According to estimated data almost 49% of the college going students consume alcohol or abuse illegal drugs or prescription medication because of either giving in to “peer pressure” or to appear cool and be at par with the rest of the popular kids. We’ve learned so much about addiction, particularly in the past couple decades while rates of addiction have continued to climb across virtually all demographic groups. In theory, one might expect millennials to be less likely to abuse alcohol or use drugs since they’re taught about and so often exposed to the harsh realities of the disease. However, that has not been the case.
If we go by the statistics, the group with the most no. of binge drinkers consists of people in the age group of 18 to 34 which almost consists entirely of the millennials. Almost 60% of the college going students who are often over the age of legal drinking, per say abuse alcohol on at least a monthly basis.
It may be tempting to blame the social media or constant need of being at par with the virtual reality that we might assume to be the reason but in reality, this is due to a cumulative effect of a variety of factors. The fact that people of the adolescent and/or millennial age are more prone to taking reckless and impulsive decisions after getting under the influence of peer pressure resulting in an exaggerated reward response and behaviour that seems hedonistic and pleasure-driven. For this very reason, young people have been found to become addicted to things much more easily than adults.
In order to have an attempt at solving this problem we could make addiction programs more available to adolescents, teens and young adults. Since stress is one of the biggest factors for millennial substance abuse, teaching young people how to better manage stress would be invaluable, especially at younger ages when they’re most impressionable and can put effective coping strategies to use as they mature. It would also be a good idea to engage with millennials rather than leaving them to their own devices. They’re unlikely to give up the technologies they’ve been using for their entire lives, but there’s certainly room to expand face-to-face interactivity.
For more such insights of Life, contact Life coach Vivek Gupta
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