The effects of alcohol in youth

Alcohol can enter your bloodstream very quickly. Unlike food,it doesn't require digestion. Different people react differently to alcohol. This can be due to:

•A few drinks might make you feel relaxed, but your ability to concentrate is reduced and your reflexes will slow down. 

•After a few more drinks you  might also have slurred speech, mood swings and less coordination.

•After even more drinks you may get confused or experience blurred vision, poor muscle control and poor judgment. This could cause you to get into arguments or fights, or to do something reckless or dangerous that risks injury.

•Keep drinking and you'll start to feel nauseous.You may end up vomiting.The worst-case scenario is falling into a coma or dying.

•That's just the physical effects. Because alcohol can lower your inhibitions there's a good chance that drinking too much could make you start an argument or a fight.

Health effects of alcohol on young people

Risky behaviors can occur when teenagers drink alcohol. Risky behavior can have both short-term and long-term impacts, which is why it is important to change the community attitudes surrounding alcohol, and stop underage drinking from being the norm.

• Increase risk of accidental and violent injury.
• The occurrence of risk-taking behaviors increases in adolescence and the possibility of injury increases even more when alcohol is also involved.
• Alcohol consumption in young adults is associated with physical injury, risky sexual behavior, adverse behavioral patterns and academic failure.

Adolescents are also more likely to get involved in a fight when they drink alcohol, compared with when they were sober.

Mental health problems including depression, self-harm and suicide:

• Alcohol use increases the risk for a range of mental health and social problems in young adults.
• The nature of the relationship between alcohol use and mental health in adolescence is somewhat reciprocal.
• Alcohol use may contribute to poor mental health.
• Adolescents who use drinking as a method of coping are more likely to suffer from depression, and can bring on heavy drinking, which is itself predictive of suicidal behavior.

How can we help teenagers?

States and communities can do:

• Increase awareness among teens and parents.
• Strengthen enforcement of existing policies, such as minimum legal drinking age and zero tolerance laws, and graduated driver licensing systems.
• Educate parents and teens about the risks of drinking and driving.
• Encourage parents of new teen drivers to set and enforce the "rules of the road" and consider tools like parent-teen driving agreements.
•  Remind parents to lead by example as safe drivers, starting even before their child is old enough to drive. 

Teens can 

• Choose to never drink and drive.
•  Refuse to ride in a car with a teen driver who has been drinking.
• Wear a seat belt on every trip, no matter how short.
• Obey speed limits.
• Never use a cell phone or text while driving.