Drugs: a whole lot more than saying no.

Knowledge Is Power

"Scare tactics don't work" says Norm Dynneson who's been a junior high counselor for 20 years. "The facts are scary enough." He says that young people need the truth to be able to make their own good decsions about drugs use.

Here are few facts:

Each year there are 500,000 drug-related arrests. Your family pays the bill for police, prisions, other legal system expenses.

Alcohol is involved in 70 percent of all murders, 60 percent of child-abuse cases, 44 percent of traffic fatalities, 37 percent of suicides.

True or false?

a. Alcohol is a stimulant that peps people up.

b. Drunk driving is the number-one killer of 15-to-24-years-olds.

c. Cocaine produces a euphoria that lasts up to 24 hours. (a. False Alcohol is a depressant that dulls the sense; b. True; c False. The effects last from 10 to 30 minutes. There's strong urge to take another hit away to avoid the postcocaine crash.)

In 1993 the lllinois Drug Education Alliance compiled statistics showing that 37 percent of high school students have used marijuana. That means the 63 percent have not. In a one-month period, 43 percent of 10th-garders used alcohol; that means 57 percent4 did not. Thirteen percent of eighth-graders are bingre drinkers (five or more drinks on a given occasion); 87 percent are not.

Contrary to popular opinion, the drug scene is not necessarily part of growing up. If you don't do drugs, you're not alone. Most people your age don't.

Everyone knows that older kids can do thing better than little kids. But little kids are expert at one thing: They know how to say no.

It's easy for them because their main because their main mission is to say no and thus prove their individuality. It's harder when you're a teen and you also have to consider peer pressure, stress, the allure of new experiences, and the need to test the limit of freedom.

So when it comes to drugs, it isn't easy to "Just Say No." Saying no may be the main course, but lots of ingredients need to be stirred in first, including:

* solid first, including: * healthy self-esteem * knowledge of the facts * a life that's fun and active * friends with positive values.

What happens when certain ingredients are missing? Consider the following situations:

Lack of limits

"I thought my parent were so cool," says 16-year-old Janey.

"They treated me like a grown-up, and they never questioned me about anything. I had no curfew, and I never had to account for how I spent the money I earned at a fast-food restaurant.

"Up until my shopomore year, my parent really had no reason to worry about me. I got good grades, I had nice friends, and I didn't get into trouble.

"Then I started going with a guy wo liked to get high. I began smoking marijuana with him, and pretty soon I'd be smoking everyday.

"My parents never questioned why I came home after school and went right to sleep. They never said anything about the fact that I didn't see my old friends anymore. They didn't say a word when I came home late even on school nights.

"The when my grades at school went down the tube, my parents gotg furious. Dad grounded me and said I obviously coudn't handle grown-up freedom. Maybe that's true. Maybe what I needed was not grown-up freedom but teenage freedom--the kind that still has some rules."

A Matter of Self-Esteem

"I'm the youngest of six," says Juan, am 14-years-old freshman. "It always seemed that everyone could do things better than I could. Now I realize that's normal, but no one ever took the time to tell me that.

"My dad was always criticizing me. He called me a wimp when I got beat up in a fight. he said I'd never make the traveling soccer team--and I didn't. I have a learning disability, and get special help in school. I'm doing OK now, but my father never lets me forget that I repeted kindergarten.

"The first time I got drunk--at age 11--I felt like a different person. A kid on my team offered me a beer, and I was on my way. I felt smarter. My dad's comments didn't hurt so much. I laughed a lot and thought my own jokes were hilarious. I drank whenever I could.

"The trouble was, my drinking got in the way of my soccer and my schoolwork and my friendships. When I was sober I felt worse about myself then ever. I don't know what would have happened if my brothers hadn't bullied me into going to AA. I'm proud that I've been sober for seven months now, and I'm proud of the A I got in art class. I understand that my dad's attiltude is his problem, not mine. But I could have saved my self a lot of grief if I'd been able to refuse that first beer."

Getting the Facts

"Every time I wanted to smoke," says Yvonne, I'd remember that disgusting display on how your lungs look after you smoke. It was in the hallway right outside the school office, and I saw it every day for seven years of elementary school. There was this plastic lung, black and gray and lumpy, that made an awful gasping sound with each breath.

"I'm not a sucker for scare tactics, but this lung display seemed really real. And the school nurse came to my class every year to explain that when you smoke the explain that when you smoke the little hairs in the lungs aren't able to push th air along, and it gets harder and harder to breath. My grandfather has emphysema, so I know what it's like to see somebody gasping for air.

"The there were some facts I read in a magazine that really got to me. Do you know that the marijuana we got now is three times stronger that it was 10 years ago? And that there are more cancer-causing substances in marijuana smoke than in tobacco smoke?

"I once went with a guy who said drinking beer couldn't turn you into an alcoholic. When I told him that one beer has as mush alcohol in it as a shot of whiskey, he said, 'Don'tm confuse me with the facts,' But the facts have kept me from smoking, and my lungs will never be used as a bad example outside sombody's school office."

Have a Life

"I know there are plenty of jocks who drink, but for me sports keeps me away from alcohol and other drugs," says Jarrod, a 17-year-old triple threat who plays football, baseball, and golf. "I'm either at practice or I'm working out or I'm studying, so who's got the time? And my coach is a nut about drugs. If you get caught, there's no second chance. I didn't believe that at fist, but I saw a varsity fullback kicked off the team.

"I'm a nut about my body, and I work out and run five miles almost every day. It doesn't make sense to mess up my body after all that effort."

Real Friends?

"I used to go to school where a lot of the kids, like me, were born in Greece," says Sofia. "My friends were always the popular girls and the good students. Then we moved to another neighborhood, and I was the only girl in the eighth grade who wasn't born in the United States.

"I felt different and very self-conscious about my accent. I didn't dare talk to any of the popular girls, and somehow I found myself hanging around with the troublemakers. They cut classes and didn't hand in their homework and sneaked out at night to meet their boyfriends. But I was thankful to be part of a group. When they pushed me to drink wine coolers, I was afraid to say no.

"Pretty soon I was sneaking six-packs into my room and getting high almost every night. My mother and father were so busy making a living that they hardly noticed.

"One night I was baby-sitting my 7-year-old little sister, Tina. I guess I passed out. When Tina couldn't wake me up, she ran across the street to her friend's house for help, and she got hit by a guy on a motorcycle. She was in the hospital for six weeks, and they thought for a while they'd have to amputate her leg. Even now she's got a limp. Every time I see her hobbling around I could just die.

"My new friends say it's just one of those things and I should stop crying about it because I'm no fun anymore."

Developing Life Skills

A supportive family. Self-esteem. Knowledge. An interesting life. Good friends. How do you get these things? The old-fashioned way: You work for them.

If your family is into drug abuse, violence, or other severe problems, you'll have to work extra hard on finding other people for support.

You're not born knowning how to choose friends or analyze facts or even to like yourself. These are skills that have to be taught--first at home, then at school, and then in the world at large.

Many life skills programs teach the following: how to make decisions taht are in your best interest, how to cope with peer pressures, how to handle stress, and how to communicate.

How to Make Decisions

Let's say you decide to say no to drugs. Then what? "It's not enough to say no," says Joan Lampert, coordinator of the Drug-Free Schools program in a large Chicago-area high school. "What do you say yes to?" Lampert suggests saying yes to some outside interest. Just for starters, that could be playing soccer, learning karate, joining the marching band, becoming a peer counselor. "Get something in your life that lets you know you have value," says Lampert.

To help you think about that you want to get out of an activity, rank the following in order of their importance to you:

being physically active

competing

just relaxing and having fun

being outdoors

being alone

being with friends

learning something

helping someone with this in mind, decide on an activity that's meaningful to you and take the first step toward making it part of your life.

How to Deal with Peer Pressure

Peer pressure has gotten a bum rap. There can be a wonderful sense of belonging in going along with the crowd. And groups can influence people to noble acts. But too much of even a good thing is still too much. Do you strike a reasonable balance in making your own decisions about:

name brands of clothes, including gym shoes?

hairstyle?

TV programs?

electives in school?

outside activities?

Here are a few tactics that have worked for others in saying no to peers when it comes to drugs:

"I'm in training."

"The coach would kill me."

"My folks would kill me."

"My boyfriend (girlfriend, brother, sister, etc.) would kill me."

"I'm allergic."

"I'm driving."

"I'm taking medication."

"It's late. I've got to go."

"Oh, look, there's Mandy. I have to talk to her."

All Stressed Out?

Drugs are sometimes used as an escape from the stresses in a person's life. But when the binge is over, the stressors are still there. Besides, stress is not necessarily bad. It's normal to feel nervous at times. The trick is to learn to tolerate feeling uncomfortable for a short time.

There are lots of better ways tto handle stress than taking drugs.

1. Keep yoour expectations reasonable. Don't try to be perfect.

2. Give yourself downtime instead of overbooking your day.

3. Take care of your body. Eat healthy. Get enough exercise and sleep.

4. Hang around with people who make you feel good about yourself.

Giving Clear Messages

Using drugs says: "I'm lonely. I'm bored. I'm depressed. I need to feel high. I'm a risk taker. I'm proving I'm a grow-up." That's nonverbal communications. But it's straightforward verbal communication that gets people what they want.

One reason that it can be so hard to say no to drugs is that most people don't communicate a clear no to anything. They go along even when they don't really want to in order to please others and be accepted.

Practice saying no. Say no when someone wants to borrow your new sweater and you don't want to lend it. Say no when someone asks to copy your book report. Say no when someone wants to borrow $10 and you don't believe he'll pay you back.

One the Road to Self-Discovery

Looking at your own life skills helps you learn about yourself. That's called self-discovery, says Lampert. The decision not to use drugs depends on self-discovery and has to make sense to each individual on the basis of what that person stands for. "In the long run." she says, "you have to find the power inside you to take care of yourself."

"I knew I didn't want to do drugs," says 17-year-old Maria, "but I never relaly thought about why. My older brother was doing a paper in college on how to think analytically, and he had me make a list of the reasons I'd never tried drugs. I learned a lot about myself as I was writing that list. I don't do drugs because:

* It's illegal. (I realized I felt strongly about what the world would be like if everyone broke the law. And I'm Afraid of getting in trouble with the police.)

* It's unhealthy. (I knew I'd have nightmares about cancer if I smoked or drank.)

* It might harm my body. (I guess I'm pretty vain about how my body looks.)

* It's a waste of time. (It would cut into the things I like to do--swim team, drama club, and seeing my boyfriend.)

* It goes against my goals. (I want to be a lawyer, and a low grade point average or a police record could keep me out of law school.)"

Experience Counts

One of the best life skills of all is experience. When it comes to drugs, nothing will help you say no like seeing a friend bummed out on drugs.

A study led by Lloyd Johnston, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, shows marijuana use falling among high school and college students. Dr. Johnston says that's because so many students have seen someone close having a bad reaction to pot.

On the other hand, LSD use is on the rise. Maybe that's because there are so few students around who remember the frightening effects of the hallucinogenic drug. Young people stopped taking LSD 20 years ago after friends had flashbacks in which 8-foot insects chased them or they became so confused or panicky they jumped from windows to their death.

Experience is especially powerful when it helps you understand your own body and emotions. Then you can say no to drugs, and have it be more than just a slogan or a little kid's automatic response. It will be, instead, a statement of who you are and who you want to become.