According to Lang nine out of ten high school seniors have used alcohol, one out of twenty use it daily, and one out of three will get drunk during any given weekend (back cover). Teenage drinking is a very serious problem that is growing by the day in our country. I want to know what kids who drink are getting themselves in to when they decide to start in high school or junior high. What types of health and psychological problems will they be facing? What are the chances that they will become addicted to alcohol, or to some other drug, for life? My father is an alcoholic and has been so for most, if not all, of his life. He began drinking at about the age of twelve, while an altar boy for his church/school often drinking the wine and beer remaining from past festivals. My fathers drinking has had a major effect on my life, since he spent lots of money drinking and would then come home and fight with my mother. Alcohol has long-term effects on a person and to their family that one should know about before anyone begins drinking.The bulk of my research consisted of the five books and five Internet sites along with personal experiences. My primary resource in my search was the web site run by the Brown University Research Center and The Addiction Research Foundation. After that came the entries in the Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Drugs, titled Alcohol: Teenage Drinking, by Alan R. Lang. I also gather information from Getting Tough on Gateway Drugs, by Robert L. DuPont, Jr.; Teenagers & Alcohol, by Roger E. Vogler and Wayne R. Bartz; Alcohol: Use and Abuse in America, by Jack H. Mendelson, and Nancy K. Mello; and Alcohol: Uses and Abuses, by Margaret O. Hyde. The best source I found, as far as statistics went, was the web site Alcohol and Addiction Studies. All five books that I read pertaining to this paper consisted of the same information. Some of them had more information that the others did not; for example, Getting to...
