The study examined the influence of alcoholic consumption on the social behaviour problems among secondary school students in Ado, Ekiti State. The study specifically examined if there is any difference between social behaviour of secondary school students that indulge in drinking of alcohol as a habit in Ado. The research design that was adopted for this study is descriptive survey design. The population of the study consisted of all the public secondary school students, both male and female in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State. The sample of this study consisted of 300 students selected randomly from the public secondary schools in Ado Ekiti State. The method of selection was multi stage sampling procedure which was used to determine the schools, and students used for the study. The first stage involved the selection of five streets out of the twenty streets in Ado Ekiti, Nigeria using simple random sampling technique. The second stage was a simple random sampling technique in the selection of five schools. In the third stage, stratified random sampling technique was used to select classes from each of the school selected which are students from SS1 to SS III. The last stage also involved the use of stratified random sampling technique to select 40 students from each school based on gender of the students. A self-designed research instrument tagged ‘Alcoholism and Students Social Behaviour Questionnaire (ASSBQ) was used to collect relevant data for the study. Section A of the instrument seek for students’ Bio-data while section B contained questions on the influence of alcoholism on the social behaviour of students in Ado-Ekiti which were given to students to respond to. Data collected was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The research question was analysed using frequency counts, percentage, mean, and table, while the research hypotheses 1 and 2 were analyzed using t-test, hypothesis 3 was tested using Pearson Product Moment Correlation. All hypotheses were tested at 0.05level of significant. The study revealed that there is significant difference between the social behaviours of students that indulge in alcohol drinking habit and those who do not and that alcohol consumption is significantly related to antisocial behaviours among adolescents in secondary schools. The study recommended among others that school guidance counsellors should create effective techniques to convey pertinent information regarding alcohol drinking, including details about its immediate and long-term impacts. Also, the school administration should encourage initiatives that will provide pupils the social skills they need to withstand peer pressure’s influence on alcohol use and, as a result, lessen antisocial behaviour among adolescents. It is also recommended that parent-child relationships should be improved, discipline should be constant, and parents should watch over their kids’ activities. This is based on the premise that the likelihood that teenagers will engage in alcohol consumption and participate in antisocial behaviours will decline as family ties are strengthened.
Keywords: alcoholic consumption, antisocial behaviour, health challenge, social drinking
