PROGRAM HELPS TEENS FIGHT DRUG ADDICTION

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS -- Jaime's mother would comment on what the 17-year-old
was wearing or ask about her school work, and Jaime could think of only one
thing.

She'd storm out of her Palatine home, pick up a friend and head to Chicago's
West Side to score heroin. For $10, she could find relief from her anger and
guilt in a drug-induced, comalike high.

That was five months ago. Today, she's drug free, thanks to a new program at
Northwest Community Hospital which teaches young addicts the skills to
control their addiction and gives their parents tips to stop enabling their
children's drug use.

"Drugs were all I knew. The program has taught me how to understand what I'm
feeling and how to deal with it," said Jaime, which is not her real name.

In partnership with Chicago's Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Hospital,
Northwest Community Hospital launched the Adolescent Chemical Dependency
Program in November.

"In our mental health programs we found about 70 percent of the kids use
drugs and 90 percent had tried them," said Joe Novak, director of the Mental
Health Network at Northwest Community Hospital. "We needed to address the
substance abuse element."

Increasingly, such drug treatment services are in demand as drug use among
suburban teens continues to outpace that of urban youth, according to recent
studies.

Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village reports 5,200 visits to
its adolescent drug treatment program last year. Omni Services in Schaumburg
sees about 8,000 youths annually, said Jojy Kannankeril, clinical supervisor
for outpatient programs.

Behind locked doors and shrouded windows of Northwest Community Hospital's
Mental Health Center, 13 teens have started the arduous four-week process of
recovery since November.

The first step, counselors said, is for the teens to admit they have a drug
problem. Next is for them and their families to commit to individual, family
and group counseling with the aim of learning to cope with life without
narcotics.

"If you have a 14-year-old who's been using since he was 10, he has no idea
what life was like without drugs," said Mario Giacomuzzi, a Rush
psychologist, who heads the suburban program. "All he knows about
functioning socially and emotionally is through drugs."

Teens are assessed and placed in treatment that ranges from a daily
eight-hour treatment program to substance abuse support group meetings once
a week.

All levels of the program, which costs about $240 per day, concentrate on
helping teens explore the root causes of addiction. By identifying
"triggers," such as people, places, things and feelings, they can learn
appropriate responses instead of drugs.

In many cases, friends and family problems are frequent triggers. Teens are
encouraged, as part of rehabilitation, to call drug-using friends to sever
ties and proclaim sobriety.

The names of those friends are included in a written "no contact" contract
that is given to counselors and parents.

Parents also learn that by not setting limits and ignoring warning signs of
drug use, they actually contribute to the problem.

"I grew up in a time when people were experimenting with drugs and dying
left and right. But I thought that had all ended with the '60s," said
Jaime's mother. She, like other parents with teens in the program, must
attend two family and group counseling sessions per week.

She found herself making excuses for Jaime until she saw something she
couldn't ignore.

"It didn't hit me until one day I was watching television and one of those
commercials came on about heroin and it said something about your child
always in the bathroom throwing up. That's when it hit me," the mother said.

A Hoffman Estates father also was in denial until his daughter, Christi, 17,
stayed out all night and drugs were found in her room.

Wanting to preserve Christi's privacy, John and his wife never entered her
room. But the night she was missing, they did and they found a small mirror,
razor blades and plastic bags caked with white powdery residue. The powder
tested positive for heroin.

Christi, not her real name, said she had been using drugs in that room for
nearly a year.

"I was blind. I didn't want to see," John said about his daughter, who in
junior year of high school had been a cheerleader, track star and an
accomplished piano player.

Christi has graduated from the intensive after-school program and attends
weekly group sessions to reinforce sobriety. She has been clean for four months.

"My parents helped me take the first step. But I have to do the rest for
myself," Christi said.