Alarming new figures that show adolescents are developing harmful alcohol habits from a very young age.
Irish teenagers are now consuming alcohol as young as 13 years of age and according to the most recent study, 83pc of our adolescents have drank at least once. However, experts warn the problem and solution do not lie solely on the shoulders of our young people because they are learning how to relate to alcohol simply by watching the adults in their lives.
In the last three years seven major studies, looking at how our young people consume alcohol, have been published and the most telling piece of research comes from data collected from 26 schools in Cork.
The results published just this year show that out of 2,716 teenagers, between the ages of 15 and 17, 2,424 said they had consumed alcohol at least once - that is 83pc.
Of these secondary school students, 50pc admitted to drinking between one and five units of alcohol in an ordinary week and 37pc said they had been "really drunk" on one to three occasions in the previous month.
Interestingly, the piece of research, which was published in the Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, was focused on the association between parental and adolescent substance misuse. Two of Ireland's leading experts told the Irish Independent that our teens' drinking simply mirrors what Irish adults are doing.
"One young person said to me they would wait until their mum had book club or their friends over because there's so much drinking going on in the house among the adults that they don't notice if some alcohol goes missing," said Joanna Fortune of Solamh, a clinical psychotherapist specialising in child and adolescent psychotherapy.
Source: Joyce Fegan, Irish Independent, 21/04/15
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