National Surveys make it clear that alcohol drinking among youth is both widespread and harmful. Surveys provide data not only on the numbers of middle and high school students who drink but also on how they drank. The data show that when youth drink, they drink heavily in comparison to adults, consuming on average four to five drinks per occasion about five times a month, compared with two to three drinks per occasion about nine times a month for adults.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

• Alcohol is a leading contributor to injury death, the main cause of death for people under age 21.
• Drinking early in life also is associated with an increased risk of developing an alcohol use disorder at some time during the life span.
• Alcohol also plays a powerful role in risky sexual behavior, including unwanted, unintended, and unprotected sexual activity, and sex with multiple partners.
• Alcohol is associated with academic failure and drug use.

Alcohol can...

• Impair motor coordination (the ability to walk or drive)
• Impair Memory (produces blackouts)
• Impair judgment and decision making (people often think they are "OK" to drive when they are not)
• Impair impulse control (increase the odds that you'll do things you might regret later)
• Cause death (by directly affecting the pons and medulla part of the brain which controls vital reflexes like breathing, heart rate, gagging, etc. - alcohol can shut down these reflexes, directly causing death)

Alcohol and the Brain

The brain images below show how alcohol may affect a teen's developing brain. Compared with a young non-drinker, a 15-year-old with an alcohol problem showed poor brain activity during a memory task. This finding is noted by the lack of pink and red coloring.

• Since their brains are still developing, teens who drink heavily are more likely to significantly lower their mental abilities than adults who drink heavily.
• The part of the brain most at risk appears to be the hippocampus, a structure responsible for learning and memory. Also at risk is the prefrontal cortex, an area responsible for decision making.
• The average size difference between the brain of a healthy teen and the brain of a teen who drinks is about 10 percent.
• Young brains are more vulnerable to changes that can lead to alcohol addiction. Forty percent of alcoholics began drinking before age 15, while only 10 percent began drinking at age 21 or 22.