According to CBC News, Manitoba now has some of the highest fines in Canada to discourage underage drinking. In our society exposure to and experience with alcohol, drinking is almost a rite of passage for young people in transition to early adulthood.
The teenage years are a time when children need to gradually take on more of the responsibilities associated with maturity and adulthood. Preparation for the future by way of establishing social connections for friendship and support, looking at pathways in education for entry into the workforce, and finding a sense of personal identity. The teenage years should be a time of exuberance, optimism, and energy.
What we find instead are groups of children with obesity, overdependence on passive recreational activities which fail to stimulate the imagination. Children who already feel disenchanted with the world and all it has to offer. Children as young as toddler age have been found to be clinically depressed. Other kids act out with symptoms of ADHD. Even those children who seem to be achieving say that they feel under pressure. Sooner or later most teenagers will experiment with alcohol or drugs.
Binge drinking is often a response to a need for alcohol consumption and awareness that drinking alcohol to excess is not consistent with a performance at work, play, or sport. Binge drinkers might feel that they are in control of their drinking because it is restricted to certain times. The promise of weekend alcohol drinking is what keeps some people going through the week.
Reliance upon periods of binge drinking to achieve release from tension and as recreation is highly unproductive of any positive effects. Some companies reinforce this behavior by policies that condemn weekday alcohol use in the interests of productivity but encourage employees to “go for it” at weekends.
Alcohol reduces tension and anxiety, excess intake affects good judgment, coordination, and memory. Teenagers who use alcohol to help out with deficient social skills set up a potential minefield of difficulties for themselves. College students often use drinking games and binge drinking to fuel social interaction. At a time when teenagers need to make good judgments about issues such as friendships, sex, and driving cars, alcohol use can lead to poor choices and cause injury or death.
Researchers at Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California have found that excess alcohol intake destroys most of the cells that form the hippocampus region of the brain. This area of the brain is where we process feelings of anxiety and information about our “position” in the world. Alcohol abuse by teenagers who already feel insecure will only make their long-term problems worse.
Feelings of stress and anxiety should motivate us to make productive changes. Systematically wiping out and destroying the circuits in the brain that experience moderate anxiety by alcohol abuse leaves us less and less able to respond. The result is chronic depression.
Using alcohol to relieve the symptoms which tell us that our life is under too much pressure is no way to deal with the problem – it is like shooting the messenger boy.
Emotional tension needs release. Holistic methods of processing stress help to build and develop new and healthy pathways in the brain. With holistic treatments and methods of anxiety reduction, the hippocampus improves in function.
When the pressures of life surround you, like a ring of fire, don’t gulp down alcohol like a scorpion thrashing itself with its tail. Find new meaning and purpose in your life by using holistic methods of alcohol detox and locate a rehab near me if you need effective and quick results.
