Ritta Liu

Peters

ENGL 133

3/4/18

The Impact of Alcohol Abuse Among Adolescents

Imagine a typical high school student’s life: Many that know more or less of the habits

of high school or college students that are more integrated into society would know of the

widely known phenomenon of illegal substance usage. The teenage party scene has always

been a problem, and the alcohol use among adolescents has been obvious and concerning.

There has been countless studies on how alcohol permanently affects a person’s health when

used at a young age, and the legal age of drinking is set at twenty-one due to the inability for

minors to make clear judgements for their brain have not been fully developed. This The culture

around alcohol and the party scene are promoted among students by the media and incompetent

parenting. Although alcohol could be an enjoyable beverage in moderation, and there is also

obvious decrease in the usage of alcohol among adolescents, it is still a notable problem. Even

though alcohol could be stress-relieving and entertaining, based on the many negative impacts

that alcohol abuse can have on adolescents both physically and psychologically, underage

drinking could directly affect one’s future and pose dangers on the society.

Although many people know the damage alcohol can cause to one’s liver, some may

not know that it is extremely detrimental to other parts of one’s body as well. In 2012,

Springer Science+Business Media posted in Cancer Causes Control that alcoholism can have

a huge impact on the risk of someone getting pancreatic cancer. Dominique S. Michaud

writes in the report that chronic pancreatitis, inflammation of the pancreas, is one of the main

causes of pancreatic cancer, of which alcoholism is a main cause for. Increased pancreatic

cancer risk has been observed among alcoholics, which they found through analyzing a total
of twelve different studies. In the results, men that consume over 45 grams of alcohol a day

have a statistically significant higher chance of developing pancreatic cancer (Michaud 1219-

1223). The pancreas is secretes enzymes which help further digest food in the small

intestines, and insulin which regulates blood sugar, which is why diabetes is one of the main

causes of pancreatic cancer as well. With a failed pancreas, it is impossible for a person to

survive. Having a barely functional pancreas at a very young age like one’s adolescence, it

makes one’s lifestyle very difficult to maintain and many factors of their life would be

affected, like diet, digestive system, and sleeping schedule. As a teenager, I find myself often

being attracted to sweets, and I also need a lot of sleep in order to be fully functioning during

the day. All of these factors makes a weak pancreas hard to deal with in everyday life.

Other than the pancrea, the most debatably important organ of our body, our brain,

can also be affected significantly by alcohol, which can be significant in an adolescent’s life

does not finish developing until the average age of 25 (Sabbagh 5). There are two parts of

one’s brain that take the most damage impact by alcohol, the cerebellar cortex and the

prefrontal cortex. “The loss of Purjinke cells is related to long term daily intake of alcohol

(41-80g).” Reported by the British Medical Journal (Karhunen 1667). The Purjinke cells are

found in the cerebellar cortex of the brain. They are in charge of motor movement. The loss

of these neurons would directly impact the ability of one to control their body movements,

which would affect one’s driving and athletic activities. Adolescents are generally the most

active crowd, who also happen to all be the new drivers on the road. With this serious of an

impact on one’s control of their body, the risk of drinking can be dangerous to oneself and

the people around them. The prefrontal cortex, on the other hand, is in charge of risk-taking

and decision making. This is the part of the brain that last finishes developing. A few factors

can affect the development of the prefrontal cortex, which the most important one being

sleep. David N. Stephens, belonging to the Department of Psychology in the University of

Sussex, published “Cognitive and Emotional Consequences of Binge Drinking: Role of

Amygdala and Prefrontal Cortex” in Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences in

2008. In this journal article, he concludes that in young adults, there is a statistically

significant evidence in the increase in impulsivity, impairments in spatial working memory,

and impaired emotional learning (Stephens 3169). At the age when one’s prefrontal cortex is

going through final refinements, damages like this could permanently alter someone’s

capability to make clear and logical judgements, and decrease their ability to learn skills.

Imagine this scenario, a teenager is under the influence of alcohol, and has been regularly

drinking since sophomore year in high school. The effect of alcohol has already reached their

brain. The chance of this teenager driving under the influence would be much higher due to

their impaired abilities to make rash decisions. However, their Purkinje cells’ count has also

decreased due to alcoholism, which impacts their driving skills even when they are sober.

This sounds like a unquestionably fatal situation that could potentially result in the loss of

many lives including their own.

Despite all these concrete facts, some may still say things like, “you only live once!”

“have fun while you’re still young.” Yes, anyone would agree that youth is the time to enjoy

life because they have the most energy and time. Arguing against alcoholism I am not saying

one should not consume alcohol at all. In moderation, everything is enjoyable and healthy. In

fact, due to the fact that alcohol is a depressant, which means it affects the central nervous

system and have effects similar to those of prescribed anti-anxiety medications. According to

a New York Times article, 61% of undergraduate students reported feeling “overwhelming

anxiety” in the previous year (Denizet-lewis). With the immense amount of students that are

stressed and anxious, it is more than natural for them to find way to relieve and enjoy

themselves. The healthier option is to go outside and get some fresh air, do sports, or creative

activities like drawing or dancing. However some turn towards drug and alcohol abuse. In
moderation, by this I mean once or twice a month at most and not in a sense of binge

drinking, alcohol could be enjoyable and help someone let loose and let go of their stress. In

reality, there is actually a decrease in the consumption of alcohol among high schoolers. The

National Institute of Drug Abuse reports that 37.3% of 12th graders report have “been drunk”

in 2015, compared to 53.2% in 2001 (NIDA). Youths’ first time drinking alcohol also went

up from the age of 13.63 to 14.63 from 1993 to 2015 (NIAAA). This shows that whatever we

are doing to intentionally or unintentionally resolve the problem of underage drinking, it has

been working. However the decreasing trend has been slowing down in the past few years,

which is mildly concerning. A few things that colleges are doing right are required programs

like AlcoholEdu, which could help students understand both the obvious and underlying

effects of alcoholism.

Alcoholism at a young age comes at a great cost, for it harms one’s body and affects

their future while causing danger to everyone around them. It could damage one’s body parts,

such as the pancreas, and be life threatening. The brain could also be permanently damaged

due to alcohol abuse, impairing one’s motor movements and decision-making skills.

Underage drinking comes from a somewhat understandable standpoint because of how

common anxiety takes place among students, who use alcohol for stress-relieving, but there

are other ways that one could take their minds off of their responsibilities. To eliminate this

problem completely, we have to pay more attention to the education of students and

implement more effective plans to warn students about the dangers of alcohol abuse.
 Works Cited

Denizet-lewis, Benoit. “Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe

Anxiety?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 Oct. 2017.

Karhunen, Pekka J., et al. “Moderate Alcohol Consumption And Loss Of Cerebellar Purkinje Cells.”

BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 308, no. 6945, 1994, pp. 1663–1667. JSTOR, JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/29723957.

Michaud, Dominique S., et al. “Alcohol Intake and Pancreatic Cancer: a Pooled Analysis from the

Pancreatic Cancer Cohort Consortium (PanScan).” Cancer Causes & Control, vol. 21, no. 8,

2010, pp. 1213–1225. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40792967.

NIAAA. "Average Age Youths in The U.S. Aged 12 to 20 Years First Drank Alcohol from 1991 to

2015." Statista - The Statistics Portal, Statista, www.statista.com/statistics/725020/age-of-

first-alcohol-use-among-young-people-united-states/, Accessed 6 Mar 2018

NIDA. "Teen substance use shows promising decline." National Institute on Drug Abuse, 13 Dec.

2016, https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/news-releases/2016/12/teen-substance-use-

shows-promising-decline. Accessed 6 Mar. 2018.

Sabbagh, Leslie. “The Teen Brain, Hard at Work: No, Really.” Scientific American Mind, vol. 17,

no. 4, 2006, pp. 20–25., www.jstor.org/stable/24939525.

Stephens, David N., and Theodora Duka. “Cognitive and Emotional Consequences of Binge

Drinking: Role of Amygdala and Prefrontal Cortex.” Philosophical Transactions: Biological

Sciences, vol. 363, no. 1507, 2008, pp. 3169–3179. JSTOR, JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/20208731.