Maine kids and alcohol Schools arm children with arsenal of 'life skills' Wounded adolescents find Focus Program extends hand to hardened youth Alcohol-related deaths in 1995 Mark Gibbons, a Portland undercover officer, calls police headquarters as he checks the validity of a suspicious Florida driver's license. Gibbons' partner, Dean Goodine, interviews the woman supplying the ID outside the Asylum nightclub. The mother who bought her daughter booze in exchange for the daughter getting her pot. The parents who looked away again and again as their daughter drank, stole, skipped school, slipped away. The ones who finally, painfully, threw out a son, hoping to save him.
Parents play a crucial and complex role in the lives of young people with alcohol problems.
Some responses help, and some hinder, says Margaret Jones, director of prevention services for Day One. Many parents have joined a variety of community-based efforts. They have organized drug-free dances and coffeehouses, hosted roundtable discussions, helped formulate school alcohol policies, established networks of ''safe houses'' in which they guarantee kids will not drink. All community efforts, experts say, help solve what is a community problem. Some parents, terrified by the specter of drunken driving, have told their children they can drink if they stay home.