Pubdate: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 Source: Herald-Sun, The (Durham, NC) Copyright: 2003 The Herald-Sun Contact: http://www.herald-sun.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1428 Author: Beth Velliquette SPEAKERS CITE PRICE OF DRUG, ALCOHOL ABUSE CHAPEL HILL -- They called themselves Student No. 1 and Student No. 2. Former students at Chapel Hill High School, they told a group of about 80 people at the school earlier this week about their addictions to drugs and how they recovered. The students were part of a panel discussion on teenage alcohol and drug use in Chapel Hill. Other panelists included counselors and two parents who dealt with sons who became addicted to drugs in high school. For most parents, by the time they realize their sons or daughters are in trouble with drugs, their children likely have been using drugs for several years. "I started using drugs in middle school in the eighth grade," said Student No. 1. "I started off pretty quick. I started smoking and taking LSD and drinking all before I left middle school." Student No. 2 got drunk for the first time when he was 9 years old and smoked marijuana when he was in the fifth grade. "It was a once-a-year thing," he said. By the eighth grade, he met other students who were using drugs and alcohol, and his usage increased to once a month, he said. "In ninth grade, it seemed to me that everybody was doing it," he said. "It became an every week thing. Even coming here at lunch, people would sneak across the street or get high blatantly right on campus. It started getting really heavy, and my parents found out. They thought it was just once in a while." By the time their parents began to question them about drugs, both students had been using drugs for three or four years. Their parents sent them to military schools, where they said they learned which household products they could use to get high. "I was using Glade," one said. "It was really quite disgusting." At the other end of the long table on the stage of the school auditorium sat the mothers of two other boys who began using drugs in high school. Parent No. 2 said her son had a "strong attachment" to marijuana. It made him feel comfortable, philosophical and witty, and he told her that marijuana was a fantastic thing. She was always checking to see if her son was smoking marijuana. "I became a detective, police officer and police dog," she said. "I really became quite the sniffer." Although her son thought marijuana was fantastic, his grades slipped and he got in trouble at school. They tried family counseling, and she joined Al-Anon, a group associated with Alcoholics Anonymous that's for family and friends of alcoholics or drug addicts. "I still go, and it's just invaluable to me," she said. "I learned that an addiction is an illness. Maybe he couldn't help himself." Since her son didn't think marijuana was affecting him, the family gave him a deadline to bring up his grades, find and hold a job and improve his relationship with other family members. "We told him if he couldn't live up to these expectations, his life as he knew it was over," she said. Eight weeks passed, and nothing had changed. Without warning, one morning at 5 a.m., she woke up her son, and a man was waiting to drive him to a treatment center and school in the mountains of Georgia. "He left everything and entered a new chapter of his life," she said. As the fog of drugs slowly cleared from his brain, he began to read again, became more energized and returned to some of the athletic activities he once enjoyed, she said. "It was only then that our son realized, in his own words, how much he had lost to pot," she said. Student No. 1 said he had to face the reality that drugs and alcohol were ruining his life after he began having blackouts. "I'd find myself in the back of somebody's yard," he said. "I went to college for a little while, but that didn't work out. I couldn't even get a job. My relationships with other people were really starting to get bad." He found help with a friend who had gone through the same thing but was in recovery. "He showed me that there is a life besides using," he said. "My life has gotten a whole lot better." He is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and is working the 12-step program. Student No. 2 returned from military school and re-enrolled at Chapel Hill High School. "I remember selling drugs on campus, and it was just so easy," he said. When his family kicked him out of the home, he went to live with his brother on the condition he not use drugs. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous. "I think it's real important to inform people about their options so that they don't think it's cool or OK," he said. Linda Hammock, a certified substance abuse counselor at the high school, said that parents sometimes miss the early stages of drug abuse or they blame their children's friends. "Children don't use because they fell into the bad crowd," she said. "They're more likely choosing a bad crowd because they want to use. They begin to think of themselves as some group they would aspire to be like -- whether that be a punk, a hippie or a pothead, something that they think is cool. They begin to change their belief system about who they are and what they do." The kids begin to lie and scheme. They look and feel rundown and miss school. "At this time they're avoiding their parents like the plague," she said. "They begin to refine their skills of lying." They have mood swings and act differently. "It's at this point when the parents are bringing the kids to mental health professionals, and many of them aren't very good at recognizing substance abuse," Hammock said. Instead of recognizing that the problems stem from substance abuse, some therapists diagnose the students as being depressed. If parents suspect their children are using drugs, they should have them see a substance abuse specialist who will do an assessment to determine whether the child is using drugs, Hammock said. The problem with children using drugs and alcohol at such an early age is that drugs and alcohol affect young people's brains in different ways than they do adults, said Ken Mills, a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in addiction disorders. "When somebody starts using drugs or alcohol, emotional growth stops," he said. Emotional growth means not expressing your feelings anytime or anywhere. "It's not getting upset with your parents because they won't let you get stoned," Mills said. "It's not staying up all night playing video games." Emotional growth also means learning how to deal with boredom, learning how to be calm when you feel anxious, dealing with angry feelings and learning to express positive feelings and positive beliefs, Mills said. For substance abusers, negativity becomes a lifestyle, he said. It's not until they get sober that they can begin to believe in themselves again. - --- MAP posted-by: Alex