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Every mother-to-be wants the best for her future child, but when you struggle with drinking that means making a big sacrifice. If you drink a lot and have wondered if you have a drinking problem, and suddenly find out you’re pregnant, it’s like a big and important wake-up call. Now is your chance to get sober and do what is best for you and your baby.

Have I Already Hurt My Baby With Drinking?

How To Stop Drinking When You Become PregnantMany women who get pregnant without having planned for it worry that they have already caused harm by drinking during their early stages of pregnancy. While it is best to not be drinking at all, the most important thing is to stop drinking as soon as you find out. Not all experts agree on just how much alcohol can cause harm to a fetus, but the first few weeks are a time of rapid development. That being said, many women do go on to give birth to perfectly healthy babies.

The real issue is what can happen if you continue to drink throughout your pregnancy. Any amount of alcohol can impact your child and cause fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. These are preventable illnesses that produce a variety of symptoms in a child whose mother drank during pregnancy. Possible symptoms include unusual facial features, low body weight and small size, poor coordination, hyperactivity, learning disabilities, delays in developing speech and language skills, sleep difficulties, vision and hearing problems, and even organ damage.

How Do I Stop Drinking?

There is no point in feeling guilty about having already consumed alcohol while pregnant. Now is the time to cut yourself off completely, no matter how difficult that may be. Of course if you feel you can’t do it, no matter the risk to your child, turn to addiction professionals to help you get sober and monitor both your health and that of your baby.

If, on the other hand, your problem is not that severe, there are some steps you can take to make giving up alcohol a little easier. First, associate and socialize more with people who don’t drink or in situations where there will be no alcohol. Going to parties where everyone is drinking will make quitting much more difficult.

Learn how to make fantastic virgin drinks. Cocktails are huge right now and there is no reason you can’t join in on the trend. There are plenty of resources available to help you find recipes for delicious mocktails. Or, get creative and come up with your own recipes.

If drinking has been a habit that helps you relax and unwind at the end of the day, replace it with a healthier way to de-stress. Exercise is a wonderful way to relax, and also for you and your baby to stay healthy. Just be sure that you keep your doctor in the loop in case certain types of exercise should be avoided. You can also relax by engaging in a hobby, reading a good book, taking a nice long bath or by meditating.

Giving up alcohol for the health and safety of your baby may be the most important thing you ever do. It won’t be easy if you have made a habit of drinking too much or regularly, but it is doable. Just remember that if you really struggle to get on the wagon, professionals are available to help you.

Learn More – Why Do Women Continue To Drink During Pregnancy?

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Binge drinking is a term used to describe heavy drinking. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), binge drinking means having enough drinks in a two hour period to achieve a blood alcohol concentration level of 0.08, a level at which a person is considered to be intoxicated. Binge drinking is increasingly common, but does it make a person an alcoholic or addicted to alcohol? The answer is not so simple.

The Risks Of Binge Drinking

For women, binge drinking typically means having four or more drinks in a two-hour period. For men, it means having five or more drinks. Consuming this much alcohol in one sitting, or more, is detrimental to your health. And if you drink this way, you are not alone. One in every six adults in the U.S. binges four times a month. Each binge includes eight drinks on average. This is a lot of alcohol.

Binge drinking can lead to a number of health problems, not least of which is dependence on alcohol, or alcoholism. It can also cause:

  • Risks Of Binge Drinking | Binge Drinkers Addicted To Alcoholliver disease
  • high blood pressure
  • heart attack
  • stroke
  • neurological damage
  • complications if you have diabetes

Binge drinking also leads to:

  • accidents and injuries
  • alcohol poisoning
  • fetal alcohol syndrome
  • unintended pregnancies
  • problems with relationships
  • strain on career and finances

What Is Alcoholism?

So does binge drinking make you an alcoholic? Not necessarily. Addictive disorders are most often diagnosed based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The fifth version of this manual recently came out with new criteria for alcohol addiction. The fourth edition listed alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence (alcoholism) as two separate disorders. The fifth edition merged the two into one disorder: alcohol use disorder. A person can be diagnosed as having a mild, moderate or severe case of alcohol use disorder.

According to the fifth edition, to have an alcohol use disorder you must have two of the eleven symptoms listed in the manual. Having two or three symptoms represents a mild case. Binge drinking is not listed as a symptom, but several of the symptoms could result from binge drinking. For instance, one symptom is drinking more than you intended to on a particular occasion. Many binge drinkers could claim doing this. Another symptom is trying to drink less, but failing. Again, this can happen with binge drinking.

There are several other symptoms that could go hand-in-hand with binge drinking. This means that if you binge drink and end up having two of these symptoms, you could be diagnosed as having mild alcohol use disorder. If the risks of binge drinking are not enough to make you want to slow down, maybe this fact is.

Stopping Binge Drinking

Moderate drinking is not harmful to your health, unless you have specific conditions that are exacerbated by alcohol. If you binge drink regularly, consider cutting back to moderate drinking levels. If you don’t, you put yourself at risk for a number of health problems. Not least of these is alcohol use disorder. If you could qualify for a diagnosis of mild now, you are on the path to having moderate or severe alcohol use disorder later.

Being a moderate drinker means having no more than three drinks per day and seven per week if you are a woman. If you are a man, have no more than four drinks per day and 14 in a week. Cutting back is important for your health, but if you find you can’t, you may need to get help. Rely on friends and family to support you in drinking less, or find a support group to join. You don’t need to be a full-blown alcoholic to ask for help. Doing so now could save you disastrous consequences in the future.

If You Or Someone You Love Needs Help Quitting Drinking – Call Us Now – We Will Get You On The Path To Happy And Healthy Sobriety!

Social support is the general term for the connections we develop and maintain between family members, friends and other loved ones or more distant acquaintances. Generally speaking, people with highly developed forms of these connections have an increased ability to withstand daily and traumatic stresses and cultivate a sense of mental/emotional well-being. In a study published in February 2014 in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, researchers from Purdue University explored the impact good social support has on the genetic and environmental risks for developing a diagnosable case of alcohol abuse or alcoholism.

Does Intimate Partner Support Help Offset Risks For AlcoholismBenefits Of Social Support Networks

Social support networks can involve many people or just a few. In addition, they can form in informal settings such as friendships, blood relationships or intimate partnerships, or in more formal settings such as clubs, churches, associations or other organizations. Forms of support that can come from belonging to a given network include emotional support, physical or material support and the support provided by sharing various types of valuable or relevant information. In addition to improved stress resistance, current evidence indicates that people who can consistently rely on their social support networks experience benefits that include reduced risks for chronic illness, higher rates of survival when chronic illnesses strike and increased access to important resources and opportunities.

Genetic And Environmental Risks For Developing Alcohol Use Disorder

People who consistently misuse alcohol significantly boost their chances of developing alcohol use disorder (the modern-day term used to describe the symptoms of both alcohol abuse and alcoholism). Any given person’s overall odds for experiencing this disorder stem from both genetic and environmental factors. Broadly speaking, genetic factors come from inherited changes or alterations passed on through a person’s DNA, while environmental factors include all influences that first arise after a person is born.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reports that about half of all known risks for alcoholism are genetic in nature. Instead of acting in simple, entirely predictable ways, the inherited chances of developing alcoholism interact in any given individual and produce unique hereditary risk profiles. Similarly, environmental factors have a complex, overlapping impact on alcoholism risks rather than acting in completely predictable patterns. Despite the level of uncertainty involved, researchers and doctors can typically look at a person’s combined genetic and environmental risk factors and roughly determine his or her chances of developing diagnosable alcohol-related problems.

Impact Of Social Support On Risks For Developing Alcohol-Related Issues

In the study published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, the Purdue University researchers used an examination of 672 sets of adult twins to determine the impact of social support on both the genetic and environmental risks for developing alcohol-related issues. They conducted this project because very little research had been done on the alcohol-related effects of social support, in particular. Specific forms of social support under consideration included family-based support, friend-based support and the support provided by an intimate partner. The researchers used a sophisticated form of analysis to separate the effects of genetic influences from the effects of environmental influences in each study participant.

Intimate Partner Support And Impact On Alcohol Abuse

After reviewing their findings, the researchers concluded that, in any given individual, the mixture of genetic and environmental factors for alcohol-related problems varies according to how much social support that person gets from an intimate partner. Specifically, people with low levels of intimate partner support are affected by environmental factors more often than genetic factors, while people with high levels of intimate partner support are affected by genetic factors more often than environmental factors. The researchers also concluded that the presence of strong social support from a friend or family member does not have any substantial effect on the genetic and environmental risks for alcohol abuse or alcoholism.

Determining If Someone Will Be Susceptible To The Environmental Factors That Contribute Alcohol Problems

The authors of the study published in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research believe they have identified a potentially critical aspect of the underlying equation that helps determine if a person will be susceptible to the environmental factors known to contribute to the development of diagnosable problems with alcohol consumption. Specifically, they note the importance of knowing which types of social support reduce environmental risks. In the future, doctors may be able to use measures of social support to increase their ability to predict the eventual onset of alcohol use disorder in their patients.

Read More About 12 Step Programs – A Guide For Families Of Addicts

You don’t have to be an alcoholic for your drinking to have a negative impact on your children. When you drink too much, there are numerous ways in which your children are affected. You are shaping their attitudes toward alcohol and drinking, but you also may become a different person when you drink. Your shifting moods, your time devoted to drinking, your use of alcohol to temper your emotions; all of these impact your children.

Does My Drinking Determine If My Child Will Drink?

How Is Your Drinking Impacting Your KidsEverything you do and say helps to shape your child’s outlook on life and how he relates to the world. What you do—your actions—are far more impactful than what you say. If you lecture your children on the importance of drinking in moderation and then regularly go off the deep end with your own drinking, the latter is what they really notice.

According to research, the best way to positively impact your children’s future drinking habits is to limit their exposure to alcohol. When you demonstrate that drinking excessively is fun and normal, your children will most likely adopt the same attitude.

Does My Drinking Affect My Children Emotionally?

Your drinking can have a strong impact on the emotional states of your children. A wide range of feelings are stirred up in your children when you have had too much to drink: embarrassment, sadness, anger and perhaps worst of all, helplessness. When you drink too much, you get out of control, whether you are a happy or a hostile drunk. Your children will notice this and feel helpless to do anything about your inevitable mood shift.

Your drinking may also cause your children to feel stressed and worried. They might be concerned that you will drive drunk, that you’ll get hurt or even that you will hurt them when your mood turns sour. They may worry and become stressed when they see you begin to drink, wondering if you will have too much this time and hoping that you will remain in control and limit yourself better. The way your drinking makes your children feel can leak into all aspects of their lives. They may end up feeling depressed or anxious at school, embarrassed to have their friends over to the house or always afraid of you when you have a drink in your hand.

How Can I Limit The Harm My Drinking Causes?

Out of control and excessive drinking are what impact children so negatively. You need not be an alcoholic to have these effects on your children, but you also do not need to abstain entirely from drinking to ensure they are safe and happy. To limit the harm your drinking causes, limit your drinking. Demonstrate to your children a healthy relationship with alcohol. Don’t drink so much that you lose control or to get tipsy. Limit the number of nights that you have a drink. When you drink reasonably, you model a good attitude toward alcohol.

Another important aspect of normal drinking is to avoid turning to alcohol to cope with stress or other emotions. Emotional drinking is a slippery slope that can lead to problem drinking. Instead, model for your children healthy ways to cope with stress. Use exercise, relaxation techniques, and hobbies to cope with negative emotions.

If you do mess up and drink too much in front of your kids, or end up with a hangover, sit your kids down to talk about it. Open discussions about alcohol will help your kids. They will feel like they can talk to you and open up about what concerns them. Your actions will always have an impact on your children; whether that impact is positive or negative is up to you.

Find Out If Alcohol Is Ruining Your Life With These Simple Questions

Is Drinking Derailing Your Life Find Out With These Simple Questions

Being an alcoholic means having a serious disease. Alcoholism refers to a physical dependence on alcohol. If you are an alcoholic, you experience alcohol withdrawal symptoms until you get a drink in you, you experience intense cravings for alcohol and you have developed a tolerance so that you need to drink more and more to feel the effects.

If you can’t say that all of these apply to you, yet you’ve wondered if you drink too much, you may not be an alcoholic, but you might still have a problem with drinking.

You don’t have to be a full-blown alcoholic for drinking to do its damage. Ask yourself these questions to find out if you should consider cutting back on alcohol.

Do You Drink To Feel Better?

Emotional drinking is a major warning sign. Occasionally unwinding at the end of the day with a cocktail and a group of friends is nothing to worry about, but if you need a drink to de-stress, you could have a problem. Maybe you look forward to happy hour every day because it makes you feel better and helps you relax. You should not be depending on alcohol to get you to that state of mind.

Is Your Drinking Causing Relationship Problems?

Drinking can be a major cause of stress in a relationship. Your drinking may be causing you to have more fights, it may be causing you to neglect your relationship by spending too much time out drinking, or it could be making you pass out at night and getting in the way of intimacy. Your spouse or partner might be trying to hint to you that you drink too much, or he may be telling you outright. If you get defensive immediately and refuse to change your habits, you are putting strain on your relationship.

Are You Neglecting Responsibilities Because Of Drinking?

Drinking too much may lead to some rough mornings. If this means that you are not able to get up and get your kids ready for school, or get to work on time, your drinking is interfering with responsibilities. Do you drink too much and find you can’t drive to take your kids to activities or find that you just can’t get your chores done? This is a problem and drinking is impacting your life.

Do You Drink Alone?

Drinking alone is rarely a good habit to have. If you have a drink alone every once in a while, you probably don’t need to worry, but if it is a regular occurrence, you need to rethink your drinking. You should be especially concerned if you drink alone and end up getting drunk or passing out.

Do You Feel Like You Should Curb Your Drinking But Can’t?

Maybe you have already given serious thought to your drinking. Maybe you decided that you should cut back a little so that you don’t feel so bad in the mornings or so that you have more time for your kids or spouse. Did you try to cut back and find you couldn’t do it? This is a serious sign of alcohol abuse. If you can no longer control when and how much you drink, you are headed down a dangerous path.

What To Do If You Answered “Yes” To Any Of These Drinking-Problem Questions

Any one of the signs is cause for concern. If you can answer yes to any of them, drinking is taking a toll on your life and it is time to rethink drinking. Start by talking with your partner or a close friend you trust. Having support can help you to change your habits. If that fails, consider getting professional help to make some important changes.

Read More To Find Out If Your Mom Or Wife Is Drinking Too Much

You probably have a picture in your mind when you hear the word alcoholic: an older man—ragged clothing, penniless, maybe homeless. We all have our prejudices about addicts, drug abusers, and people who drink too much. The truth is, however, that someone who drinks too much could be just about anyone.

Sometimes that person who is headed down the path to alcoholism doesn’t appear at first glance to have a problem. It might be someone who is well off and has a great job. It could be a young woman. It could be a mom or a wife. Alcoholism is not restricted to the stereotype, and more women are drinking now than ever before.

If you suspect at all that your mom or the mother of your children is drinking more than is normal, or if you suspect it in yourself, take note. Know the signs of early drinking problems as well as the effects of alcoholism in women and step in to help, or get help, before it goes too far.

Has Drinking Become A Secret Habit?

Is Your Mom Or Wife Drinking Too Much - How To Know If It's A ProblemFor women who are home all day, with or without the kids, drinking in secret is a real possibility. She can have a glass of wine with lunch—or two or three—sober up when it’s time to pick up the kids, and no one is the wiser. If you are the secret drinker, that fact in itself indicates a problem. Hiding a habit is always an early sign of problem drinking. So how can you tell if your spouse is hiding this habit from you? Look for the leftovers. If wine disappears from the fridge or you find stashed liquor bottles around the house or in the recycling bin, something is amiss.

Is Drinking Getting In The Way Of Responsibilities?

A classic sign of a drinking problem, or any substance abuse problem, is that it interferes with daily life. If your work-at-home or stay-at-home mom or wife is slacking on her usual responsibilities, something could be up. Maybe the laundry is piling up more than usual, or the house is not as clean as it used to be. Perhaps the kids get picked up late one time too often. If there are valid reasons for these slips, such as new or added responsibilities, that’s one thing; if you can’t see any reasonable explanation and you suspect drinking, you could be right.

Can She Have Just One Drink?

How do evenings look in your home? Does your spouse have one glass of wine with dinner or does she struggle to limit herself? The compulsion to drink more and more is a clear sign of a problem. If she constantly says she will have just the one, but always stretches that to two or more drinks, she is on a dangerous path. When you try to limit your drinking, but can’t do it, you are on the road to problem drinking.

Is She Defensive When You Talk About Drinking?

Someone who is drinking too much, but is in denial about it, is likely to get defensive when you try to have a discussion with her. Bring it up and open the way for a talk. If she acts unreasonably defensive and gets angry if you try to suggest she curb her drinking, there may be a problem. Problem drinkers will naturally have a hard time admitting this fault, but she needs your help. Press the issue and point to the signs that demonstrate a problem. Ignoring it will not make it go away, and eventually someone will get hurt.

If you or someone you love needs help with alcohol or drug addiction, contact us now at 855-763-6488 and let us help you start a life of recovery and freedom!

Read More On How To Know If I’m Enabling The Addict In My Life

Heavy drinking is a term used to describe a level of excessive alcohol consumption that steeply increases a person’s chances of developing alcohol use disorder (a condition which includes both alcohol dependence and non-dependent alcohol abuse). Fully 25 percent of all people who drink excessively meet the requirements for diagnosis of this condition. Heavy drinking can also increase the risks for other serious health problems. In a study published in 2013 in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism, a team of Japanese researchers looked at the impact of heavy alcohol consumption on the risks for developing heart disease or diabetes.

What’s Considered Heavy Drinking?

According to guidelines issued by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the vast majority of people keep their risks for developing alcohol use disorder to a minimum when they limit both their daily and weekly alcohol consumption. As a rule, men minimize their risks when they consume no more than four drinks on a single day and 14 drinks in a single week. Women minimize their risks when they consume no more than three drinks on a single day and seven drinks in a single week. The NIAAA defines heavy drinking as any pattern of alcohol consumption that exceeds either the daily or weekly recommended amounts for men or women.

Heavy Drinking Impact the Risks For Heart Disease And DiabetesHeavy Drinking And Alcohol Use Disorder

Twenty percent of all adults who drink heavily once a month develop alcohol dependence (alcoholism) or clinically diagnosable alcohol abuse. Thirty-three percent of all adults who drink heavily once a week develop one of these problems, while fully 50 percent of all adults who drink heavily twice a week become alcohol abusers or alcoholics. The definition for alcohol use disorder comes from the American Psychiatric Association (APA). The APA once considered alcohol dependence and alcohol abuse to be separate concerns. However, in recognition of the highly linked nature of the two conditions, the organization officially acknowledged them as aspects of a single disorder in 2013.

Heart Disease And Diabetes

Heart disease and diabetes are both relatively common, potentially fatal chronic health problems. Common forms of heart disease (also known as cardiovascular disease) include coronary artery disease, stroke and heart attack. Some people affected by the blood sugar disorder diabetes have an often-inherited condition called type 1 diabetes; however, most affected individuals have an acquired condition called type 2 diabetes. Among other factors, risks for both heart disease and type 2 diabetes are associated with a buildup of fat in the abdominal region and an increase in a type of blood-borne fat called triglyceride.

Risks Produced By Heavy Drinking

In the study published in Alcohol and Alcoholism, researchers from Japan’s Hyogo College of Medicine used an examination of 21,378 men between the ages of 35 and 60 to compare the levels of abdominal fat and triglyceride accumulation associated with abstinence from alcohol consumption, light alcohol consumption, heavy alcohol consumption and very heavy alcohol consumption. They performed this comparison in order to estimate some of the diabetes- and heart disease-related risks associated with drinking. The researchers defined light drinking as intake of less than 0.78 ounces of pure alcohol a day. They defined heavy drinking as intake of anywhere from 0.78 to 1.55 ounces of pure alcohol a day. They defined very heavy drinking as any level of intake above 1.55 ounces of pure alcohol a day. In the U.S., a single standard drink of alcohol contains 0.6 ounces of pure alcohol.

The researchers found that, compared to both non-drinkers and other drinkers, very heavy consumers of alcohol have significantly increased risks for developing the abdominal fat and triglyceride increases that can contribute to the onset of heart disease or type 2 diabetes. They also found that, compared to both non-drinkers and other drinkers, light drinkers have significantly lowered risks for this body fat and triglyceride accumulation. In addition, the researchers concluded that, compared to very heavy drinkers who exercise regularly and don’t smoke, very heavy drinkers who smoke and fail to get regular exercise have substantially higher chances of accumulating abdominal fat and triglyceride. Conversely, light drinkers who don’t smoke tend to accumulate abdominal fat and triglyceride considerably slower than light drinkers who do smoke.

The authors of the study published in Alcohol and Alcoholism also concluded that all four groups of participants (non-drinkers, light drinkers, heavy drinkers and very heavy drinkers) had substantially higher chances of developing high blood sugar levels (characteristic of diabetes) when they had increased levels of abdominal fat. This finding indicates that an accumulation of abdominal fat boosts the risks for type 2 diabetes even when an individual keeps his or her alcohol consumption within recommended daily and weekly amounts.

See How Alcohol Use Among Teens Has Changed Over Time And Learn The Risky Alcohol Behaviors

 

Alcohol consumption is illegal for all teenagers in the U.S. Despite this fact, significant numbers of teenagers drink, and therefore expose themselves to a range of health risks and social problems of alcohol. In a study published in October 2013 in the Journal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse, researchers from the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation looked at the way young, alcohol-consuming teenagers alter their drinking patterns as they grow older. These researchers found that most young teens manage to avoid any increases in alcohol consumption over time, while a small but significant minority of young teens experience either moderate or heavy increases in their consumption levels.

Alcohol Consumption Rates In Young Teens

Change Of Alcohol Use Among Young Teens Over Time | Teen Alcohol AbuseIn collaboration with the University of Michigan, the National Institute on Drug Abuse tracks American teenagers’ level of involvement in substance use with an annual survey project called Monitoring the Future. According to results compiled from the 2012 version of this project, roughly 16 percent of all U.S. eighth graders consume alcohol at least once monthly. This rate follows a downward trend that first began in the mid-1990s.

Figures gathered from Monitoring the Future also indicate that roughly 6 to 7 percent of all eighth graders in the U.S. participate in a dangerous form of consumption called binge drinking in any given two-week period. Binge drinking gets its name because participants binge on enough alcohol (typically, five drinks or more for boys and four drinks or more for girls) to become legally drunk in two hours or less.

Risky Behaviors Associated With Early Alcohol Consumption

Alcohol consumption has a strongly negative impact on teenagers, especially young teenagers below the age of 14, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reports. Examples of the risks associated with drinking at this early age include higher rates of involvement in car crashes and other accidents, higher risks for homicide and suicide, higher rates for victimization in violent criminal acts such as assaults and rapes, increased chances of participation in disruptive conduct while in school, increased chances for poor academic results, an earlier onset of participation in sexual activity and increased risks for the practice of unsafe sex.

In addition, teen boys and girls who drink before the age of 14 tend to participate in binge drinking rather than moderate alcohol consumption. Critically, they also become alcoholics fully four times more frequently than people who don’t drink until they reach legal age.

 Changes In Consumption Over Time

In the study published in the Journal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse, the Pacific Institute researchers looked at the ways in which young teenagers change their alcohol intake patterns as they grow up. The researchers also looked at the factors that help predict an increase in alcohol consumption among young teens. They undertook their project because only a few prior research groups had examined drinking patterns in this particular age group. All told, the study included 5,903 middle school teens. The researchers began tracking these teens when they were sixth graders and continued to track them through the eighth grade.

After completing the study’s primary phase, the researchers found that there are four emerging patterns of alcohol intake in middle school teenagers. Slightly less than 50 percent of all teens in this age group avoid drinking altogether or only drink on fairly rare occasion. Slightly more than 29 percent of all middle school teens initiate experimental alcohol use and continue to drink, but only increase their consumption levels to a minor extent over time. Fifteen percent of all middle schoolers start drinking significantly earlier than their alcohol-using peers, but still manage to keep their intake levels low. Slightly more than 6 percent of all children in this age group initiate alcohol use, and then fairly quickly begin consuming enough alcohol to rank as “heavy” drinkers.

Underlying Factors Of Teen Alcohol Use

The researchers concluded that the single biggest factor in forming any given young teen’s alcohol use pattern is his or her level of belief in the ability to control his or her rate of alcohol consumption. Young teens who believe they can control their drinking-related behaviors tend to do so, while those who don’t believe they can control their drinking tend to experience a spike in intake. Other factors identified as contributors to a young teenager’s alcohol intake pattern include the relative level of peer pressure he or she experiences for or against drinking, as well as the relative level of positive or negative feelings he or she has toward the effects and benefits of drinking.

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