SCHOOL TREATMENT PROGRAM IS READING, WRITING AND RECOVERY

ELK RIVER -- Lunch is over precisely at 1 p.m. The five high school kids
put away their pop and pull the plastic chairs around in a circle at one
end of the classroom.

"Time for group," announces Amber, 17, wrapping herself in a fuzzy purple
blanket as she settles in her seat, ready to listen.

Michelle, 17, clenches a big black sweater around her middle and starts to
talk. She describes how she used to sit alone in her room at night doing
line after line of cocaine. She tells them how she once arranged to have
her boyfriend "jumped" by some other kids so they could steal his drugs.

"Why are you smiling?" asks treatment counselor Jackie Brick.

"Because I'm ashamed. I smile when I'm ashamed," Michelle says.

The exchange took place recently in an Elk River high school classroom
where the three "Rs" are reading, writing -- and recovery.

The teenagers are recovering from drug and alcohol abuse. Instead of going
to a clinic for treatment, they now can get it on the familiar turf of school.

Fairview Behavioral Services, part of the Fairview system of hospitals and
clinics in Minnesota, started the in-school treatment program two years ago
in partnership with the Elk River schools.

Although Fairview offers adolescent treatment programs in the Twin Cities
metro area, this is the first one in a school setting, said Nancy Gosz,
director of Fairview's adolescent community programs. So far, it has been a
success, the sponsors say.

When teenagers finish treatment, many stay on at the Ivan Sand Community
School, where the program is based. They stop in at lunch to play cards
with the counselors or chat with them in the halls.

Others return to their schools with the messages about sobriety and with
skills that they've learned to stay sober or drug-free. Student surveys
found that kids who complete the program reported improved relationships
with families and more success at school.

"We are building a core group of students who are sober and drug-free,"
said Judee McMullen, principal of Ivan Sand. "They provide a peer group for
kids going through treatment, and that's more effective."

Now word of the program is spreading. Last month Fairview opened a second
program at the Osseo Area Learning Center, an alternative high school in
Brooklyn Park. Judith Lamp, principal of the school, said the district
liked the program because treatment includes school and family.

"They are addressing the whole person," she said.

School And Treatment

At Elk River, the program includes two hours of schoolwork and four hours
of treatment five days a week, and it is usually covered by the students'
health insurance plans. Osseo's program is similar.

Fairview supplies three counselors in Elk River. They teach the 12-step
program familiar to many alcoholics and drug addicts, and they counsel both
the kids and their families.

Half of the students come from Elk River, and the rest come from nearby
communities and other school districts. They gather in a spare, white
classroom overlooking athletic fields. About 60 to 70 kids a year pour out
their stories and learn to stay sober.

They are among the 20 to 30 percent of high school students in Minnesota
who use marijuana or alcohol, according to a survey by the state Department
of Children, Families and Learning.

They come from foster families, broken families and intact families. Some
are straight "A" students, and some barely scrape through school. Some
drink, some use marijuana, others use methamphetamine, cocaine or heroin.
Many repeat the treatment two or three times.

All of them meet a clinical standard -- their substance abuse had
progressed during the previous 12 months with harmful consequences.

Mostly About Family

Once inside the classroom, with the students facing each other in a circle,
it's not just about drugs. It's mostly about family.

Amber told the group last week that she was both thrilled and terrified
because in early December she'll be going to a new school.

"I get to start all over," she said.

Parents of most of the teenagers asked that their last names not be
published to protect their privacy.

Amber is afraid she'll start to use again, and the memories of her drug
abuse bring her to tears.

"I don't want to do it anymore," she said. "It's not worth it, hurting my
family. I made my mom literally sick."

Matt, 18, nodded knowingly. This is his second time through the program.

"The temptation will be there, it will be there a lot," he said. The first
time he landed in treatment, he had progressed from marijuana to
methamphetamine within a year. He had stayed clean for eight months, then
used again.

"It was a battle to stay sober as long as I did," he said. "But I lost my
mom's trust."

This time his mother gave him an ultimatum, he said. If he uses again,
she'll kick him out of the house. She can't have a user at home with three
younger siblings, Matt said.

Michelle reaches for the tissue box -- the signal that it's her turn to
talk. She asked to be identified as Michelle, but it's not her real name.

She, too, is terrified, she said, because she has an upcoming meeting with
her parents and one of the counselors and she is expected to talk in detail
about the drugs she's used.

She was a straight "A" student and a cheerleader. But she also had a secret
life, she said, in which she chose friends because they had drugs, and
spurned those who didn't. She once set up her boyfriend for an attack by
other kids.

"It was scary," she said. "The guys I was with, they ran out of the woods
and stole his drugs. I sat on the curb and smoked a cigarette and watched it."

Brick, the counselor, asked: "How long have you been taking care of yourself?"

Michelle said that her parents work a lot. The summer after fifth grade she
stayed alone at home and has been taking care of herself ever since.

"It sounds lonely," Brick said. "No wonder you sit in your room alone and
do drugs. Remember we talked about that hole? The hole is what drugs fill.
That's your hole."

Michelle deserves parents who take care of her, Brick said, but they can't
take care of her if she doesn't tell them the truth. And telling them will
make it harder for her to start using again, Brick said.

"But I worry about my mom," Michelle said, clenching her fists. "I always
feel bad for her. I'm afraid she'll cry, and I hate it when adults cry."

Graduation Day

Once the teenagers complete three or four weeks of intensive counseling,
they move on to several weeks of hour-long group sessions after school.

Last Monday was a special day for the after-school group because Erica, 16,
graduated. She had started the school year smoking marijuana every day, but
by Monday she had been clean for 84 days.

"I'm going to miss going to treatment," she said, laughing. "I know it
sounds weird."

She especially loved lunch time, when everyone would play cards and talk,
she said.

She will remain at Ivan Sand and plans to visit the counselors and
treatment group regularly. She wants to finish high school as fast as she
can and eventually become a dentist, she said.

One by one, the other kids in the group congratulate her and by the time
they are done, she is triumphant, her face flushed a pale pink.

"I'm so happy," she said. "I'm so excited that I did it."

The kids depart in a rush, leaving a vacuum behind them. Brick and a second
counselor, Nicole Herlofsky, drape themselves over the chairs, exhausted.

They said they don't expect the kids to succeed all the time or all at
once. For the counselors, success is defined as teenagers who "are better
when the leave than they are when they came," Herlofsky said.

Sometimes, a year or two after treatment, kids will stop by and say they
are making it, she said. Usually, they surprise her, she said, because
they're not the ones she thought would make it.