DRUGS USE OFTEN STARTS AT HOME

Born to a heroin-addicted mother, Sarah Doe began her life on a course
aimed straight at dependency.

It didn't take her long to get there.

She started smoking pot on her 10 th birthday, when her older brother
got her high for her first time. Her first drink came when she was 12,
methamphedamine at 13. Soon she was injecting heroin into her teenage
veins.

Both Sarah ( not her real name ) and her brother were both born with
fetal alcohol syndrome. They were adopted when Sarah was 6, but it was to
late to stop their runaway course toward drug abuse.

"I took drugs to make my problems go away," Sarah, now 17, said during
an interview at the Deschutes County Juvenile Detention Center. " And I had
a lot of problems with my family."

Not too many kids in Central Oregon find themselves on the kind of
runaway train that Sarah rode into addiction, but plenty are on the same
track going the same direction. At home, their lives might be only a little
better than Sarah's or a lot better, but one thing is almost certain:
Somewhere along the line they got a clue from their parents or siblings or
a trusted adult that tobacco, alcohol or drugs were okay.

Parents don't have to be heroin addicts to set the stage for drug abuse
by their children, experts say. In fact, something as seemingly innocent as
smoking or having one to many drinks in the evening can lead a child to
make a bad choice about alcohol or drugs.

It could be an older brother or sister or uncle who thought it would be
fun to get the kid brother high. It could be a teacher who looked the other
way at a kid who came to class with booze on his breath.

Whatever it was, the message was the same. It said it's okay to put
things in your body that aren't good for you. And the people who try to get
teenagers off the addiction track say it's often the biggest reason kids
step aboard.

"The single most common element in adolesent drug use is parental
use.

Not peer preasure. Parental use," says Roger Kryzanek, director of alcohol
and drug programs for Deschutes County. " Kids use because mom and dad
use."

But they also use because mom and dad don't care. That's particularly
noticeable among children of baby boom parents, who sometimes have a
too-tolerant attitude about drinking and smoking, Kryzanek says.

By the same token, having parents or close adults that make it crystal
clear that using any drug is not acceptable is perhaps the most effective
deterrent to teenage drug abuse.

"If a kid has a close relationship with an adult and there's a clear
understanding of what that adult's values are, he's not going to want to
risk that relationship by making choices that violate those values," says
Jackie Matlick, a prevention specialist at Rogue Recovery in Madras.

That isn't to say that peer pressure doesn't push kids onto the drug abuse
tracks. Children today swim in a culture that too often minimizes, if not
glamorizes, drug use, and the choices they must make are far different
that what earlier generations faced.

Sherry Pressler, who works with first-time offenders as director of the
Bend Police Department's YES program, says the middle school years are when
youngsters are most vulnerable. It's a time when children are dropped into
a new, stressful social mix before they've had a chance to learn the social
skills to deal with it.

"It's a stage where kids are just kind of flailing about," Pressler says."
The biggest fear they have in that group is walking down the hall
alone.That's worse than death to an eighth grader."

Too often, drugs are seen as a way to bridge that social gap and gain
acceptance. "I would put peer presure as a major factor in what moves kids
in one direction or another," says Deschutes County Sheriff's Deputy
Dennis Porter, the school resource officer in La Pine.

Sometimes drugs represent escape rather than acceptance. The stress of
trying to fit in at school can fuel depression and a sense of hopelessness,
and a child with little hope for the future has little reason to refuse
drugs that offer the illusion of escape from the darkness.

"For some kids, graduation goals or life on their own is so far down
the pipe they can't see it," Pressler says "I've talked to kids who just
say ,'I can't see being around when I'm 25,' and that's so sad.