Rehab program for teens needs own helping hand

Rehab program for teens needs own helping hand

By Sherri M. Owens Sentinel Staff Writer

LEESBURG -- The Bone Thugs-n-Harmony poster is gone now. The pastel
quilt and leopard-print pillowcase are packed away. The beds are empty
and hallways quiet.

The teens who once found refuge at the residential drug-rehabilitation
program called Teen Choice are gone, their treatment cut short because
the program ran out of money.

Counselors and administrators are hoping a last-minute money miracle
revives the program, the core of the only residential facility for
teen addicts in Lake and Sumter counties.

"We are trying to see what we can do to get them some money so they
won't have to close," said Tim Bottcher, spokesman for the state
Department of Children & Families.

Teen Choice at LifeStream Behavioral Center in Leesburg accepted its
first clients in March, using $200,000 from the state to get started.

Program directors asked for $400,000 -- a fraction of the $9 million
allocated for substance-abuse programs in the state budget for next
year -- but the request was denied. Without more money, the program
will close Sept. 30, said Jonathan Cherry, Lifestream president and
chief executive officer.

DCF and the state drug czar came up with a recommendation for how the
$9 million should be spent. That recommendation was sent to the
Legislature in the second week of August, Bottcher said.

"It does not include Teen Choice," he said. "We came up with a set of
priorities that included prevention, services for elder abuse of drugs
and expansion of detox service. Teen Choice did not fit into that."

Of the $9 million set aside for substance-abuse programs next year,
DCF has asked, among other things, that:

Statewide science-based prevention programs get $1.6 million.

The Center for Drug Free Living in Orlando get $725,000.

Elderly services in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade counties get
$600,000.

DCF's recommendations include no substance-abuse funding specifically
for Lake and Sumter counties, although the 2002 Florida Youth
Substance Abuse Survey showed a higher rate of drug use in Lake and
Sumter than in the state as a whole. For instance, while 5.4 percent
of high school students polled statewide said they had used cocaine in
their lifetimes, the figure doubled, to 10.4 percent, in Lake County.
And while 5.6 percent of high school students statewide said they had
used amphetamines in their lifetime, the number nearly tripled, to
15.1 percent, in Lake.

Also, when students in the survey were asked about their drug use
during the past 30 days, 34.8 percent of respondents statewide said
they had used "alcohol or any illicit drug." But 39.3 percent in Lake
said they had done the same.

Orange County, the most heavily populated in Central Florida, reported
30.5 percent of teens using alcohol or any illicit drug -- less than
the statewide average. Yet Orange County is among the jurisdictions
slated to get funding for a media campaign, an Informed Families
program and expanded detoxification services.

Statewide statistics show that much of the teen drug use in Florida is
declining. According to survey results released late last year,
marijuana use has dropped 13 percent in middle schools and 5 percent
in high schools, Ecstasy use is down 29 percent from a year ago, and
heroin use is down to less than half of 1 percent.

"But we still have these kids," said Dave Rattray, program supervisor
for Teen Choice, referring to his patients.

E-mails share stories

A 15-year-old girl in black flip-flops and blue jeans was among the
last three patients to leave Teen Choice recently. She was being
treated after having been removed from her home and placed in state
custody. Her mother introduced her to heroin when the girl was 8 years
old.

She sat around a long table with two boys, ages 17 and 14, who were
being treated at Teen Choice as an alternative to juvenile jail and a
criminal record.

The children's names are being withheld because of their ages and the
nature of their dependency.

"When I get out of here, I want to go and talk to other kids so they
won't get into drugs," the girl said, finishing an exercise in her
workbook, Stop the Chaos: How to Get Control of Your Life by Beating
Booze and Drugs by Allen Tighe.

"It might be too early for that," her counselor cautiously answered.

"Well, I want to have a couple of years of sobriety first," the
ninth-grade girl said.

"Good idea," the counselor said. "You can't help others until you can
help yourself."

Learning to help oneself is what Teen Choice is all about.

Rattray e-mailed several letters from former patients at the center to
Gov. Jeb Bush, telling him how much the program means to them and
asking him to help keep it going.

"I'm 14 and I haven't even started my life yet, and I was ruining it
so bad," one boy wrote. "Not even my own parents trusted me to leave
their sight and that's pretty messed up for a 14-year-old. Teen Choice
has showed me how to walk down the right path and trust people in
order for them to do the same. I truly believe this program is one of
the funnest and understandable I've ever been to."

'There wasn't another way'

The Teen Choice patients who had to cut their treatment short because
of the program's financial programs were invited to return weekly for
after-care. Some may sign up for outpatient treatment, including group
counseling.

But those programs don't remove children from the daily exposure to
drugs, as a residential program does, Rattray said.

"I used to do outpatient, and I would watch when one boy left and his
friend would come and pick him up after the thing. You could smell the
pot when he opened the door," Rattray said, adding that outpatient
treatment might work for some, but not for those he worked with in
Teen Choice. "For these kids in here, there wasn't another way for
them."

A south Lake County mother agrees. Her 16-year-old daughter started
with marijuana and alcohol and escalated to cocaine and crystal
methamphetamine. The girl eventually admitted she had a problem with
drugs, and her parents put her in outpatient counseling.

After a while, "we believed she was clean," said the mother. "The
counselor believed it, too. But she hadn't been clean for a day."

A frantic search led the family to Teen Choice. The girl finished the
program this summer.

"Things are wonderful now," her mother said. "She's our daughter
again. When I heard that the program might close, it terrified me. If
we had no place to take her -- whoo! We wouldn't have her. She would
be gone."

A new circle of friends

It's important for teen addicts to be in a controlled environment so
they can escape the heavy influences of their peers, who often are
addicts, too, Rattray said. If a child's circle of friends uses drugs,
it's often difficult for a child to face those friends and be strong
enough to say no to the drugs. It's also tough for them to pull away
and choose new friends.

"The hardest thing for teens in terms of recovery is how to change
friends," Rattray said. Forcing them to leave those destructive
friendships for a while helps, he said.

The 14-year-old 10th-grade patient with diamond-cut studs in his ears
said he got his first marijuana joint from a friend.

By the time the boy was 11, his mother noticed a change in his
behavior and asked him if he were using drugs. He said no, but elderly
neighbors intervened and persuaded his parents to look deeper. He has
been in the rehabilitation program two months and hoped to finish
another two months before he learned of the closing.

"They should really give this place a chance," he said of the
decision-makers and the lack of cash for Teen Choice. "If they come
over here, they will notice how much it was helping us."

The patients were housed in a 12-bed dormitory. They were schooled on
campus and got regular class credit.

They had two hours of group counseling each weekday and some
one-on-one treatment sessions. They participated in 12-step groups
such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, meeting three or
four times a week.

Volunteers came in to teach crafts, the teens went to the YMCA
regularly for recreation, and family visits were allowed on Sundays.

"The more normal we make life the better," Rattray said.

A small-town 17-year-old former Teen Choice patient said the program
saved his life. He started with marijuana when his stepfather gave him
his first smoke at age 12. He graduated to cocaine, stealing and
committing other crimes to feed his habit. Today, when he should be a
high school senior he is in ninth grade.

"Teen Choice was my last alternative," he said. "I didn't think I
needed it, but it has made a lot difference."

He completed about 31/2 months of a four-month program and is sad to
hear that the program may not be available for others like him.

"I look back at life and all my family members who have been in jail
all because of drugs," he said. "I never could see that when I was on
drugs. Teen Choice showed me a new way to live."
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