Adolescent Substance Use and Abuse

The narratives of Finn and Mears Green, when juxtaposed with that of Jessica Couch, give voices to the statistics and realities of alcohol addiction.Readers can find the academic research in the full, online version of Finn's Gaines Thesis, which I helped advise.In this condensation, we have distilled from the formal research one voice of despair as it evolved into hope.My wife and I went with Finn to Kids Helping Kids one Friday evening and heard other voices, not just those of the young, but -as you read here -the voices of the families trying to regain contact through the chill vapor of addiction.Having worked for ten years with alcoholics seeking recovery, I know the power of the disease and the fragility of recovery.There are other models for recovery, some without the spiritual basis of Alcoholics Anonymous, some existing on Jessica's individual "very small ledge" without the community you see in Finn's narrative of Mears.Some researchers, perhaps correctly, question the disease concept of addiction; one alcoholic I know, however, drank all the way through her chemotherapy, later saying that alcoholism ran deeper in her than did cancer.Finn's research and narrative end on a note of hope, but this hope does not imply a promise.I can only wish all of them well, one day at a time.