[Alcoholism in school-age children]

Curiosity motivated consumption of illegal drugs by young people decreased during the last 5 years. At the same time the problem of school-children abusing alcohol increased. This has to be seen against the background of more general epidemiological data of alcohol consumption in the Federal Republic of Germany: --between 1961 and 1974 the expenditure for alcoholic beverages more than doubled; --according to serious estimations there are between 700,000 and 1 million of alcoholics in this country (from these about 8-10% being minors); --the average age of inmates of clinics for alcoholics dropped considerably during the last decade. Main findings of a follow-up survey conducted (size of sample: about 10,000 school-children in Hamburg, age 13-20, representative of a total of 110,000) are: --more than 25% of the above mentioned 110,000 school-children showed a rather excessive drinking behaviour (i.e. having been drunk 1-5 or more than 5 times during a period of 2 months prior to the interviews); --positive correlations were found to exist between excessive drinking habits and certain psycho-social variables (i.e. broken home, suicide-attempts, excessive consumption of alcohol by the parents, etc.); --the subgroup of those school-children who were users of illegal drugs: about 60% of them belong also to the category of "excessive alcohol user". Reasons for the general increase of alcohol consumption in Western Germany are for instance: --a change of drinking habits (more frequently, drinking at home and alone); --a shift of preferances (from relatively low percentage-beverages like beer and wine to so-called hard liquors); --an increase of alcohol consumption among those societal groups--the young and women--who formerly were almost abstinent. Some reasons and causes for the increase of alcohol consumption among school-children are: --being exposed to negative model-behaviour of adults and especially of parents; --peer-group pressure; --the discovery of school-children by the industry as an important consumer group, i.e. shape of images through advertisement (for example "drinking makes you appear strong" etc.); --the increasing loss of functions of traditional agents of socialization (i.e. family, school and religion).