Age-sex related development of alcoholic dependence among adolescents

Statement of the problem. The article provides an overview of the theoretical provisions and research on the formation of alcohol dependence in adolescence. At the same time, alcohol dependence is presented as a complex phenomenon, which includes the following components: addictive liability, dependent behavior, motives of alcohol consumption. There is a contradiction between the continuous growth of adolescent alcoholism, decrease in the age of persons who consume alcoholic beverages, the increasing number of adolescent girls who consume alcoholic beverages, and the insufficient number of psychological and pedagogical studies in the field of alcohol addiction development among elder adolescents. As a research task, the authors identified an attempt to identify and describe the indicators of alcohol dependence among elder adolescents. It has been shown that there is a connection between addictive behavior, alcohol dependence and the motives of alcohol consumption in adolescence. The purpose of the article is to reveal the features of alcohol dependence development in adolescence. Research methodology. In the study, we rely on the scientific ideas of age-related development in the context of studying addictive behavior among adolescents in the works by L.S. Vygotsky, A.V. Petrovsky, E. Erickson, and others; research on the problems of addictive behavior and its prevention (A.A. Aleksandrova, A.V. Gogoleva, M.V. Romannikova, N.A.Sirota, T.A.Shilova, V.M. Yaltonsky, etc.). The total sample size was 162 adolescents in the 9th grade: 80 boys and 82 girls studying in educational institutions of Krasnoyarsk. The diagnostic package is represented by the following methods: questionnaire survey “Attitude of adolescents to alcoholic beverages”, test questionnaire “Addictive liability” by V.V. Yusupov and V.A. Korzunina, test questionnaire “Liability to addictive behavior” (on the example of alcohol dependence) by V.D. Mendelevich, V.Yu. Zavyalov’s questionnaire “The motives for consuming alcohol”. To compare the samples, the Mann-Whitney U-test and calculation of the Spearman correlation coefficient were used. Results. The study showed that adolescents are characterized by low psychological resistance to an unfavorable social environment and poor adaptation in the educational space. The risk of alcohol dependence development was revealed under certain social conditions, and the girls were more strongly oriented towards the use of alcoholic beverages. The first acquaintance with alcohol of adolescents took place before the age of 10, adolescents tried alcohol, and half of them prefer beer, but at the same time drink strong drinks. Internal psychological reasons allow adolescents to use alcohol more often to raise their spirits, to liberate themselves in communication, to become ‘cronies’ in the group. The latter is especially true for girls. The leading motives for alcohol consumption are mainly the motives of the traditional and hedonic subtypes among girls and the pseudo-cultural and ataractic subtypes among boys, which may indicate the absence of alcoholic illness as such, but this is an alarming symptom for adolescents. There is a relationship between the severity of addiction, alcohol dependence and motivation for alcohol consumption (moderately pronounced addictive risk, signs of a tendency, addiction to alcohol, traditional motives, signs of increased addiction, submissive motives, pronounced signs of addiction, signs of increased liability, alcohol consumption for the company, pseudo-cultural type of motives, hedonistic motives, ataractic motives). Conclusion. The study made it possible to identify adolescents with varying degrees of risk of alcohol dependence, who require preventive work to be carried out with them. It is concluded that the study of adolescents’ attitudes to alcohol will expand the understanding of the phenomenon of alcohol dependence, and, no doubt, will be useful for purposeful planning and implementation of psychological and pedagogical prevention in an educational institution. Based on the data obtained, a prevention program can be developed using modern interactive technologies.