Part 2 of 3

ADDICTIONS UNRESOLVED, TEEN GOES INTO FREEFALL

Elise Neel wants out. After 20 days in drug treatment, she's desperate to
leave -- consequences be damned.

Her counselors at Main Quest, a drug and alcohol treatment center on West
Main Street in Rochester, told her earlier that she would complete
in-patient treatment on Friday, April 27. And that's the day she plans to
return to her parents' home in Avon.

Main Quest counselors, however, become concerned about releasing the
19-year-old heroin addict on a weekend, when partying is more likely. They
shift the date to Monday, April 30.

Neel refuses to wait three more days.

"I'm leaving Friday -- I don't care," she says.

She knows, however, that she could pay a steep price if she doesn't
complete treatment. She is slated to appear in Henrietta Town Court in June
on charges that she ripped off a department store. If she finishes an
in-patient program -- a sign of her willingness to battle her addiction --
she would have a better chance at a sentence of probation instead of jail.

Main Quest counselors urge her to stay through the weekend. But on Thursday
morning, April 26, counselors say she has been spotted sneaking into a
bathroom with a male addict -- a violation that can lead to discharge. She
denies it and grows agitated.

Robert Kingston, Main Quest's assistant director of primary services, tries
to sort out the conflict. But even if Main Quest will let her stay, Neel
wants to leave. She places a telephone call to a friend to come get her. He
comes with a friend and the three drive away.

Neel does not know where to go. So, after driving around for more than an
hour, her friends drop her off on a street corner -- outside of Main Quest.

She calls her mother, Patti, from a pay phone and asks her to pick her up.
She's coming home.

Patti, 53, is worried. "We knew we couldn't bring her back in here as a
little girl or even as a teenager. We knew we were bringing her back as a
young woman who was in a lot of trouble... .

"We're her parents. Nobody loves her any more than we do, except God."

'Whatever'

As a child, Elise Neel was cherubic-looking, outgoing and showed little
fear of the world.

Her mother remembers how, at pools and playgrounds, Elise would approach
other children and say, "Hi, do you want to be my friend? Let's play."

"Elise has always been strong-willed," Patti says. "She was really a
delightful little girl, a lot of fun to be with, a lot of fun to watch."

Elise Neel was 4 years old when her mother first saw her rebellious streak.
They were walking in a shopping center parking lot, and traffic was heavy.
She took her daughter's hand. Elise yanked it back.

"I took it several more times," Patti says. "We went through this like four
or five times."

Patti finally gripped her daughter's hand tightly. "She was still
struggling to get her hand out of mine. She was this big girl, she thought,
and she didn't need me to hold her hand."

Patti interpreted the incident as nothing more than youthful bullheadedness
- -- not a foreshadowing of the chasm that would grow between them.

But as Elise became a teen, that stubbornness morphed into resistance to
her parents' authority and a constant longing for excitement that could not
be found at home. Her parents suspected that she was finding an outlet in
drug use, but she would persuade them otherwise.

Elise's teen years were rife with friction as she fell deeper into the
grips of addiction, and her parents were unsure how to respond.

Elise moved out of the house in 1999 -- her junior year at Geneseo High
School -- and lived with a friend's family.

In Livingston County, like other largely rural counties, the prevalence of
drug use often goes unacknowledged, some experts say.

"When you talk Geneseo, you think, 'Oh gee, kids in Geneseo -- nobody uses
heroin here, nobody uses crack.' Which is not true," says Geneseo High
School counselor Sue Dimpfl, who, Elise says, once directed her to drug
treatment.

"There is this surface facade in Geneseo that makes it hard to have an
awareness."

In fact, the percentage of young Livingston County residents in substance
abuse treatment is double the state average: About 17 percent of New
Yorkers who entered treatment for addiction were 24 years old or younger.
Among young residents of Livingston County, that figure is about 33 percent
- -- the fourth highest in the state.

There is no common denominator among the teens who turn to drugs, Dimpfl
says. "Some are from two-parent homes, middle class. Everything seems fine
- -- they're active in school -- and then they just kind of lost it."

Elise grew up in a two-parent, working-class household. Her mother, who had
left Elise's father soon after she was born, remarried when Elise was 2. Al
Neel is a truck driver who is gone for several weeks at a stretch; he was
away during interviews for this story.

Patti and Al are deeply religious, she says, and work to instill the same
faith in their four children.

"My mom would always say, 'If you love yourself, you can love others,' "
Elise says. "I would always say, 'Whatever.' "

Patti recalls frequently pushing that message. "You have to see yourself as
the creation that God made you. And he thinks we're pretty spiffy."

'Wild Child'

In the weeks after leaving Main Quest and before her Henrietta court date,
Elise does little at home. With her parents' urging, she finally gets a job
at an Avon supermarket. She leaves the job after three days, complaining
that she had to work with seafood and the odor was unbearable.

"This isn't my house," she says during an interview in the immaculate Avon
apartment where pictures of Elise and her siblings dot the walls. "I'm just
living here temporarily."

She sometimes leaves home for hours on end to visit a friend who also
struggles with addiction. Her parents suspect she's using drugs, and she --
as she did years before -- denies it.

"There are times when her father and I see hope and improvement," Patti
Neel says. "And there are times when we're discouraged and very, very afraid."

Elise's addiction is no secret among the Neels' family and friends. One
couple call about a graduation party for their son, wondering whether Elise
has to come. Their son is worried that Elise may arrive high.

"They just don't think of me the same," Elise says of the family friends.
"They don't have any respect for me. They probably think I'm trouble, some
kind of wild child. They don't remember how I was" before addiction.

The Neels don't attend the party. Elise wonders whether she has been
rejected by the friends.

"It hurts," she says.

'End Of Their Rope'

Elise sits with her mother and stepfather in Henrietta Town Court.

They are waiting for Elise's turn in front of Justice Alex Renzi. He will
determine whether Elise will spend time in jail for her theft from a
department store, or whether she's likely -- if put on probation -- to turn
her life around.

It's June 11 and Renzi has a docket replete with minor crimes and driving
violations.

At one point, Elise lays her head on her stepfather's shoulder. It's a
loving gesture, but within seconds he hears her lightly snoring.

He awakens her and tells her what he and Patti suspect: "You look high."

Elise insists she's only tired; that's why her eyes look weary. She quickly
leaves the courtroom, goes to the bathroom and washes her face.

Returning to the courtroom, she tells her stepfather, "I do not look high."

She sits back down and waits.

When her turn comes, she walks to the front of the courtroom and stands
before Renzi. Her parents follow and stand behind her.

Renzi reads from a presentencing report that details her past drug use:
marijuana, cocaine, LSD, ecstasy, heroin. The other offenders in the
courtroom -- men and women who drove too fast or, like Neel, ripped off
local stores -- murmur.

Renzi notes that Neel left treatment only days before her scheduled
discharge, and that she missed an appointment to try to set up group
sessions to help her fight addiction. Her immaturity is evident in the
documentation in front of him, he says.

Neel does not respond as Renzi calls her a "little girl ... who likes to
manipulate things the way she wants them to be."

"Your parents are standing there because they love you," Renzi says,
warning Neel that she cannot always count on them for support.

"They are at the end of their rope right now," he says.

Renzi agrees to a stiff three-year probation for Neel. If she fails -- or
refuses -- a drug test during that period, he says, he will revoke
probation and toss her in jail.

"I see you as a person that will be placed on probation and will be
incarcerated (again) in the next couple of months," Renzi says.

'Rock Bottom'

Eleven days later, on June 22, Patti Neel notices that her checking account
is hundreds of dollars short of what she thinks it should be.

She has made accounting errors before, she says, so she telephones her bank
to see whether she has messed up again. The bank researches her account,
and tells her of recent checks cashed in her name around Avon and
Livingston County.

That can't be, Patti responds; she hasn't sequentially reached those check
numbers yet.

Then Patti studies her checkbook and discovers that several checks are
missing out of the back. Her worst fears begin to gnaw at her: Has Elise
stolen money from her to buy drugs?

Later that day, Patti takes the step she has long dreaded: She calls the
police and reports the theft. The police come to the Neels' apartment and
take Elise into custody on charges of petit larceny and forgery.

The next day, friends bail Elise out. But only nine days later, on July 2,
she is arrested again -- this time on charges that she tried to smuggle
heroin to a friend who is an inmate in Livingston County Jail. Elise is
charged with promoting prison contraband in the first degree, a felony with
a maximum prison sentence of seven years.

Today, Neel is in Monroe County Jail, where women arrested in Livingston
County are housed. She is scheduled to appear in Avon Village Court tonight
on charges related to the alleged theft of her mother's checks. Court dates
are not yet scheduled for the more serious felony charge.

Patti Neel took out a court order forbidding her daughter to contact her,
but she plans to lift it soon. And she says she's ready to visit Elise in jail.

Meanwhile, Patti wonders when the turmoil will come to an end -- and when
her daughter will break free of addiction. Time and time again, she thought
Elise had struck "rock bottom," the point many addicts say they fell to
before finally changing their ways.

But who knows just where that point is?

"I thought she'd hit it before now," Patti says. "I can't imagine what more
it will take."

Coming tomorrow: A report on Elise Neel's court hearings.

Statistics on young drug users

The percentage of young Livingston County residents in substance abuse
treatment is double the state average: About 17 percent of New Yorkers who
entered treatment for addiction were 24 years old or younger. Among young
residents of Livingston County, that figure is about 33 percent -- the
fourth-highest in the state. Nationwide, the typical heroin user today
consumes more heroin than a decade ago because of the drug's higher purity
and decline in price. In 1998, the most recent year for which statistics
were available, there were 149,000 new heroin users in the United States. A
similar figure was reported in 1996 and 1997. Nearly 80 percent of those
new users were under the age of 26.

More on the Web

The first part of this story -- along with additional material about teen
drug use and the local and national drug scene -- is available online.

Features include a test to help adults assess a child's risk of using
drugs, a virtual youth center with discussion boards and a survey, an
extensive list of drug-related Web sites with hyperlinks, results of a poll
showing America's shifting attitudes toward illegal drugs, and previous
installments of this series.

To access this information, click on "News" and "Extra" at
DemocratandChronicle.com.

About This Series

This is the eighth report in the Democrat and Chronicle's ongoing
investigation, "The Big Deal: Illegal Drugs in the Rochester Region."

Previous installments are available on our Web site.

This week, we will report on anti-drug efforts in the aftermath of the
slaying of a 10-year-old Rochester boy.

Later this month, we will tell how a local man destroyed his basketball
career through cocaine. And we will look at stalled efforts to reform New
York's Rockefeller drug laws.

In the coming months, we will explore other communities' approaches to the
drug wars, drug trafficking in the inner city, drug use and the workplace
and drug treatment courts.

This project aims at exposing the local drug problem and searching for
solutions. To share ideas and information, contact Sebby Wilson Jacobson,
assistant managing editor for special projects.

Phone: 258-2233. Mail: Democrat and Chronicle, 55 Exchange Blvd.,
Rochester, NY 14614. Fax: 258-2237. E-Mail: sjacobson@
DemocratandChronicle.com.

To share your opinions, contact the Editorial Board:

Phone: 258-2510. Fax: 258-2356. E-mail: dceditpage@ DemocratandChronicle.com.