Picture this, it’s five in the morning, waking up to a text with the words “There’s been an accident, (…) is in a coma.” Stomach twisting into a thousand knots, a hundred questions racing through one’s mind. “How did this happen?” and “Why of all people?”. A single missed stop sign followed by a series of flips over a guard rail. The only one not wearing a seatbelt now in a coma, all because a teen thought he could handle driving everyone home after a night drinking at the lake. This teen’s life has been forever changed in ways he and his family never thought would happen. It took him six months before he could even begin learning how to walk again. This is just one of countless stories of families and people effected by the consequences of underage drinking. The risks and effects of underage drinking include impaired decision making, increase in alcohol dependency in adulthood, and significant health risks.
Underage drinking of adolescents effects their ability to make conscious and aware decisions, increasing the number of alcohol related car accidents/fatalities, unwarranted sexual advances, and regrettable decisions made by the adolescent. The number of car accidents and fatalities have increased over the years, despite the fact that the legal age limit for alcohol consumption was raised in the U.S. to twenty-one in a precautionary attempt to prevent underage drinking. Yet, “In 2015, 2,333 teens in the United States ages 16-19 were killed and 235,845 were treated in emergency departments for injuries suffered in alcohol related motor vehicle crashes. This means that six teens ages 16-19 died every day from motor vehicle injuries” (Teen Drivers: Get the Facts). When alcohol is consumed there is a higher risk of unwarranted sexual advances and activity among teens. This creates a chain reaction of consequences the teen will then have to face when the alcohol has left their system. A strong relationship was found between having an unwanted sexual advance and recent binge drinking as well as drinking to remove emotional distress (OR= 3.40 and 2.73 respectively for the total sample; OR=7.27 and 2.82 for females) (Novik). Alcohol in adolescents and underage college students hosts many negative consequences as a result from making regrettable decisions they were not fully conscious and aware of. The quantity and frequency with which college students consume alcohol has been duly documented and heavy drinking has been associated with a host of negative consequences, many of which are sexually related (Bryan, Ray, & Cooper, 2007; Core Institute, 2004; Hingson, Heeran, Winter, & Weschler, 2005; Inkelas et al., 2004), (Novik). (Intext citation here) Regardless the consistent changes being made in order to prevent underage drinking, teens will still find a way to consume alcohol. Such actions create a potentially dangerous environment, not only for the teen themselves, but for everyone around them. Underage drinking impairs decision making in the spur of the moment, the effects of underage drinking are not all short term. There are many long-term risks and effects of underage drinking, including an increased risk of alcohol dependency in adulthood.
While teens drinking creates many in the moment and short-term consequences, it also creates long term consequences for the adolescent and the people around them. Drinking in high school and elementary school can set the path for some teens. Introducing adolescents to the “party” environment can cause them to be more prone to the college party lifestyle, which in many ways can ruin any and all the success that student has worked hard for. “For men: (i) higher amounts of alcohol consumption at age 16 increased the odds of being a heavy drinker compared to an abstainer (age 19) and a moderate drinker (ages 23 and 26)” (Englund). Being introduced to the college party lifestyle will create an increased risk in participating in binge and/or day drinking. As the adolescent has now been introduced to the pressures of keeping up appearances with one’s image for others. ( reword/rework claim) “According to a national survey, almost 60 percent of college students ages 18–22 drank alcohol in the past month, and almost 2 out of 3 of them engaged in binge drinking during that same timeframe.” (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism). Going into adulthood, the adolescent will have a harder time finding healthier coping skills. The now adult will begin to use alcohol as their escape like they may have in the past years. It will create a chain of unhealthy relationships between loved ones, family, and friends. Alcohol dependency as an adult increases the chances of their children becoming alcohol dependent. “(ii) lower achievement scores at age 12 and having a mother who drank more when the participant was age 16 increased the odds of being a heavy drinker compared to moderate drinker (age 26)”, (Englund). There are many long-term consequences to abusing alcohol in adolescent years, leading to an increased risk of becoming dependent of alcohol as an adult. The significant health risks alone should be reason enough not to abuse alcohol in adolescence.
While drinking often comes with the immediate consequences of the adolescent’s personal life, underage drinking also poses many significant health risks to vital developing organs in the teen’s body. During childhood and teenage years, the brain is still developing. Alcohol can affect memory functions, reactions, learning ability and attention span; all vital during their years in school. Teens that begin drinking by the age fifteen are more likely to go on to have bad grades, skip classes, and become expelled from school. “There was a direct correlation between teens drinking in the early stages and the effects of their cognitive abilities and initial focus abilities. "For girls who had been engaging in heavy drinking during adolescence, it looks like they're performing more poorly on tests of spatial functioning, which links to mathematics, engineering kinds of functions (…) For boys who engaged in binge drinking during adolescence, we see poor performance on tests of attention — so being able to focus on something that might be somewhat boring, for a sustained period of time," (Tapert). Alcohol abuse in adolescence increases the risk of developing liver and kidney disease at a young age. Adolescents who drink regularly are even more at risk to start damaging their organs without even realizing it. The warning signs only show after a few years. In Britain, significant numbers of people are now dying due to liver and kidney diseases and failure, all directly correlated to underage drinking. Evidence points to underage alcohol abuse and mental health problems are closely correlated. 43% of young teens who drink alcohol, reported drinking as a way to manage stress of some sort they had in their personal lives. When stressed, the body produces a hormone that aids in coping with stress, called cortisol. Over weeks to years, the body should release less of the hormone, as it learns to adapt to stress. However, in a new study, Linda Spear; a behavioral and brain scientist studying teen drinking at Binghamton University in New York explains, “We found long-lasting change in stress sensitivity”. “These findings are consistent with other findings that heavy alcohol consumption causes neural damage in adolescent animals,” By neural, it means damage to nerve cells, such as those in the brain. “What happens in rats is suggestive of what happens in humans.” (Henry Kranzler). While underage drinking warrants consequences to the adolescent’s personal life and relationships, it also shows close correlation with poor mental health, increased risk in liver and kidney damage, and brain damage in adolescents.
Lifelong consequences take place when a teen participates in underage drinking. Such consequences include impaired decision making, increase in alcohol dependency in adulthood, and significant health risks. Teens make choices they don’t understand the dangers of, they put themselves and others at risk when making said decisions. They create a higher chance of having difficult personal relationships with people in the future and pose significant health risks that may end their lives significantly quicker. Over many years, throughout the country laws have been passed, and are continuously changing or being removed in attempts to prevent the dangers of underage drinking. Teenagers are viewed as weak minded and immature by much of society, many would even go far enough to say that alcohol is a drug to the young people of America. It’s important to protect the not just the future generations to come, but the ones we care and love to provide them with the tools for a bright future that everyone deserves.