Essay - Influences of Peer Pressure on Alcohol and Drug Use (1485...

Influences of Peer Pressure on Alcohol and Drug Use (1485 words+refs)

As children move into early adolescence, involvement with peers and the attraction ***** peer identification increases. As pre-adolescents begin rapid physical, emotional and social changes, they begin to question adult st*****ards and the need for parental guidance. They find it reassuring to turn for advice to friends who understand and sympathize. The idea that someone, or something, may lure children into learning dangerous and destructive behavior by discarding parental behaviors and values often scares adults. However, peer pressure can be positive. The peer group is a source of affection, sympathy and understanding; a pl*****ce for experimentation; and a supportive setting for achieving primary developmental tasks of adolescence (Robin ***** Johnson 75).

At adolescence, ***** relations expand to occupy a central role in young people's lives. New types and levels of peer relationships ***** emerge. Peers typically replace ***** family as the center of a ***** person's socializing and leisure activities. Teenagers have multiple peer relationships, and they confront ***** peer cultures that have remarkably different norms and value systems. The adult perception of peers as having one culture or a unified front of ***** influence is inaccurate. M*****e often than not, peers rein*****ce ***** values, but they ***** the potential ***** encourage problem behaviors ***** well. Although ***** negative peer ***** is overemphasized, more ***** be d***** to help teenagers experience the family ***** the peer group as mutually constructive environments.

If the negative effect of peer pressure is to be minimized, youth, parents, school and community leaders must come together to establ*****h workable and effective strategies to guide teen ********** ***** to support their transition from children ***** mature, responsible *****. A strategy to consider is ***** relinquish the stereotype of peers as a uniformly neg*****tive influence on youth. Although some teenage peer *****s encourage drug use, delinquent activities and poor ***** performance, others discourage deviant activity in favor of school achievement and ***** ***** sports or other extra-curricular activities.

By the time ***** reach ***** eighth grade, nearly 50 percent ***** adolescents have had at least *****e drink, and over 20 percent report having been "drunk." Approxim*****ely 20 percent of 8th graders and almost 50 ***** of 12th graders ***** consumed alcohol within the past 30 days. Among 12th *****, almost 30 percent report drinking on 3 or more occasions per month. Approximately 30 ***** of ***** graders engage in heavy episodic drinking, now popularly termed "binge" drinking—that is, having at least five or more drinks on one occasion ***** the ***** 2 weeks—and it is estimated that 20 *****cent do so on more than one ***** (Makela 732).

Apart ***** being illegal, underage drinking poses a high risk to both the individual and society. For example, the rate of alcohol-related traffic crashes is greater for drivers ages 16 to ***** than for drivers age 21 and older. Adolescents also are vulnerable to alcohol-induced brain dam*****, which could contribute to poor per*****mance at school or w*****k. In