25A STUDY ON KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE AMONG LATE ADOLESCENTS TOWARDS ALCOHOLISM IN SELECTED COLLEGES IN BANGALOREACT Alcohol and drug abuse has emerged as a serious concern among adolescents in India. The transition to college involves major individual and contextual change in every domain of life; at the same time, heavy drinking and associated problems increase during this transition. For most students, heavy drinking and associated problems tend to peak during college amid the abundance of explicit and subtle expectations and opportunities to drink .In a few short years, the excessive drinking and concomitant negative consequences experienced by many students that would likely reflect diagnosable alcohol misuse at other points in the life span simply run their course and stop. The World Health Organization estimates that about 140 million people throughout the world suffer from alcohol dependence. Most alcoholics develop alcoholism during adolescence. Non-experimental descriptive research design was adopted for this study to assess the knowledge and attitude of adolescents towards alcoholism. A data was obtained from 60 late adolescents and the sample was selected by using convenient sampling method. The tool used for the study was structured interview schedule. The data was analyzed and interpreted by using simple descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings shows that among 60 adolescents, 61 percent were having moderately adequate knowledge, 31.7 percent were having inadequate knowledge and only 6.7 percent were having adequate knowledge. Out of 60 adolescents, majority of the adolescents 60 percent were having favorable attitude, 25 percent were having most favorable attitude and only 15 percent were having unfavorable attitude. Credible, evidence based educational campaigns in the mass media about the consequences of alcohol abuse have been recommended to prevent alcohol abuse amongst adolescentsarasumani2009@gmail.comResearch322013Alcoholism,Adolescent,Knowledge,AttitudeN. ArasumaniLecturer, Dr. John College Of Nursing, Bangalore, Karnataka, India