Imagine one weekend you decide to go out with your best friend to a party. She’s been begging you all week to go. You get there, people are offering you drinks, everyone around you is drinking, and you take the drinks without even thinking. You think to yourself “you’ve been out drinking before so it won’t even be a big deal”. You keep drinking, drink after drink. You’re enjoying yourself, meeting new people, having a good time.
You wake up the next day not knowing what’s happened, you’re in hospital.
You ask what has happened and why you’re there. You get told you’ve been involved in a car accident. There were 3 people in the car, one being your best friend, the other, a 17 year old with his p-plates. You were all intoxicated, only you and the 17 year old boy survived. You feel shocked, you don’t remember anything. Teenage drinking, one of the most drug-related deaths in the teenage population, yet still tolerated as a socially accepted drug.
Teenagers know the dangers and risks that they are taking by intoxicating themselves, but they don’t do anything about it. Teenagers have been introducing themselves to alcohol because of their surroundings, starting high school and seeing all over the media teenagers drinking alcohol, and even some teenagers growing up with alcoholic parents. There are many effects that you’ll receive from alcohol abuse as teenagers, like brain, liver, growth and endocrine effects.
Alcohol impacts your long-term thinking and your memory skills, as your brain is still maturing. It effects your impairing balance, motor coordination and as a main effect, your decision making, as you’re not thinking straight, but the effects vary with age. Overweight young drinkers are more likely to get elevated liver enzymes. Even if they have moderate levels of drinking. The biggest factor that leads many drinkers to develop liver damage is people who drink too much, too often, have an unhealthy diet, or don’t get the right amount of nutrients as needed.
Hormones are a big part of puberty in teenagers, alcohol effects your hormones, which then effects your growth, organs, muscles & bones. Drinking at a young age can also be very dangerous as it can leave you seriously injured or give you a high risk in being injured, as teenagers are more likely to take risks when drinking, as alcohol is involved in a lot of risky situations. These situations are: Fighting of brawling- Alcohol can bring out the angry and violent side of teenagers.
Drowning- Your head messes with you when you’ve been drinking, you can’t think straight let alone look straight, drowning is then common. Drug overdose- Someone could spike your drink with a substance to try and get you drunk but could instead, kill you. Self-harm, Suicide- An easy escape, drinking too much to get yourself away from the pain you are in. You make a lot of mistakes when you’ve been drinking, things you wouldn’t do while sober. Lots of people have unprotected sex while drinking which could lead to a possible pregnancy, or even sexually transmitted diseases.
Alcohol impairs judgement. There is a high risk of date rape involved in drinking also, as you are not able to think straight so someone can easily take advantage of you. Parent’s nowadays cannot prevent their teenager from experimenting with alcohol, but they can encourage sensible drinking habits. It’s the teenagers own decision, but they need to be told that some of the decisions that they’ll make while intoxicated can lead to traumatising things and can not only harm themselves but the people around them, family and friends.