Alcohol abuse in adolescents

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Regular (weekly) alcohol consumption in adolescents and young adults

An alcohol dependence (alcoholism) within the meaning of commonly used in medicine ICD10 diagnosis system (alcohol dependence syndrome, code F10.2) comes in children hardly and adolescents up to 18 years comparatively rare, as a manifest alcoholism usually develops over several years . Most children and adolescents are concerned with binge drinking (acute intoxication, code F10.0) or alcohol abuse (harmful use, code F10.1) (see also: Alcohol disease ).

Situation in Germany

Youth and Alcohol (2003)

The number of young people who come to clinics for alcohol abuse has at least doubled in Germany since 1990. According to the Federal Statistical Office , around 19,400 adolescents between 10 and 20 years of age were treated as inpatients in hospital with the diagnosis of "acute alcohol intoxication ". This was more than twice as many as in 2000, but does not even correspond to half a percent of this population group. 3,500 of the patients were under 16 years of age. The average age of first-time use is around 14 years, which is significantly lower than first-time use of tobacco (17). The average age for the first intoxication is 15.5 years. In 2004, ten percent of respondents aged 12 to 15 said they had been intoxicated with alcohol in the past three months. For 16 to 19 year olds it was 30 percent.

Most of the young people who are already addicted are boys . Girls at this age are more prone to eating disorders . The addiction problem of young people is evenly distributed across all social classes.

Many youngsters are drawn to the bigger picture that liquor manufacturers convey in marketing campaigns. So was z. B. Jägermeister to a "cult drink" with the help of a newly developed, youthful image. With Alcopops , high-proof spirits were developed especially with a view to young target groups.

In a survey in Berlin, according to an epidemiological addiction study for 2006, almost 55 percent of 15 to 17-year-olds said they had drunk at least once in the past 30 days. 15 percent of this age group experienced alcohol intoxication four times or more.

According to a representative survey by the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA) among 7,003 adolescents and young adults between 12 and 25 years of age, young people drank less and more moderate alcohol overall in 2016 than before. Of the 12 to 17 year olds surveyed, 36.5 percent said they had never tried beer, wine or schnapps, but 13.5 percent of teenagers said they had been intoxicated in the month before the survey. The average age for the first alcohol intoxication (16.4 years) had risen continuously since 2005 (15.5 years). According to the DAK , based on figures from the Federal Statistical Office, 22,309 10 to 20-year-olds nationwide - mainly 15 to 20-year-olds - were admitted to clinics completely drunk in 2016. That was 1.8% more than in the previous year.

Situation in Austria

Students who have already drunk so much alcohol four times or more that they become intoxicated.

Today in Austria people start drinking alcohol between the ages of 13 and 15. While at the age of 13, 3% of the students still drink beer and 5% mixed drinks at least every week, among the 15-year-olds it is already 18% who drink beer at least once a week and 29% who drink alcoholic mixed drinks. There are gender-specific differences in consumption behavior, with an above-average number of girls prefer mixed drinks containing alcohol (e.g. alcopops ), while boys are more likely to grab beer. When it comes to excessive alcohol consumption, boys are clearly ahead of girls of the same age. A fifth of 15-year-old boys have already drunk at least four times as much alcohol that they were intoxicated, compared with 16% of girls.

Since 1994 there has been a strong increase in alcohol-related hospital admissions for young people in Austria. This can be explained as follows:

  • Children and adolescents mature earlier every year and also begin earlier with the behavior patterns typical for adults - including moderate and excessive alcohol consumption ( secular acceleration ). If the first alcoholic intoxication occurs earlier, the younger ones produce more noise on average.
  • Since the topic of "youth and alcohol" increasingly moved into the media spotlight around the turn of the millennium and hospital discharge diagnoses became important for the billing of services in hospitals in Austria, the willingness of the medical profession to diagnose and document such cases has increased considerably. Part of the observable increase in relevant diagnoses can therefore be attributed to these changes.

It is assumed, however, that the frequency of noise in adolescents has increased significantly in the last ten years up to around 2007. In addition to the general tendency towards acceleration, this can be explained by the fact that the drinking habits of the regions in Europe are continuously adjusting and the excessive consumption behavior in northern Europe is also gaining a foothold in Austria.

Alcohol and violence

The study “Alcohol and violence in adolescence” came to the result that adolescents aged 13-17 years with problematic alcohol consumption are significantly more likely to commit acts of violence than adolescents without (problematic) alcohol consumption. In boys, around a third of the physical violence perpetrated is alcohol-related, in girls it is as much as two thirds. A quarter of boys have problematic alcohol consumption. This quarter accounts for 50–60% of the violence caused by boys. 15% of girls have problematic alcohol consumption, and these 15% commit 40 to 50% of the total acts of violence committed by girls. In general, there is a high correlation between alcohol consumption and experienced violence (both as a victim and as a perpetrator), with almost half of the boys and around 30–40% of the girls who are victims of violence themselves having problem alcohol consumption. For abstainers and low-risk consumers, there is therefore a low probability of behaving violently.

The 2007 crime statistics for Germany even show that in some federal states alcohol was involved in every second act of violence committed by young people.

Consequences of alcohol sickness in adolescents

The consequences of alcoholism in an adolescent are considerable. There is almost always a significant drop in performance at school .

The central nervous system , which is still developing in adolescents and far more sensitive than in adults , is affected extremely and possibly for a lifetime. So z. B. the formation of the hippocampus can be permanently impaired. Depression , delusions , decreased sexual desire , speech disorders and the like a. are often the result. Since the young organism cannot cope with the regular consumption of alcohol, physical dependence develops very quickly .

literature

  • Federal Minister for Women and Youth (Ed.): JÖSchG, The law for the protection of young people in public . Bonn (free of charge)
  • Reinhardt Dober, Gerald Sünkel: Drug alcohol. Actions against youth alcoholism . Auer Verlag, Donauwörth 1982, ISBN 3-403-01402-9 , ( practical youth work ).
  • Burkhard Kastenbutt: Narcissism and youth alcoholism. Causes and conditions of drug-related alcohol use in male adolescents. Lit, Münster 1998, ISBN 3-89473-943-6 ( Sucht 1), (Simultaneously: Osnabrück, Univ., Diss., 1998: On the psychogenesis and sociogenesis of male youth alcoholism ).
  • Ernst Knischewski: Child and youth alcoholism . Blaukreuz-Verlag, Wuppertal u. a. 1980, ISBN 3-920106-43-1 ( bk-Information 1).
  • Sylvia Kralik: Youth and Alcohol. An analysis taking into account media coverage, programs from public authorities and the perceptions of young people . VDM Verlag, Saarbrücken 2009, ISBN 3-639-21175-8 .
  • Stephan Sigg: Disk ... went stupid. Short stories for young people about alcohol. Blaukreuz-Verlag, Bern 2006, ISBN 3-85580-441-9 .
  • Josh van Soer: Youth alcoholism. Empirical inventory, explanatory approaches, therapy . Beltz, Weinheim u. a. 1980, ISBN 3-407-55600-4 .
  • Learning objective full intoxication . In: Die Zeit , No. 4/2003

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Diagnosis of alcohol: sharp increase in young hospital patients . ( Memento of May 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Federal Statistical Office
  2. The Drug Affinity of Young People in the Federal Republic of Germany 2004 - Volume Alcohol . Federal Center for Health Education
  3. Article on welt.de of March 14, 2008: Every second young person gets drunk
  4. Young people drink as little as they have not since the 1970s. In: time online. May 18, 2017. Retrieved April 29, 2018 .
  5. More adolescents in hospital because of alcohol poisoning. In: time online. November 29, 2017. Retrieved April 29, 2018 .
  6. W. Dür, K. Mravlag: hbsc / 17. Health and health behavior in children and adolescents. Report on the health of 11-, 13- and 15-year-old students in Austria. Processing of data from the 6th WHO HBSC Survey 2001 and trends since 1990 . Vienna 2002. LBIMGS. Projects
  7. Online presence of the Alcohol Coordination and Information Center (AKIS) of the Anton Proksch Institute ( Memento from August 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Alfred Uhl, Sonja Bachmayer, Ulrike Kobrna: Increase in alcohol-related hospital admissions of children and adolescents in Austria, statistics 1992–2004
  8. Kuntsche et al., 2003 (ESPAD secondary analysis): Alcohol and violence in adolescence (PDF; 512 kB)
  9. Article on welt.de of March 10, 2008: Every second juvenile offender is drunk.
  10. Police crime statistics 2007 for Lower Saxony
  11. ^ Long-lasting reduction in hippocampal neurogenesis by alcohol consumption in adolescent nonhuman primates. Taffe et al. (2010) PNAS vol. 107, 11104-11109