A VOICE OF EXPERIENCE HELPS KIDS KEEP OFF DRUGS

FREMONT - John Vigallon was 13 when he started using drugs. He was 43 when
he began helping others get off them.

Between those two milestones, the Fremont drug counselor, now 48, grappled
with conditions of a consuming addiction -- the kind that leads to broken
marriages, an eviction, even a felony arrest.

Vigallon's journey from drug abuser to counselor is important because it
lies at the root of one of the Bay Area's most respected drug-recovery
programs. And with the passage earlier this month of Proposition 36,
California's drug-therapy mandate, programs such as his are in demand
statewide.

But teens, teachers and police say Vigallon's story is important also
because it impresses listeners with a straightforward message about hope.

"John told me his story, and I took it to heart. It really made me want to
clean up my act and start helping people," said Mireya Morales, 16, a peer
counselor for the program Vigallon heads. "If there is any person I would
look up to most, it would be him."

A police department and school district consultant and the director of a
non-profit recovery program called HELP, Vigallon has told his
transformation tale to thousands of junior high and high school students in
Fremont and other communities nationwide.

Speaking in gentle tones, accompanied occasionally by tears, Vigallon
explains that he spent his teens, 20s and 30s getting high. Divorced twice
and arrested once, Vigallon, at 35, began the long road to recovery in an
anti-drug program where he met a woman named Julie who later would become
his wife.

"We promised each other we'd stay clean and sober, and that worked out
really well for a while," he said.

But there were lapses, and on Jan. 7, 1993, police raided the couple's
Manteca home, arresting them both on suspicion of manufacturing
methamphetamine. In a settlement, Vigallon agreed to serve four years in
prison -- a sentence that would begin after his wife completed 18 months of
drug rehabilitation, while Vigallon cared for their son.

That year and a half -- part of which he spent homeless, sleeping in a
relative's backyard -- delivered Vigallon a wake-up call. It came, he said,
from his parents' tears, his upset children's pain and the letter Julie
wrote to him three months into her treatment.

"She said, 'One of us is going to grow, and one of us isn't,' " he
recalled. " 'If you don't get help, I'm going to leave you.' "

Vigallon did get help and, what's more, started visiting local high schools
with Fremont Police Officer Walter Bankston. Bankston was experimenting
with a new drug education program at Kennedy High School, Vigallon's alma
mater. The program would later be known as "Help Educate Loving Parents,"
or HELP, and its focus is informing kids and parents about drug prevention
and recovery.

Vigallon told classes his story up to six times a day during the weeks
leading up to his sentence. Then, on the eve of his departure for state
prison, he had one last meeting with students and their parents, just hours
before he was to appear in Judge Michael Platt's Stockton courtroom.

Platt drove that night from Stockton to Fremont to learn how Vigallon had
been spending the past few months. Standing in the back of the meeting
room, the judge watched as 30 to 40 teens leaned forward while the
soon-to-be prisoner spoke.

"You could have heard a pin drop, " Platt recalled. "All the kids went
around John. Their eyes are open. Their ears are open. You know, he's
touched these people. And I'm absorbing all this. It was like, 'What a
tool. What an opportunity.'"

As Platt went home thinking about what he'd seen, Vigallon was saying
goodbye to his family. The next morning, he came to court expecting to
begin his four years behind bars.

Instead, the judge proposed, if Vigallon could pass a lie-detector test
proving he'd been clean for the last year, Platt would commute his sentence
to 12 years on probation. It was a risky move, Platt says, but one he never
has regretted.

"I went way out on a limb. I was so far out on a limb that if I was going
to breathe in the wrong direction that limb would break," Platt said. "But
what I saw was just truly compelling to me."

Today, Platt considers Vigallon a friend and a valuable fellow
professional. The two are looking into expanding HELP services to Stockton.

In the five years since that day in court, Vigallon has been taken off
probation and certified as an addiction counselor.

The consensus among educators and police officials is that his work is at
the heart of HELP's success.

"If someone like me who was using drugs decides to change and is committed
to it, they can do whatever they need to," Vigallon says.

The program, now housed at Fremont's Family Resource Center, assists 149
families. That's in addition to all the students Vigallon reaches with
campus visits and sessions in every eighth-grade science class in the district.

"He's very passionate about what he does, and it shows," said Sgt. Steve
Revel, who works in the police department's community partnership program.
"That's the connection he makes with the young folks. Kids can spot a phony
coming a mile away, and John's no phony."

Vigallon and his programs have won dozens of awards. He has been invited to
speak at conferences nationwide, while curriculum he developed is used by
school resource officers in seven states.

Teachers and administrators credit Vigallon's open approach with the drug
education program's success. They say teens feel comfortable going to him
to discuss anything from a parent's smoking habit to their own secret drug
problems.

"He does help individuals, especially teens," said Morales, a junior at
Irvington High School. "He's really out to help them before they have a
drug issue."

The police department, too, says this drug counselor's work makes an impact.

"It's effective because of the way it's implemented and the fact that John
is John," Revel said. "He's very sincere in his presentation. He's been
down that road. He has a lot of experience with drug abuse and the effect
it can have on a young person's life."