SerenityNow Announces Publication of a Comprehensive Guide to Teenage Alcoholism

As one of the nation's major substance abuse epidemics currently impacting the lives of millions of adolescents and their parents, alcoholism not only causes liver and kidney damage but gradually destroys areas of the brain responsible for memory and cognition. Because alcoholism is a complex disease with definite genetic and biological components, it requires professional medical and psychological intervention so that individuals addicted to alcohol can receive the tools they need to successfully defeat this insidious disease and live a healthy, sober life.

The Guide to Teenage Alcoholism (www.serenityrecovery.com/blog/guide-to-teenage-alcoholism) developed by SerenityNow offers parents and teenagers valuable insights and advice regarding the signs of alcoholism, the psychosocial basis for generational alcoholism and treatment programs offered by SerenityNow. Parents who suspect their teenager is abusing alcohol will find the guide helpful and easy to understand. In addition, they can learn more about the SerenityNow approach to treating the teenage alcoholic and why early intervention is essential to preventing the adolescent alcoholic from maturing into an adult alcoholic.

Learning risk factors that dramatically influence the chance that a teenager may become an alcoholic can help parents take preventative and aggressive actions necessary to stop an at-risk teen from becoming an alcoholic. SerenityNow's Guide to Teenage Alcoholism provides information about risk factors in a straightforward and nonjudgmental manner so that parents understand why their child may be genetically or biopsychosocially predisposed to alcoholism. The guide also lists signs and symptoms affecting teenagers who may be drinking regularly and heavily and what to expect emotionally from adolescents who are confronted with the evidence.

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA (http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/underage-drinking.htm) offers grim statistics about teenager drinking that shows how prevalent the disease is in U.S. society. For example, the CDC states that alcohol is the most frequently abused substance among teens between 12 and 20 years old, even more abused than illegal drugs or tobacco. Although it is against the law for people under 21 years of age to drink alcohol in the U.S., nearly 12 percent of adolescents are responsible for consuming the total amount of alcohol in the U.S. In 2011, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey published results that found 39 percent of high school students had drank alcohol in the past 30 days and eight percent had gotten behind the wheel of a car after consuming alcohol. Moreover, the CDC states that almost 25 out of every 100 high school students have at one time been a passenger in a vehicle driven by someone under the influence of alcohol.

SerenityNow hopes this Guide to Teenage Alcoholism provides practical information for worried parents as well as teenagers who want help for their alcoholism but do not know where to turn. If teenage alcoholism is not addressed immediately and professionally, the psychological, medical and legal ramifications will continue to accumulate, making it even more difficult for the adolescent to get the help they need so that their adult life is productive, healthy and most importantly, sober.