Underage Drinking And Illegal Intoxication

Deviant Behavior

Deviance is behavior, beliefs, or characteristics that are likely to generate a negative reaction in others. It takes place in everyday life, sometimes people don't even notice that their behavior is deviant. Criminal behavior is deviant but not all deviant behavior is considered to be criminal. These actions may include criminal behavior along with delinquent behavior in which my colleagues and I have taken part in once in our lives.

People in a society would find this behavior offensive and which would excite, upon discovery, disapproval, punishment, condemnation or hostility.

In order for behavior to be deemed deviant it needs four necessary components; a rule or a norm must exist, someone must violate that norm, an audience must be present judging the normative violation to be wrong, and it must be a measurable likelihood of a negative reaction by that audience.

Underage Drinking as a Form of Deviant Behavior

One form of deviant behavior is underage drinking. This behavior is considered deviant because there is a law that states at what age one is allowed to drink at, which is 21.

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When one does not follow this law, it is going against the rules or the norms of the society in which one is present in. Although some people may not react negatively to this, and are not bothered by it, this is a behavior that is considered deviant and criminal and is punishable.

Underage drinking is a behavior that many teenagers and young adults engage in almost regularly. We all grow up going to family events and stealing a sip of wine from our parents, but this type of underage drinking is completely different than underage adolescents who abuse this.

Almost every student in high school went to parties that had alcohol present, which led to many underage people drinking. College is another outlet that gives teenagers or young adults the access to drink while they are not at the age limit to do so.

My Experience with Alcohol

As a college student and a high school graduate, I can say that this is a form of deviant behavior that I have engaged in as well as many of my friends. Most of my friend's parents and siblings were okay with them drinking, and didn't care about it. They would have parties and their parents wouldn't care as long as no one was engaging in drunk driving along with responsible drinking. Although these environments are safe and controlled to party in, there have been situations where this act of deviance did not go as well.

When I was in my senior year of high school, there was a New Year's Eve party that over 100 students attended from my school. There was a group of girls who drank no matter what day of the week it was and everyone knew to look out for them on New Year's. The one girl, who is known for drinking irresponsibly, drank an entire bottle of tequila as she was trying to fit in with her friends. Every student knew that the members of this group were not people someone would want to fit in with because of the amount of trouble they get themselves into. Soon enough, the girl was unconscious in someone's bathroom while her friends left her stranded while the owners of the house waited for an ambulance. After this night, the school found out along with the college she was committed to and she lost her full-ride scholarship.

The Role of Peer Pressure

Young adolescents to grow up with peer pressure and high expectations from society suffer the consequences of underage drinking. At a party, some people feel that they need to drink or do drugs as a way to feel like they belong in a group. People who pressure their classmates to socially "keep up" with them as a way for them to be superior to others seem like cool people to hang around at the moment. After a while, the more they participate in deviant behavior is how they will suffer more consequences.

Illegal Intoxication

Another form of deviant behavior is illegal intoxication. Illegal intoxication along with possession of illegal substances is an act of going against the set laws. These substances include marijuana and heroine. To be in possession of both of these drugs can lead to life in prison. There is a form of marijuana that is used for medical purposes as a painkiller, but teenagers and adults tend to abuse these prescribed drugs. Morphine is considered the medical version of heroine, but people use heroine as a way to mend their physical or mental pain which is extremely dangerous.

Marijuana use has become a growing trend over the years. Marijuana is becoming legal in some states, but it is not legal in New York. People use it in the smoking form and edible form, which both are equally dangerous. Growing up with alcohol and recreational drugs along with peer pressure definitely helped me learn about the harshness of drugs and the dangerous side effects that come along with it. Depending on where one may get this drug from, the drug can get mixed with other harmful drugs which can lead to long-term consequences.

My Experience with Drugs

In high school, my one friend went to a Christmas party with her work friends. Her one work friend was a drug addict and gave her a "hit" of his marijuana in smoking form. It was not even ten minutes later that she started hallucinating and telling everyone that she felt her brain "seeping out of her skull." Her mom picked her up when

my friend said that she kept on "forgetting to breathe." When she woke up the next morning and the few days after, she claimed that she still felt intoxicated along with an overwhelming wave of anxiety. It was only days later that her work friend informed her that it was laced with other substances that made her feel like this. This story taught me more than I expected about the dangers of drugs and how much it could affect one's mental health.

The biggest fear of most parents is the use of heroine. Heroine has become one of the most dangerous issues in America especially in New York. Heroine is one of the most addicting drugs in the books. Since it is becoming popular among young adults, parents fear that their children will get hooked on the drug considering the increase in death rate caused from overdose. There are many kids I have graduated with who have gotten hooked on heroine throughout the past few years after high school. The actions along with this addiction only get more and more dangerous.

There are very few people I know who are involved with heroine that I am no longer in contact with. I believe that only one or two of these people were able to overcome their addiction from long-term drug rehabilitation centers. The others did not get as lucky. One male I graduated with is still addicted to heroine to this day and he has a history of overdosing. Luckily, doctors invented a "pen" that gives you a shot as a way to get resuscitated after dying and overdosing on drugs. Many former classmates of mine have informed me that his mother had to use the pen on him four or five times over the past year. This makes me wonder how people continuously get themselves to the brink of death in front of their loved ones.