Risks of Teen Drinking

Quick Links: Alcohol Use by Teens

While alcohol is legal for adults, it is still a very powerful drug that can cause your teens and your family serious problems. These problems for your teen range from the inability to function in everyday life to the most severe, death. For your family, these problems range from causing dysfunction to the loss of a family member. Anyway you look at it, there is nothing good about your teen drinking.

The risks that happen when teens drink alcohol:

• Alcohol-related traffic crashes are a major cause of death among young people. Alcohol use is also linked to teen deaths by drowning, suicide and homicide.

• The adolescent brain is still developing throughout the teen years. New research on teens with alcohol disorders shows that heavy drinking in the teen years can cause long-lasting harm to thinking abilities and moods.

• Teens who use alcohol are more likely to be sexually active at earlier ages, to have sexual intercourse more often and to have unprotected sex than teens who do not drink.

• Young people who drink are more likely than others to be victims of violent crime, including rape, aggravated assault and robbery.

• Alcohol alters a person's perceptions, emotions, movement, vision and hearing. This makes it very dangerous for a teen to be at a party become intoxicated and then try to get home.

• Teens who drink are more likely to have problems with school work and school conduct.

• The majority of boys and girls who drink tend to binge (5 or more drinks on an occasion for boys and 4 or more on an occasion for girls) when they drink.

• Teen alcohol abuse is a leading cause of death in people under 21. This includes car accidents (drinking and driving), physical fights, homicides, suicides, falls and toxic poisoning.

• A person who begins drinking as a young teen is four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence than someone who waits until adulthood to use alcohol.

• Loss of a your teen's positive peer group can result. Teens who drink tend to act stupid and say or do things they later regret. This leads to losing good friends who don't drink and then the teen turns to peer groups that aren’t a positive influence on them.

The risks of teens drinking often seem so harsh that parents ignore them or tend to believe that their teen will avoid all of these problems. Don't be that parent. Learn what you can about teen’s and drinking, then do what you can to prevent these things from happening to your teen and in your family.

Sources: NIAAA; SAMHSA; CDC; NCADD.

Quick Links: Alcohol Use by Teens