By:Scott Brinton
Maria sipped her first glass of liquor on a summer cruise in Bermuda in 2002. She was about to enter ninth grade at Oceanside High School. Her mother, Fran, was engaged to marry for the second time. She brought Maria on the vacation to connect better with her then fiance and his 19-year-old daughter.
Unknown to Fran, her stepdaughter-to-be offered the alcohol. She asked Maria if she wanted a taste from her glass. Then she bought Maria a drink of her own.
When Maria got home, she started drinking wine coolers with friends in her room. She hid the bottles under her bed.
Six months later, on New Year's Eve, Maria drank nearly an entire bottle of vanilla vodka at a friend's house. She blacked out soon afterward, and wound up in South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside, suffering from life-threatening alcohol poisoning.
She awoke the next morning in a hospital bed, screaming. "I was flipping out. I ripped my IV out. I didn't know where I was," Maria said. She was scared.
She survived, though.
A year and a half later, Fran has broken off her engagement. Maria, now 16, is in counseling at Tempo Group, a South Shore substance-abuse clinic. She continues to drink, however. The night before she was interviewed for this article recently, she got drunk with friends.
"Right now, I'm just having fun," Maria said as she sat in Tempo's North Merrick office, dressed in a yellow-and-purple basketball jersey and black shorts.
Fran worries that her daughter is on the verge of becoming an alcoholic. Alcoholism, which is a chronic and progressive -- though treatable -- disease, is said to be hereditary. Maria's father is a recovering alcoholic, and her grandfather, a great-uncle and other relatives were alcoholics.
Her great-uncle nearly drank himself to death, and lost his job, home and family before he sobered up, only to die of liver cancer. Fran, though not an alcoholic, calls herself a social drinker; she has a glass of wine daily when she gets home from work as a teacher.
Despite all this, Maria believes that she can control her drinking and that she won't wind up like her father, grandfather or great-uncle. "I don't [drink] every night," she said. "I don't have to do it every night."
Indeed, alcohol flows through many corners of Maria's family. It stole much of her childhood. As a girl, she witnessed numerous liquor-fueled fights between her mother and father. In many ways, alcohol led to her parents' separation in 1992 and their divorce in 1998.
Maria may only be a teenager, but her penetrating, crystalline eyes reveal a deep sadness. Her story is similar to that of many American teenagers and their families. Alcohol finds a way in, and when it penetrates and assumes control, it ravages the bonds among husbands and wives, parents and children.
In 2002, more than 18 million Americans were diagnosed as alcoholics, and alcohol misuse cost the nation roughly $185 billion that year, according to the most recent statistics from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The American Society of Addiction Medicine defines alcoholism as the inability to stop drinking, despite dire consequences, perhaps even the risk of death. Alcoholics must seek help to recover.
Alcoholics often spiral out of control, bringing others down with them. Substance-abuse experts say that one alcoholic affects the lives of at least four other people, most often close relatives and friends. That means as many as 80 million Americans or more -- a little less than a third of the population -- are touched in one way or another by alcoholism.
The earlier people start drinking, the more likely they are to develop alcoholism, said Dr. Ting-Kai Li, the health and human services director, in a recent report to Congress. Alcoholism most often starts by age 18 and grabs hold by 25, he said.
Barry Wilansky, Tempo Group's executive director, said it's important to understand that alcohol is not a beverage, as is the common societal belief. It is a potentially addictive drug. Certain people can manage it. Others who are genetically predisposed to alcoholism cannot, and they should never drink.
Wilansky said that any drug carries risks. Alcoholism is one risk of drinking, and people have to be aware of that. "If you have a way of life of understanding alcohol, you're less at risk," he said.
Wilansky doesn't preach abstinence for all adults as a means of solving the nation's alcohol abuse problems. But he's firmly against underage drinking. He also noted that beer and liquor companies portray alcohol use as sexy and fun. They never show its terrible side.
What Family Court sees
Nassau County Family Court Judge Richard Lawrence, of Merrick, sees alcohol and alcoholism play a part in many of the cases that he hears daily. "Sixty percent of all domestic-violence cases involve alcohol," he said.
Almost every child who is labeled a Person in Need of Supervision, or juvenile delinquent, abuses alcohol and other drugs, Lawrence said. Young people who are assigned PINS status receive intense court supervision. They're most often teenagers who are cutting classes, failing school and perhaps committing crimes like drug dealing, and cannot be helped by their parents or teachers.
The judge sees case after case in which alcohol has devastated a family. "Someone comes home drunk," he said. "They cannot control themselves because they're drunk, and they attack a family member."
Often, they end up in Family Court, a boxy gray building hidden behind tall trees on Old Country Road in Westbury, next to the county's Juvenile Detention Center. Lawrence noted that his cases emanate from every community in Nassau County and cross all socioeconomic lines.
Fran landed in Family Court in 1992, when she had her husband arrested after he beat her. She sat for hours, waiting for her case to be heard. Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence counselors are nearly always on hand when court is in session. A counselor spotted Fran sitting pensively. Her eye was swollen and black. The counselor wondered whether Fran's husband had hit her. Yes, she said.
From 1993 to 1998, Fran and Maria were in counseling with the Coalition Against Domestic Violence at what was then the Nassau County Medical Center, now Nassau University Medical Center, in East Meadow. "I didn't think I was an abused woman" until counseling, Fran said.
Joan Sculli, the coalition's director of education and community services, said alcohol isn't a root cause of domestic violence. Family members hurt other relatives to assert control in a household. And, Sculli said, "Through that control, they get services from the people around them. Everything revolves around the abuser."
Sculli noted, however, that alcohol and domestic violence often go hand in hand. Abusers, she said, may rationalize lashing out against those closest to them with their alcohol abuse.
"A lot closer than we were"
Fran met her husband when she was 16 and he was 19. She knew his father was an alcoholic when they married. She didn't think he, too, would abuse the drug. "I figured this wasn't something that he would do to himself," said Fran.
She also didn't believe that her daughter would take up alcohol. Maria had seen its effect on her father. She had been through counseling. "I thought I had done my job in educating her about the evils of alcohol," Fran said.
Maria apparently listens when her mother speaks. "She tells me, 'You don't want to end up like your father or dead,'" the teenager said.
Maria drinks, she said, because she wants to experience the party scene with friends. "I know the stuff that could happen. That doesn't mean I wouldn't try" alcohol, she said, a defiant tinge to her voice.
Maria has her good days and difficult days with her mother. Sometimes she gets so angry with her, and she isn't entirely sure why. "I just have some problems with her for the past that I haven't been able to connect with," she said quietly, looking down.
Slowly, with counseling, mother and daughter are learning to accept each other. "We've gone through a lot," Maria said. "We're a lot closer than we were."
Fran said of her daughter, "On a good day, I really like her." Then she smiled at Maria, who returned the gesture.
Maria has plans. She wants to go to college, study business and someday set up her own shop. She isn't sure what kind. Fran supports those dreams. Above all, though, she hopes alcohol doesn't kill her daughter. "I'd like her to find contentment and serenity and have a decent job so she can have a roof over her head, a decent car to drive," the mother said.
Then Fran added, "I don't project too much into the future."
Where to find help
¥Tempo Group, a South Shore substance abuse clinic with offices in North Merrick and Woodmere, can be reached at (516) 546-9008 or 374-3671.
¥The Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence is at (516) 542-0404.
¥You can also check out the New York state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services at www.oasas.state.ny.us.
A parent's mini-guide
to preventing drinking
By Scott Brinton
Barry Wilansky, executive director of Tempo Group, a South Shore substance-abuse clinic, said the best way to stop kids from drinking is to talk with them early and often. He says parents can talk with children as young as 4 about alcohol.
In a child's early years, the conversation should be basic. Parents might explain that the beer the child notices in the refrigerator is for adults only, not kids.
Later, when the child reaches, say, age 9, the conversation might turn to the effect that advertising has on people's perception of alcohol. Commercials always portray alcohol use as exciting and cool. There is also a tragic side that never gets shown on TV.
In middle and high school, parents might discuss peer pressure and ways to say no to drugs. Such a conversation should continue into adulthood, Wilansky said.
He also noted that parents must be models of responsible alcohol use. They shouldn't keep a glass of alcohol in hand throughout the day. They shouldn't return home after a hard day and reach for the liquor cabinet. That teaches kids that Mom and Dad need alcohol to cope with their problems, to take the edge off their troubles.
Wilansky said that young people, particularly teenagers, "have edges all day in school."
