Underage Drinking And The Central Nervous System - 1446 Words

There are so many people who have drank underage. Norah Piehl quotes, â€Å"According to a 1991 University of Michigan study 81% of students had had at least one alcoholic drink in their lives (13 Piehl).† Wow, that is scary. Imagine, 81 percent of students; that is to many people. What is alcohol anyway? Rob Nagel states, â€Å"Alcohol is a depressant that acts as a numbing agent on the central nervous system.† So drinking alcohol can slow down the central nervous system and can impair a person’s judgement. Another interesting fact from Rob is, â€Å"It is estimated that 75% of alcoholics are male and 25% are female.† Since there are statistics about underage drinking, there must be an origin of underage drinking. There are many purposes for underage†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"Peer pressure, the social acceptability of drinking, and a desire to escape from emotional stress and anxiety can all set the stage for a person s descent into alcohol addiction.† Peer pressure from others can lead to underage drinking by the desire to fit in with the crowd. An interview was done with Margaret Bezick and she told us, â€Å"If a family member is an alcoholic and they are around their kids, it can lead to underage drinking. It lead to my brother drinking underage and becoming an alcoholic.† Similarly, a phrase from Rob Nagel supports this idea. â€Å"Children with a biological parent who is an alcoholic are more likely to become alcoholics that are children who do not have an alcoholic parent.† Being around an alcoholic as a child will show a young child about the effects of alcohol. They would grow up around that person, and think that drinking underage is the right thing b ecause of witnessing it as an innocent infant. Leanne Currie-McGhee has an interesting fact in her book that says, â€Å"According to the CDC, people aged 12 to 20 drink 11 percent of all alcohol consumed in the United States(pg 21 Currie-McGhee)†. There are many causes of underage drinking which have led to some short and long term effects. There are many outcomes of underage drinking. First, is brain damage. According to Rob Nagel, â€Å"If alcohol is consumed faster then the liver can process it, a sufficient amount is carried by the blood to the brain