Alcohol abuse in adolescence
Posted on August 25, 2009 - Filed Under Health
Researchers have done many studies about the effects alcohol abuse has on people, both in the short and long interim. Pancreatitis, brain shrinkage, cancer, dementia, and damage to the liver are among the damages that alcohol can wreak on people. Because teenagers are abusing alcohol more frequently today, scientists worry even more about the long term damages alcohol has. It makes people get older quicker, and so abuse among teens is especially troubling. The British Medical Association claims that eleven and fifteen year olds have started drinking on a more regular basis as well as consuming more alcohol in a session.
Because teenagers are going through an intense change in body and mind, it is especially troubling to see this rise. More growth in the brain and hormones, and a mutating social situation can all contribute to a risk of alcohol abuse. An alcoholism intervention is becoming more common to teenagers than in years past. The old problem of wanting to be popular and fitting in with peers makes for some uncomfortable problems in adolescence.
One of the ways they deal with these situations is more and more alcohol. Though it allows teens to come down and relax from stressful situations. With decision making skills compromised because of all these changes, teens exacerbate the problem through alcohol. It disrupts the growth of the brain, an interruption which usually leads to more alcohol consumption. Young women are especially susceptible to the effects of alcohol since they carry less water weight, alcohol disperses that much quicker in their bodies. More rapid than the usual five to ten minutes it takes normally to penetrate the blood. Among the effects of alcohol is nausea, poor balance, extreme reactions emotionally, and double vision.
For teens the effects are even worse due to the fact that it also disrupts their academic life. Short term memory is affected. Cognitive skills are affected. Studies have shown that memory losses happened frequently in teenagers in withdrawal attending treatment after an intervention or treatment for drug addiction. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons to get teenagers in treatment is that early abuse can have long lasting effects that impair a teenager well into adulthood. For this reason drug rehab and other facilities should be contacted by parents to provide further information on how to help their children.
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