CENTRE CHALLENGES YOUTH

Editor's note: First names only are used for Vernon Treatment Centre
clients, and in youth cases names are changed to protect identity.

Busted at school for drinking, smoking marijuana and even doing
cocaine or ecstasy, five high school students were turned over to a
treatment program to hopefully turn over a new leaf.

Some came willingly on their own, others hesitated and another was
dragged in full of resentment and denial.

"I thought it was just a bunch of BS. I didn't want to be here at
all," said 'Nathan,' who denied he had a problem from the start and
held an adverse attitude towards the program facilitator.

Through referrals from their schools, Nathan and the others, who
each have a drug and alcohol problem, spent five days in the Vernon
Treatment Centre's intensive outpatient program, operated by the
Shuswap Okanagan Treatment Centre Society.

Using videos, lectures, discussions, questionnaires and an
educational model based on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous,
Narcotics Anonymous and Al-Anon, the centre strived to turn these
young men off of drugs and alcohol.

Although the 15- to 17-year-old's parents, teachers and schools hope
the program, which they graduated from recently, will leave a
lasting impact on the boys, no one knows for sure what the outcome
will be. The young men could leave with only a reminder never to
drink or do drugs at school again, yet continue to do so on their
own time until substance abuse ruins or perhaps kills them.

Program facilitator, Sharon, who herself is a former alcoholic
celebrating 28.5 years of sobriety, admits that she can't stop them
from using.

"With the teens, the best I say is I ruin their using," said the
firm yet approachable woman who says she doesn't mind that clients
refer to her as Hitler in a dress.

Through her lectures and education, Sharon helps all of her clients
see the other side to drinking and doing drugs - the debilitating,
life-ruining and often deadly side.

She shows them what their life could look like if they continue down
these paths.

And as Sharon and the teens explain, each of her words are burned
into their minds.

"It's not much fun going out getting high or drunk as a skunk with
me chattering in their head."

'Evan,' who came to the centre on his own, attests that a lot of
what is taught in the confines of the centre sticks with you.

"Sharon's in the back of my mind, eating away at me."

The centre also allows the clients to hear the experiences of former
alcoholics/addicts, by matching people they can relate to.

Like Doug, who hit home with the youth by sharing his teenage
experiences with alcohol.

"I had my first real big drunk when I was about 14, I was stealing
cars at 16."

Doug continued his habit of drinking and theft and a life where his
wife and children were frightened of him, until one day at the age
of 30, he walked through the doors of an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting.

"I've got my life today," said Doug, guaranteeing that if he
continued his drinking he wouldn't be alive to share his experiences now.