In The Crucible the characters are so stuck on the religious aspect in their lives that they let it consume their whole lives. As soon as one person gets accused of being a witch, everyone points the finger at whoever seems to be acting weird in any way. Its funny how they think they're all pure when really they arent civilized enough to understand what purity means.
Like in The Crucible, alcohol is a huge role in teens lives these days. They let it consume their lives in ways similar to how religion affected the people of Salem. Alcohol makes people make poor decisions based on impulses like witchcraft did back then.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001940/
