There are many reasons drinking is bad, but for teens to be taking those toxins into their body, that’s just asking for a disaster. Teen drinking can not only permanently addict you to it, but can turn out to be fatal, too. The result of teen drinking is that every year, about 5,000 kids in the United States under the age of twenty-one die from car crashes, homicides, and suicide. I go against this, because if teen drinking doesn’t kill, it can result in permanently damaging lives forever.
By drinking at such an early age, teens are damaging their bodies. As far as research goes, the human brain continues developing into a person’s early twenties. Nearly eight percent of eight graders, sixteen percent of sophomores and twenty-four percent of seniors in the United States now report drinking large amounts of alcohol (five or more drinks at the time). By drinking, it may result in severe thinking problems and increase the chances of alcohol addiction. By weakening your brain, it can definitely and most likely will affect your mind and soul.
Teens that drink are also damaging their well-being. When a person drinks alcohol, it can cause changes in their mood with conditions such as depression and stress, which leads to an estimated 300 teen suicides a year in the United States. High school students that drink are twice as more likely to have seriously thought about attempting suicide than nondrinkers. But suicide is not the only result of death from drinking.
The number one cause of death in the United States led from drinking among people who are ages fifteen to twenty today is car crashes. About 1,900 people younger than twenty-one die every year from car crashes that are involved with drinking. For example, drinking drivers ages sixteen to twenty are twice as likely to be involved in a fatal car crash as to drinking drivers ages twenty-one or older. As I said before, alcohol has many other affects.
Everyone knows that if you choose to drink alcohol, it can have a tendency to damage your head and cause you to do things you wouldn’t normally want to do. Drinking makes you more likely to use drugs and/or inhalants, or even carry a weapon. Drinking can also affect teens’ grades. If teens that pull mostly A’s begin to drink, their perfect grades will drop down to mostly D’s and F’s. As you can see, there are many reasons why teen drinking can be fatal to a teen’s health.
There have been many cases dealing with teen drinking. “In one case, as a girl named Rochelle L. turned thirteen in November 2004, she had never felt so much pressure in her life, because she needed to keep a standard of straight A’s in every class, she wanted to look cool, and she wanted to fit in. She wasn’t great at making or keeping friends and wasn’t having any fun. But when she saw her older sister and her friend messing with vodka, she thought she had finally found a way to loosen up and bring some excitement into her life. So she began drinking every weekend and is now recovering at a rehab center. She lost the balance in her life and has fallen to an utterly low level.” No one should have to end up like this.
As you have read here, it is not wise for teens to start their lives off on a rough path such as this one. Teens that drink are putting themselves at risk not only for death, but for life-long addiction, thinking problems, damaging relationships, risk of hurting other people, other injuries, and also arrest. Teen drinking is unsafe, illegal, and irresponsible. Drinking can have devastating effects on teens’ lives, sometimes even death. We all want to live long and happy lives so keep alcohol far away from teens.
























Sites:
“Dangers of Teen Drinking.” We Don’t Serve Teens. Federal Trade Commission. March 24, 2010 www.dontserveteens.gov/dangers.html
“Too much, too soon, too risky.” The Cool Spot. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. www.thecoolspot.gov/too_much.asp
Ryan Fertman, Sandy. “Wasted Lives: the truth about teen girls and drinking.” Home and Garden Publications. 2010 CBS Interactive inc. Oct-Nov 2004. www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_mOIBX/is_2_11/ai_n6228313/