We live in a society that drinks heavily, and this influences teens. Alcohol is a legal drug for people over the age of twenty-one. By the time most teens reach high school, nearly all will have faced a choice about whether or not to drink alcohol. Although alcohol is illegal for teenage use a large percentage of teens use it frequently.
Kids who are drinking regularly in high school seem to be fully aware of the penalties and laws against underage drinking, possession but don't care. They all know that driving drunk can cause harm to themselves and others, but never think that anything can happen to them. For example, the first weekend of my junior year there was a horrible wreck that killed two of my friends and injured everyone in the truck. My boyfriend at that time was in the truck and is now paralyzed from the waist down. He will not ever be able to walk, run or drive a car. He tells me now that walking is just a faint memory. While he was in Dallas in the hospital I went and visited him. The guy in his room was also in a car wreck due to alcohol. He had brain damage and half of his skull was missing. His head was caved in in the back. He could not talk, walk , but he could look around. Being up there at the hospital and seeing all the awful things alcohol can do to you should have made me think about drinking, shamefully it did not stop me.
Teens drink for many different reasons. A big reason for teens to start to drink is because of problems in their family life. Teens could have a bad relationship with their parents or their parents could get in a fight or even get a divorce and this could cause a drinking problem among their child. Sometimes these children have been neglected or abused which makes them feel unwanted or they have been pressured and feel worthless if they fail. Many kids drink to make them feel older and mature. Some people think alcohol makes you more confident and sociable.
