RECOVERING ADDICTS SHARE THEIR STORIES

DUBLIN -- They came to tell Valley Christian Center students their terrible
stories of lives harmed by addiction to drugs and alcohol.

Gregg Aldrich pushed a shopping cart through downtown San Diego.

Brian Kring, at the age of 39, has lost about 40 jobs.

Chris Rivers tried to shoot himself with a sawed off shot gun.

These recovering drug abusers and alcoholics from Oakland's Salvation Army
Rehabilitation Center spoke before a stunned assembly of 450 students
Tuesday morning in the hopes that their message would save others from
falling into the trap of addiction.

School volunteer Deana Butler hosted the six men for Red Ribbon Week. During
the week, students focus on how to prevent substance abuse.

Most of the speakers said they were lured into drugs and alcohol by peer
pressure.

"I didn't come from a dysfunctional family. I was offered the opportunities
of life that any family can give," said Typhany Wade.

Wade's father was an engineer, his mother a nurse. Wade said he started
dabbling in drugs to build his self-esteem.

"I was good in school. I didn't have problems with academics, but I wanted
to hang out with the cool kids," Wade said.

In junior high school Wade smoked marijuana nearly every day, and when he
graduated from high school he started using cocaine.

"By the time I was 25, I had destroyed everything important to life," he said.

Now, Wade and the other men in the program do work for the Salvation Army
and attend up to seven group meetings per week for recovering alcoholics and
drug abusers.

Besides Aldrich, who is the group's resident adviser, the men in the group
are about two to eight months into their treatment.

Valley Christian School junior Mary Pryfogle, 16, said because the school is
small, everyone knows which students use alcohol, and which students do not.

She said peer pressure is as intense at Valley Christian School as it is
anywhere.

"(The presentation) was better than a cop coming into the school and showing
us a presentation on, lets say, what smoking does. But when people come in
and tell us their stories, it has a real impact," she said.

Aldrich said he hopes the groups real life experience will help students
make better decisions.

"If we could save one person from what we've gone through it's all
worthwhile," he said.