Teens at Risk For More Than They Gamble On
Teens at risk tend to sneer at the various campaigns designed to, hopefully, curb their voracious appetites for alcohol and drugs, the typical responses ranging from anger to derision to contempt. I’ve read many comments where the indignant teen peevishly demands to have the right to do what they want with their own lives. And maybe if the damage stopped there, teen crisis intervention wouldn’t be needed.
However, the damage from binge drinking always seems to collide into other lives, innocent lives. And it isn’t a matter of surviving spring breaks or four years of partying. It’s a matter of having the brain, ambition or ability to do anything besides survive for the rest of their lives.
Because, odd thing is, you really can damage the human brain. You really can short-circuit a, heretofore, bright young mind. So it ends up that the drinking that the teen and his parents figure he’ll grow out of, can keep him from growing much at all.
Relevant Tags:alcoholism, chagrined, human brain, teen crisis intervention, teenage binge, teenage drinking“By the time teenage binge-drinkers reach the age of 30 they are much more likely to be in prison and/or developed alcoholism than their non-drinking peers. As figures continue to show a rise in teenage drinking, that is the stark warning issued by the Institute of Child Health (ICH).
The ICH looked at the habits of 11,000 teenagers back in 1986 and again when they reached 30 and their findings…make sobering reading. Those teens who indulged in binge-drinking are 60% more likely to be alcoholic than the average, 60% more likely to be homeless, almost twice as likely to have convictions or jail sentences and 40% more likely to use illegal drugs.”
Teen Crisis Intervention