Essay/Term paper: Under age drinking : the problems it creates

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Alcohol and Drugs

Under Age Drinking : The Problems It Creates


It's a Saturday night, and the bars are packed. People are inside
having a few, or more than a few, drinks. A select few are really drunk or
passed out. Now lets step outside and take a look at a different type of
drinking, drinking at an early age. High school and junior high kids are at a
party drinking. Like the adults, some are just having a few, but quite a few
are having more than that and are stumbling around.
These kids have been given the idea that drinking is something that
adults do, and we all know that kids can't wait to be grown up. Thus, they
drink, figuring that if they can at least do what adults do then they will be
grown up, in a way. This is how our society works.
Enough with the philosophy of it. Now I would like to talk about the
effects that early age drinking can have on a person. I grew up in a town that
has the most bars per capata in the state of Montana and is in the top ten in
the United States. This has a huge effect on under age drinkers. The bars card
at the door and as long as your 18 your in. And since the bouncers will stamp
nearly anyone they know or like the number of kids is always high. It dosn't
help that Dillon is a college town and ther are many under age college kids
there. Now lets imagine another party where kids are drinking.
The bonfire is roaring, Bubba just decided that singeing everyone's
eyebrows off by throwing some gasoline on the fire would be fun. Of course
nobody thought that this was very funny except for Bubba. Bubba is not the only
teenage person at this party who has had a few to many. There are a lot of
under age kids who are just plain drunk. This is a regular kind of party in my
hometown, everyone goes out and drinks to get drunk. The sad thing is, that
these kind of parties happen a lot of time twice a week expecially during the
spring. All this partying catches up with these young peolpe. They don't get
jobs because they are too tired from partying all night or all weekend long.
Thier grades start slipping. The worst effect, however has to be the addiction
to alcohol. I've seen freshman who drink all the time because they feel they
can't live without their alcohol. Of course you have to realize that this is a
worst case scenario. I also know kids who drink just a little, they know their
limits, and don't try to break them.
Now here's another worst case scenario. A college kid has been studying
for a few hours, you can feel the boredom in the room. He decides to take a few
minutes off and cracks open a beer to relieve the tension. The only problem is
that he doesn't stop there. He decides to have a few more, then after finishing
a couple more he calls up his buddies and the go out and drink some more. He
wakes up in his room on his floor or in someone else's room, thinking he must
have passed out. He has a really bad hangover and decides to sleep it off. He
wakes up quite a bit later, and in the room next to him you can here his long
string of profanities. I guess he remembered the big test he is suppose to take.
He crams in what material he can in what little time he has, knowing he won't
be able to learn it all. He takes the test and knows he failed, this the fifth
test he has failed so far and his GPA is way below par. Two days later he gets
a letter saying that he is out of school for breaking academic probation, again
this is a worst case scenario.
My last scenario is a person at around thirty or forty. You can see an
old beat-up pickup drive in and park in front of one of the bars. He walks into
the bar, a half-an-hour later he stumbles out and heads to another bar. Two
hours later, and a twelve pack more, he stumbles his way out of the second bar.
He walks to his pickup opens the door and tries to climb in but is to drunk. He
finally gets in and passes out in his pickup. He wakes up the next morning hung
over, just like the last three mornings. Except today is different, today he
feels a pain in his stomach, not to harsh but it can be felt. He continues to
drink and the pain just seems to get worse. After a while the pain has become
so intense he has to go see a doctor. He comes out with some bad news finding
out that he has Pancreatitis. Pancreatitis is a type of alcoholic poisoning,
and as he has found out one cannot drink any more alcohol with this disease.
This is one of the harshest diseases that goes along with the consumption of
alcohol. In my hometown there are at least five or six examples of this, one
the English teacher I had just last year. He was forced to retire before this
year. Another man who has recently acquired it didn't amount to anything before
he got it. He couldn't keep a job for more than a couple of weeks and the money
he did earn didn't go to anything besides more alcohol, spending nearly every
night at the bars.
No one means to end up being addicted to alcohol but for many different
reasons people find more and more excuses to drink and finally become addicted.
Alcohol has become a major problem in our society whether it be teenagers or
even adults. Alcohol laws and alcohol awareness programs can only go so far I
feel it is the responsibility of each and every one of us to take the matter
into our own hands and make the right choices.