Underage Drinking

                                                                          Underage drinking

            Drinking is bad enough and harmful to your body, but can be even more harmful to a developing body such as a child or teen.  This paper is an opinion on underage drinking and the dangerous ways they it can hurt you and others around you.

           Drinking can be harmful to a teen because their body is still developing and not ready for the chemicals in alcohol.  The first reason is that the developing teenage body has immature organs still and can easily get alcohol poisoning.  This could result in an organ transplant and could keep you in the hospital for weeks, even months ("Examples of Alcohol's Effect on Organ Function.").  Another reason alcohol is harmful to the body is that it can give you severe brain damage.  Brain damage can affect your social life, work ethics, and how you do in school. The last reason that alcohol is harmful to the body is that if you drink too much your breathing could get slower and sometimes even stop ("ALCOHOL'S DAMAGING EFFECTS ON THE BRAIN"). “The more alcohol advertising kids are exposed to, the more likely they are going to drink, and drink heavily. We have stronger and stronger research showing there is a link to advertising”-David Jernigan.

         Watson 2

   Alcohol can not only harm you inside your body, but can also harm others.  The first way that you can hurt others is becoming drunk. Becoming dunk can cause you to be moody such as angry. When your angry u sometimes start fights, fights could become bad and others can get hurt.  Another way is drunk driving (“how Bar Fights Start”).  Drunk driving is a big problem in the U.S.A. 40% of car crashes this year in the U.S.A involved teens under the influence of alcohol. Car crashes can severely hurt or kill people, resulting in jail time for the teen. Teens also get caught with DUI’s, drinking under the influence, and DWI, driving while intoxicated, and these are common charges against teens. (“Teenage Drunk Driving Risks”). “Today’s underage drinker is tomorrow’s drunk driver.”- David DeIuliis from Communications at Mothers against Drunk Driving.  The last reason isn’t very common but does happen.  It is swimming and drinking. Four out of 10 teens that have drowned have been drinking and swimming.  Teens that swim and drink run the risk of getting killed. (“Deaths from Underage Drinking |The Cool Spot.”).

            Another harmful and huge problem is unprotected sex while under the influence of alcohol.  Every 2 babies per 100 babies are born from teens under the influence of alcohol. Teens that drink alcohol are seven times more likely to have sexual intercourse than teens who avoid using alcohol.  This is a big problem because the parents are teenagers and usual cannot support or take care of the baby.  Another reason why this is bad is because the baby can be born with defects because of the alcohol (Kite).

     Underage drinking can be caused by family members.  Over seven million children currently live in a family where one parent is an alcoholic. 61% of adults say they had an alcoholic beverage, but 31% percent say they have had five or more drinks in one day of that year. Children and teens live with a parent that is addicted to alcohol are more likely to grow up as addictive drinkers (Wardell). 

      Most teens that are caught drinking are addicted to alcohol and probably drugs. Teens that are caught with alcohol are probably addicted and need help. Getting caught could be a good thing because then you can get medical help. Most teens think they can become not addicted by themselves, but the best way is to get help and learn to not be addicted ("Dealing With Addiction.").

     The conclusion to all of this is that even though drinking is sometimes good, children and teens should still never drink under the drinking age.