Mark Doyle
Mahon
English CompII
A Problem among Our Youth…
Being a teenager who is in college, I have seen, and experienced, a lot of peer pressure, drinking, and drugs. It is a viscous cycle among college students today that can effect studies, family, but more importantly, your social status.
Among all of the harmful things students face today is not the stress that comes from their grades, that is only a effect that pushes them, but in fact it is alcohol. It is the easiest substance to obtain, and the easiest one to exploit. You can easily take advantage of this substance at parties, from your parent’s liquor cabinets, or even friends who are over 21. The urge to drink is derived from peers that can easily push us to, such as telling stories of how much fun it was to go to a party and get “trashed” or how drinking takes the edge off of school. For example, my first time getting drunk was because my friend, Jacob, got his older brother to buy us the alcohol just to try it, to see if it would make us “cool” or make the weekends easier for the upcoming week of school. Needless to say it wasn’t as much fun as the stories I have heard and I just woke up the next day feeling like pure crap. But then it got worse, because I was addicted to that feeling of happiness that was brought on by being drunk, and it only got worse until I crashed and burned. It developed into me wasting my weekends going to parties, getting drunk on other types of alcohol, such as vodka, other brands of beer, and the worst…rum. I couldn’t function without it, and I needed help, but to make things worse, I was then pulled in by another type of happiness.
The next type of harmful substance that was brought into my life was drugs. I knew drugs were wrong, and I went through the D.A.R.E. classes but peer pressure drew me into this new type of happiness, a high that made the world seem bright and colorful, made music seem better, and made me feel a little more relaxed. I...