Why do kids use drugs and alcohol? The reflexive answer from many adults is peer pressure, but according to a forum last week that included a panel of Marin teens and a local author who wrote about his family’s struggles with addiction, stress and mental illness are more likely to create a drinking habit or spur an ecstasy trip.
Youth substance use in Marin is higher than the state average, according to county figures; in response, a number of communities have organized coalitions to examine the problem on their home turfs.
The purpose of the local coalition, the West Marin Coalition for Healthy Kids, isn’t to demonize drug use per se, said organizer Heather Richardson, a San Geronimo Valley mother of two, but to investigate “our mores around drug and alcohol use as it pertains to underage kids.”
The coalition—which is funded by a three-year, $150,000 county grant—presented both data and personal experiences last week at its first two forums since formed last year.
Over 35 percent of 11th graders within the Tamalpais Union High School District, which includes three high schools and two alternative programs, tried alcohol by the time they were 14, according to the county’s department of Health and Human Services. Roughly the same percentage reported binge drinking within the last 30 days. About a quarter of 11th graders had smoked weed more than three times in the past month, and over 80 percent of juniors said it was easy to obtain either substance.
Though the percentage of teens around the county drinking alcohol or binging fell between 2009 and 2013, numbers at Tamalpais Union, which serves many in West Marin, are not decreasing, said Kristen Law, the prevention coordinator for the department.
“We need to move the needle on this,” she said last week at the coalition’s San Geronimo Valley Community Center forum. (Tomales High School, the only high school in West Marin, began participating in the substance survey last year.)
According to David Sheff, a journalist and author who raised his children in Inverness and wrote a New York Times best-selling book about his struggle to cope with his son’s addiction to meth, misperceptions abound regarding the root cause of youth substance abuse. Mr. Sheff moved his family to Inverness with the idea of raising a child in “blissful nature,” far from what he perceived as urban temptations. But he found marijuana in his son Nic’s backpack when the boy was just 12 years old.
Later on, after a gamut of treatments, Nic was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression, and the family realized that the drug use was an attempt to self-medicate. “The biggest problem…is not about drugs as much as why they’re using them,” Mr. Sheff told the crowd last Wednesday.
In national surveys, teens assert that stress is the primary factor in their substance abuse, Mr. Sheff said. “In a way, when we understand that, we move forward on a problem that seems possible to solve,” he added—at least as far as kids are taught how best to cope with, or mitigate, stress.
Three Drake High juniors on the youth panel agreed that overt peer pressure wasn’t really to blame; instead, they fingered both stress and subtle encouragement, such as when everyone else at a party is sipping beers or smoking weed. “I’ve been in situations where someone said ‘no’ to a substance, and it’s totally fine… But it just kind of becomes a norm,” said Alissa Winkler.
But the normalization doesn’t just come from peers. A fourth panelist who graduated a few years ago chimed in that when teens and preteens see parents who routinely smoke weed or drink, it’s difficult to understand just why it’s so dangerous.
It’s also not just alcohol and marijuana, one panelist said. It’s also ecstasy (also called Molly), cocaine, oxycodone, Adderall and other prescription drugs.
A peer counseling group at Drake offers a safe place for teens to talk about their struggles with substances. Sober gatherings, such as an art-making night that one panelist attends, can also provide a respite from the party scene.
Junior Zoe Joslin, who said she has struggled with depression, added that perhaps earlier discussions about mental illnesses—even as early as elementary school—might assist students who struggle with them.
Still, junior Kora Burchard, another panelist, wasn’t sure how some key sources of anxiety, like schoolwork, could be fully addressed. Last semester she was “crushed” with seven hours of homework a day and slept just six hours a night. “I don’t know how that could be changed,” she said.
After the forum, the coalition solicited suggestions for its future work. Many people suggested more forums, said coalition coordinator Suzanne Sadowsky, who works at the community center. Others requested specific events geared toward families with school-age children and book or movie discussion groups. “A lot of parents want to talk to other parents,” Ms. Sadowsky said this week. “The idea is to keep the conversation going and to share more information, as we get it, about what is happening in our community.”
To learn more about the West Marin Coalition for Healthy Kids, call Suzanne Sadowsky at (415) 488.8888.