Alcohol Addiction and Binge Drinking

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Alcohol Addiction and Binge Drinking
For teenagers, alcohol is not less than a drug
that devastates their rest of the life.
Statistics of U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration reveal that in
America alone, 4,750 kids below 15 years of age
take their first drink. Instead of knowing that
alcohol consumption is illegal and understanding
its severe consequences, they do it secretively.
Experiments have explicitly stated that such
teenagers under 15 are 5 times more likely to
fall prey of alcohol consumption in contrast to
adults. Another drastic outcome of tasting
alcohol at this age is that they consume far more
alcohol than adults over shorter period of time.
This stage is referred as Binge
Drinking. Prevalence Binge drinking is often
overlooked issue in United States. Research has
stated that teens consume more alcohol than drugs
or tobacco. Though the percentage of heavy
alcohol consumption has declined from 2002 to
2014 according to national survey of SAMHSA but
still 5 million youngsters between 12- 20 years
are binge drinkers apart from 1.3 million heavy
drinkers. Statistics reveal that approximately
77 of underage drinkers drink in a group while
6.3 drink in isolation while the rest of the
youth reported that they drink with one or the
other person.
Risks Factors associated with Binge
Drinking There are a number of reasons for binge
drinking like high level of impulsiveness,
aggressive nature, behavioral issues, novelty
seeking and an impatient tendency to consider
negative consequences
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• immediately without analyzing facts patiently.
  Following are the risk factors associated with
  binge drinking-
• Binge drinking is alone accountable for 4,300
  deaths in underage youths.
• Millions of emergency rooms are engaged with
  underage alcohol addicts because of injuries and
  related conditions.
• Sexual involvement, unwanted, unintended and
  unprotected physical activity with multiple sex
  partners.
• Drinking while driving, physically hurting others
  while being drunk and encountering with legal
  issues.
• Increased intimidation of sexual and physical
  assault
• Increased number of suicidal and homicide
  tendencies
• Loss of memory
• Involvement in drugs
• Long life severe effects on brain development
  during teenage years
• Increased risk of heavy drinking in later part of
  life. Such teenagers are exposed to drinking 5
  times more alcohol than other alcohol abuse.
• Underage drinking Campaign
• Understanding the severe impact of binge drinking
  and alcohol addiction, SAMHSA developed public
  awareness in regards to health education. SAMHSA
  looks for bright future of the future generation
  and engages parents, caregivers, schools and
  communities so that underage drinking can be
  prevented. The parents should start talking about
  the dangers of alcohol with kids as soon as they
  are 9 years old. The primary objective of the
  alcohol campaign is-
• Developing awareness among parents in regards to
  prevalence and risks of teenage drinking.
• Developing awareness, knowledge and confidence in
  parents and equipping them to deal with such
  situations with optimistic state.
• Assisting parents in taking actions so that
  underage drinking can be prevented.