Alcohol abuse is a serious problem among many young people Essay

Alcohol abuse is a serious problem among many young people - Essay Example Statistics show that almost 64% of the high school students say that they have been drunk at least once. Among youth between the ages 12 to 17, 77% (Spear, pp. 71-81) say that they have had at least one serious problem related to drinking in the past year. The teenagers who engage in this problem suffer in various aspects of their life. Teenagers having drinking problems suffer in their education. They tend to skip school and their classes and their performance level starts going down as the problem increases. This is because their attention span towards anything goes down and hence their performance decreases. Another problem that arises is that of drunk driving and the number of accidents and deaths caused by it. Statistics show that underage drinking and alcohol use is more likely to kill youngsters compared to illegal drugs. Motor vehicle accidents are one of the leading causes of deaths of youth between the ages of 15 and 20. The rate of these accidents is much more for teenager s between ages of 16 to 20 rather than 20 years and above (Spear, pp. 71-81). Another problem is that of suicide. After depression and stress, alcohol abuse is the third factor causing young people to commit suicide for children between 14 and 25. Sexual assaults and rapes are also becoming increasingly common as an effect of alcohol abuse.