PROGRAMS TRY TO HELP TEENS QUIT SUBSTANCE ABUSE

Phoenix Academy's Residential Treatment Offers Local Alternative

Many teens get into the Phoenix Academy drug treatment center the hard way.
It's practically the only way: They're arrested first.

The teens often enter the Dallas residential treatment facility as a
condition of their probation. A lot of them probably would not get help any
other way, experts say.

Residential substance abuse treatment for adolescents is nearly impossible
to find in the Dallas area unless the person's family has significant money
or insurance.

Most at the Phoenix Academy have neither. "Unless a kid gets busted and
goes to jail, there's not a lot of recourse parents have," said Michelle
Hemm, Phoenix Academy program director. "You literally have parents trying
to get their kids busted."

The academy opened in October to help fill a wide gap in residential
treatment for indigent youths. Phoenix House, the national nonprofit agency
that runs the academy, received federal grant money to treat indigent
youths who are not referred through the juvenile justice system.

The facility's 32 beds more than doubled the number of slots for indigent
youths in Dallas to 60. Phoenix Academy replaced the defunct Daytop Village
Inc. Two other two residential substance abuse facilities for indigent
youths include Holmes Street Adolescent Residential Program in South Dallas
for young men and Nexus Recovery Center in Dallas for young women.

Parents often call the Greater Dallas Council on Drug and Alcohol Abuse for
referrals. Timothy Kidd, a licensed drug and alcohol abuse counselor, said
he regrets that he doesn't have many places to send those who can't afford
treatment.

"Parents call us in a very desperate situation. The child is not willing to
behave, and they don't know what to do," Mr. Kidd said. Most insurance
programs - private or county provided - pay for short-term stays, he said.
Some private programs offer pro bono beds, he said.

"It's very, very limited unless you've got money," Mr. Kidd said. "The most
likely chance for help is getting arrested."

The Dallas County Juvenile Department sends about 150 youths a year to
residential substance abuse treatment, said Ron Stretcher, the department's
deputy director of administrative services. Most go to the county's Lyle B.
Medlock Youth Treatment Center. But county officials send kids to places
like Phoenix Academy if they do not have enough room at the Lyle B. Medlock
facility.

"Before Phoenix House we were sending kids all over the state," Mr.
Stretcher said. "We're just ecstatic to have them."

Keeping kids in the area makes follow-up care easier, he said. The county
saw 9,866 youths in 2002 for everything from homicides and assaults to
running away. Nearly all had substance-abuse problems.

Typically the hardest cases - longtime users of cocaine, opiates and/or
inhalants - need residential treatment. And usually, it works, Mr.
Stretcher said.

"Most of the kids we deal with end up pulling themselves together," he
said. "It has to do a lot of it with the age they come to us."

The Phoenix Academy program lasts six months - at a cost of $91 to $150 a
day, depending on what rate the referring agency pays.

The academy offers a strict regimen. Youths wake at 6 a.m. After breakfast,
there are job assignments. They attend classes on site taught by Dallas
school district teachers. They also go to programs in the afternoon such as
12-step meetings, relapse prevention and others. Some also receive
psychiatric care.

INSTILLING VALUES

"We're teaching them a lot of values: the value of work, education and
being responsible to each other," said Michael Hathcoat, vice president and
Texas regional director of Phoenix House.

House rules are strict: Beds in the dormlike rooms must be made with sheets
tucked under. Clothes must be neatly rolled and placed in drawers. Lights
are out at 10 p.m.

Signs throughout the building remind students: "Hang Tough," "Guilt Kills"
and "Growth Before Status."

Phoenix House isn't a locked facility. The youths can leave any time. But
doing so means violating probation. Most don't chance it.

Students, who are mostly 15 and 16, spent a recent afternoon looking at
their family histories. The goal was to show which relatives have
substance-abuse problems, divorces, criminal convictions, deaths and other
issues. Counselors hope to pinpoint what circumstances coincided with a
child's drug use.

Many students showed multiple family members - mothers, fathers and
grandparents - with drug and alcohol problems. That fits in with a previous
Phoenix House study that showed most youths start using drugs because of a
close friend or relative - not the stereotypical stranger lurking at the
playground.

Paul Woodson, a 15-year-old from Oak Cliff, comes from a family with
generations of substance-abuse problems. He, too, got mixed up with drugs.

"I was selling and doing drugs at school, and I got myself in trouble,"
Paul said.

But he's doing well at Phoenix Academy. He likes wrestling and wants to
join the Army when he's old enough.

Blake Wright, a 16-year-old from Garland, said he got caught doing drugs
and skipping school. He declined to elaborate.

"I was doing stupid stuff," Blake said.

Like many of the teens who come here, Blake didn't want to change at first.

"I thought it was going to be a place where I'd spend my time and leave,"
Blake said. That changed. "You really have to work on yourself here."

A part of him still wants to do drugs, he said. But he has found other
activities, such as drawing and football.

'Whole different person'

"It seems like I'm a whole different person," Blake said. "I'm thinking I
could go out and get a job."

Phoenix House tries to prepare the youths as much as possible for the long
road ahead.

"Relapse is a part of this disease," Mr. Hathcoat said. "It's a real
challenge for people to stay off drugs forever."

But many of the teens at Phoenix House said that for the first time,
they're willing to try.

"In our small way, we're trying to save lives on a daily basis," he said.
"They have a lot of hills to climb, but they know that's something they
want to do."