FIRST TASTE OF ALCOHOL, THE GATEWAY DRUG, OFTEN LEADS TEENAGERS TO HARDER
STUFF

After she had her first taste of alcohol in the sixth-grade, Roxanne never
looked back.

Now 17, she's recovering from the years of substance abuse that began with
alcohol, her gateway drug. By the time she entered Mulberry Center's
rehabilitation program for teens at age 16, she had graduated to drugs like
marijuana, acid, opium and methamphetamine.

"Basically, I did everything but coke, crack and heroin," she said. And it
was surprising how easy it was to get. A simple trip to the convenience
store could net gas for her car, a pack or two of smokes and drugs.

"All in one run," she said.

Drug dealers, or people who knew them, would hang out at the store, she
said. Research proves that alcohol, which Roxanne began drinking before she
even entered high school, is often a gateway drug to harder substances like
marijuana and meth.

As a young adult who began drinking before she could drive, Roxanne is not
alone in the Tri-State. In a 2002 survey conducted by the Indiana Prevention
Resource Center, nearly twice as many Indiana 12th graders reported daily
use of alcohol than the national average. At all grade levels compared,
Indiana came out either equal to or greater than the national average for
daily use, monthly use and binge drinking, considered five or more drinks in
one sitting.

Youth First, a substance abuse prevention group, and WNIN-PBS9 have teamed
up to address the issue of underage drinking in our community, beginning
tonight with a town hall forum to be aired on WNIN PBS-9.

Tonight's forum will be the first of a series of town hall meetings over the
next five months, each dealing with a different segment of the problem,
including prevention, intervention and policy reforms and social norms.

The project was made possible through several grants, including a national
Sound Partners for Community Health grant and additional funding from the
local Welborn Foundation.

The Courier & Press interviewed several teenagers about the problem of
underage drinking and will not publish their last names because they are
minors.

Roxanne said her parents would never have learned of her drug and alcohol
use. But she decided to come clean.

"I could lie and tell them it was my friend's, or I could tell the truth,"
she said. "I wrote my parents a really long letter saying that I needed
help."

That was a little more than a year ago. Last week, Roxanne, celebrated a
year of sobriety.

Vincent, another 17-year-old, has been sober for nearly six months. He came
to Mulberry Center after drinking himself into a stupor at a party and
ending up in the hospital after a fight.

"My parents realized I was extremely impaired," he said. His drinking habit
started out innocently enough, he said, with a few drinks at a friend's
house. A friend's older brother purchased the alcohol. And it quickly
escalated into weekend-long binges where he would down fifths of whiskey and
cases of beer. The drinking would happen at a friend's house with no parents
home.

"My parents didn't realize what I was doing over there," he said. Since
entering treatment last summer, Vincent's life has changed. He found it
impossible to stay at his home school, and changed schools twice before
finding one that fit. Roxanne has also changed schools since entering
treatment.

Both teens said they had read or been told that maturity slows or stops when
a person becomes addicted.

Dr. William Wooten, who directs the treatment of adolescent alcoholics and
drug addicts at Mulberry Center and founded Youth First, said younger brains
are more vulnerable to alcohol and other drugs.

"If somebody starts using young, it's usually because its available, it's
socially acceptable or they're being stressed or influenced by other risk
factors," Wooten said.

Risk factors include depression, eating disorders, physical or emotional
abuse, frequent moves, and transitions between schools.

Also, he said kids who start using young have stunted emotional development.

"We see this clinically in adults and kids, in that as far as their behavior
and their emotional development, they're often immature for their years," he
said. "Their judgment, social skills, their decision making and so forth are
not what they should be."

Both Vincent and Roxanne became very manipulative, they said, and could turn
their parents naivete or denial to their advantage.

"My parents had to know (I was an addict), but they didn't," Roxanne said.
"I had posters of pot leaves and one of a Rasta man smoking a joint hanging
in my room."

"Parents don't want to believe their child has a problem," Vincent said.
"You know those commercials, where they ask the kids when, where and who
were you with? That's something they can do."

Wooten said only about 5 percent of people with drug and alcohol addictions
seek treatment - the other 95 percent of people die without it.

"Similarly, out of every dollar we spend to deal with problems related to
substance abuse, about 95 cents is spent on the consequences, like car
wrecks, injuries, law enforcement, work-related accidents, and only 5 cents
is spent on treatment," Wooten said.

Prevention is much cheaper: Wooten pointed to Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Statistics that indicated turning one person away from drugs and
alcohol can save the community more than $2 million throughout the course of
their lifetime.