating too little to lose weight or not to get fat; and dieting to control weight.

Effects

The study of alcohol abuse in adolescents has been going on for a while, different groups and people have been trying to figure it all out. In 1970, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) established the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). At first alcoholism was thought of to be a adult issue in life.  The drinking behavior of adolescents only appeared in discussions of the epidemiology and sociology of drinking patterns.  At that time, NIAAA’s Division of Epidemiology and Prevention increasingly began to support research addressing these issues, and an important body of theory and research began to articulate the developmental nature of drinking behavior and to identify individual and social contextual factors that regulate it. Studies were starting to be done in order to figure out how to delay the way drinking was initiated at a young age. Prevention programs were later created to target adolescents in different ways to try to prevent them from alcoholism at such a young age. Some programs targeted social skills by being school biased for students to learn about this issue at a young age. Then there were some programs that were focussed on being a motivational factor for adolescents which would help them want to do better in life. Another program used was a program that would directly help families to help strengthen parents in order to not allow their children to become such alcoholics at a young age. Universal programs are used most to prevent the youth from drinking, these programs would include a whole population, such as students in a high school. One of the most common ways would be having a person come in and talk to the class about effects and causes of alcoholism at a young age. There is other individual programs such as therapy for these underaged people who drink too much. Over the years more studies and programs have been created to help prevent or reduce drinking at such a young age.

In the article, “The GOOD life: Study protocol for a social norms intervention to reduce alcohol and other drug use among Danish adolescents,” a study was done in Denmark which is one of the areas where alcohol consumption is highest in Europe. This applies both to quantities consumed at each drinking session as well as to the frequency of sessions . Approximately 37 % of Danish pupils aged 15-16 years reported drunkenness in the last 30 days, while the European average for this age group is 17. Similarly, the percentage of binge drinkers in this age group, those who have consumed five or more drinks at one drinking session in the last 30 days, is high with 60 % for boys and 53 % for girls, respectively. This just shows obviously that the adolescent drinking levels were way too high and needed to be regulated quickly. The GOOD life intervention was then created by a group to be used in the school. The GOOD life provides normative feedback through social norms messages specific for each participating school. Social norms messages are phrased to challenge potential overestimations of peer behaviour and attitudes towards alcohol and other drug use, and thereby correct misperceptions by contrasting the perceived behaviour of peers from their school with assessed peer alcohol and other drug use from the baseline data collection. By using one hour long feedback sessions, posters, and web based applications they were able to make sure students were affected by this program. The study is designed as a cluster-randomized controlled trial with baseline data collection among students and follow-up data collection 3 months after baseline. During autumn 2014, spring 2015 and spring 2016, schools in the Region of Southern Denmark are contacted through email and invited to participate in the trial.

The primary care setting was used in this study to provide a unique opportunity to address adolescent alcohol and other drug use. The name of the article is, “Brief motivational interviewing intervention to reduce alcohol and marijuana use for at-risk adolescents in primary care.” In this article a randomized controlled trial in 4 Public Care  clinics were conducted from April 2013 to November 2015 to determine whether a 15-min brief motivational interviewing intervention, delivered in Public Care, would reduce alcohol and marijuana use and consequences. Adolescents ages 12–18 who came for an appointment during the 2.5-year study period were asked to be in the study and screened using the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Screening Guide. Those identified as at risk were randomized to the “CHAT” intervention or usual care . “CHAT” content was guided by well-established theories from social psychology, including decision making theory, social learning theory, and self-efficacy theory. Thus, content focused on discussing the pros and cons of alcohol use and behavior and, among adolescents ready to make a change in alcohol use behavior, strategies for change. In addition, peer relationships, the behaviors of those around them, and how those behaviors compare with their own become extremely important during adolescence. Adolescents completed 4 web-based surveys at baseline and 3, 6, and 12 months postbaseline. It makes logical sense that this study was done due to the fact that all adolescents go to get a check up, which makes for a easy study group to conduct a trial on. Adolescents would listen to people who know what they are talking about, so for the public care doctors to be telling those adolescents the truth about alcohol use, then it would seem to be more effective.

“Drinking Over the Lifespan,” focuses on patterns, studies, and prevention programs with the issue of adolescent alcohol abuse. Studies have shown that from the year 2000 until around 2012 that the levels of alcohol abuse in adolescents are slightly lower than before. This encourages people to keep conducting these trials and programs to further lower the levels. This article breaks down all the effects and causes of the abuse. It also shows the patterns that are shown in the alcohol abuse for adolescents. This article also as well breaks down the way the brain develops and how alcohol can affect that for an adolescent. “Recent U.S. historical trends regarding alcohol use among early adolescents and youth have indicated significant reductions in use that have been paralleled by substantial reductions in alcohol-related traffic fatalities among youth. These trends are positive and suggest that our efforts to modify early adolescent and youth drinking through intervention programs and alcohol policies are yielding valuable gains.” Although these trends may be good there is still several issues that obtain to this issue. Finding other preventions to stop binge drinking and drinking while driving are also needed to help adolescents. Applying this information about differences between adolescents and adults will be helpful in directing future etiologic and intervention research because it will facilitate a focus on unique biological, psychological, and social factors that may affect the success of efforts to reduce alcohol use among early adolescents and youth.

Education

The first article that was used to research about the topic of alcohol abuse in adolescence was a cross-sectional study conducted in South Korea. The Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 44.8% of student between the ages of 12-18 have had at least one drink of alcohol in a month. This rate is said to be increasing every year. This being such a high percentage, it is easily recognizable that this is a serious problem. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine whether alcohol consumption and academic achievement had a correlation to one another. This study was conducted using surveys, specifically the Seventh Korea Youth Risk Behaviour Web-based Survey, which utilized the samples from a 16-city-cluster strategy that covered all of South Korea. A sample of 400 middle schools and 400 high schools were used to evaluate the associations. Within these schools 95.5% were willing to participate, which was in total of 37,873 boys and 37,770 girls. Other informations were also asked about in the survey as well, such a BMI, age etc. Every information assessed was self-reported since it was a web based survey. The dependent variable which was the academic achievement was answered to the question “what do you believe your academic achievement to be in school?” The options which were given to answer the question ranged from very high academic achievement to very low academic achievement. There were a total of 3 independent variables, which were the frequency of alcohol consumption, amount of alcohol consumed and finally, the level of severe intoxication. The questions “In the last 1 month, how often did you drink more than 1 glass?”, “In the last 1 month, on average, how much alcohol did you consume per drinking episode?” and “In the last 1 month, how often did you experience loss of memory or consciousness due to excessive alcohol consumption?” were asked. The answers were ranged on scale of 1-30 days, 1-9 or more glasses of drinks and 1-5 days or more, respectively. The results that were obtained from the study suggests that both boys’ and girls’ academic performance decreased as the number of days per month consuming alcohol increased compared to non-drinkers. Also for both boys and girls achieving average or higher academic performance decreased with the increase in the amount of alcohol consumption. The study conducted was able to find a correlation between alcohol consumption and academic performance. It was found that increased alcohol consumption decreased academic achievement and are more likely to have below average rate.

Consumption of alcohol in the adolescent age is not only a prevailing problem in the United States. A study was also conducted in Kerala, India because of concerns in the consumption in the young children. Two studies previously done in India on the consumption of alcohol in adolescents came to show a conclusion that 16.8 and 20.8 years old, in men and women respectively, were the average age in which people began drinking alcohol. Since this study did take place a while back, a new study was conducted testing to see what the difference would be this time around. In India,the onset of consumption come from families and social occasions that initiate the behaviour. Other influences could be the media portraying that consumption of alcohol as something ‘cool’. In this study, lifetime alcohol use in the context of socio-demographic and psychological domains comparing to other variables were examined. The study was also a cross-sectional survey from Ernakulam, Kerala state, India. Grades 8, 10 and 12 were randomly selection for the survey from 73 different schools. A self administered questionnaire were given to the students to fill in a controlled are administered by staff. The questionnaire consisted of socio-demographic questions as well as questions regarding alcohol use, psychological distress, assessment of suicidality, assessment of sexual abuse and finally, assessment of ADHD. The average age in which alcohol consumed was found to be 15.7 with a standard deviation of 1.7 also, life time use in males were found to be 78.6% where as in females it was found to be 21.4%. The correlates of alcohol use suggests that alcohol users were from the lower economic status families and working in part-time jobs. The student affiliated with the muslim religion had the lowest percentage in lifetime consumption. Also students who have used alcohol shows higher ADHD symptom score and poorer academic performance. The study shows that 67.% of students who have used alcohol in their lifetime have failed in a subject and 15.5 have failed in a year. The study also reported higher rates than what previous studies have obtained. This shows that there need to be awareness in communities about the alarming rates that have been increasing over the years.

The third research study focused on alcohol consumption in adolescence in relation to truancy. It is mentioned that adolescence who who think that their academic achievements is less favorable than of other students will have higher risk of misusing alcohol. This study was conducted in dutch cities named Dordrecht and Zwijndrecht where 12 schools provide samples. A total of 1702 participants were used. In school, an online questionnaire was given to the students that tested alcohol consumption, truancy and academic performance. To analyze the results obtained a multilevel ordinal regression analysis was conducted. The average age of the students were found to be 15.9, 53.7% of the sample were boys and 46.3 of the sample were girls. In this study it was found that 60.6% of the adolescence consumed alcohol in the past week. More alcohol consumption rate was found on the weekends than on the weekdays. The results of the study proved that truancy and alcohol consumption are correlated. Adolescents who reported truancy of 1 or more hours in the past 4 weeks also reported more frequent binge drinking. The findings say that adolescence who are truant are more likely to binge drink or vice versa thus changes in regards to avoid such behaviours must be implemented.

All journal articles express limitations or something that could have done better to improve the work. In the case for all four articles there were multiple instances where it was notable that a different route could have possible given a better result. In the case of 3 of the 4 studies chosen, bulk of the data came from self-assessed questionnaires. This is a limitation because it is difficult to know whether or not the participants are conveying the truth. This goes against the validity of the articles. The study conducted in the dutch cities only had dutch population so it is hard to make conclusions about adolescence all over the world based on this small population. The fourth study was assessed based on a test administered to the students, which assessed reading, writing and mathematics. This study was conducted to examine bivariate relationship between measures if the prevalence of risk factors, substance abuse and protective factors. A limitation was seen when conducting research for this paper itself was the lack of studies done on this topic in the recent years.

Conclusion:

After analyzing the four studies on why adolescents become alcohol dependent. It can still be said that no matter the gender adolescents can still abuse alcohol when under stress.”Gender-Specific Predictors of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Adolescents: The Role of Problematic Substance Use and Interpersonal Relationships” show how both female and males are affected by PTSD. There are even studies that show how one gender might be impacted more than the other. Researches are able to get insight on this view through “Life stress in adolescence predicts early adult reward-related brain function and alcohol dependence”. Either gender specific or not stress or PTSD, and trauma exposures can turn the youth to alcohol when a psychological processing part of the brain has been impacted upon or when they are not emotionally strong enough to cope with stress. One part of the brain that is affected is the medial prefrontal cortex and the study that was conducted in 2015 shows how emotionally distressed  adolescents are affected when they have not fully cope with their stressors. In relation to this study “Vulnerability to alcohol use disorders following early sexual abuse: The role of effortful control” was carried out in 2011 and observes another part of the brain to prove why adolescents lack effort to getting help after being sexually abused. These studies are significant to this public awareness topic because they build bridges to different aspects. Such as after effects of drinking and preventions of alcohol abuse . These bridges and connections can be made when more awareness is brought to the topic so that way causes can be minimized. The more knowledge that people have on these causes and why our youth abuse alcohol the more effort that will be made to diminishing them.

With the lack of support or being influenced by parents, we see how why adolescents begin to abuse alcohol at their age. The research evidence suggests that parental attitudes and norms can play a considerable role when it comes to alcohol abuse by adolescents. Most times they are introduced to alcohol in their homes, and kids that age tend to want to experience new things which could want them to do it themselves. But some feel like alcohol relieves them of the pain they could be going through at home with their parents not supporting them as they should or abusing them physically or emotionally.

With the increasing popularity in consuming harmful substances such as alcohol we see a decline in education. What once was a  priority for most students now comes to second to substance abuse. With the increase in consumption of alcohol students are killing off many brain cells and are slowing down healthy development of the brain. With many risks in alcohol consumption during early years of development, it is the responsibility of educators and parents to be aware and also inform their children about the risks associated with such behaviour.

In conclusion, we see how important the research of prevention programs are in the issue of alcohol abuse for adolescents. With the information given we see that over the years the programs have provided for better results over the years. One of the most effective ways was doing the Public Care study which allowed to reach adolescents individually. During school I feel like adolescents do not listen as much, but once you individually take a kid away from friends, have a heart to heart about alcohol effects it is effective, especially when it comes from a professional like a doctor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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