Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 12, 1990 TAG: 9003122809
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By the time Woods was in junior high school, marijuana no longer gave her a sufficient high. She moved on to acid, PCP, pill-popping.
By the time Woods was a sophomore at Cave Spring High School, drugs consumed her life.
She was stealing money from her parents to support her habit. Her violent behavior, the result of her drug addiction, terrified her teachers. Even the deaths of several drug-involved friends - one "blew his head off" with a .357 Magnum - weren't enough to make her quit.
"If I had not stopped, I would be dead with a needle in my arm," Woods told teens who crowded the community room Saturday at the Roanoke County Administration Building for the third annual REACH America workshop.
It took an arrest for drug possession to steer her life back on track. Through drug treatment, Woods - now a 19-year-old student at Virginia Western Community College working toward a degree in substance-abuse counseling - has been clean for 3 1/2 years.
"Don't give in to it," Woods said. "Continue to say no. Continue to say, `Get out of my face with that stuff.' "
Woods' story brought her young audience, moved by her personal account, to its feet.
REACH, which stands for Responsible Educated Adolescents Can Help, teaches young people about the health hazards of using alcohol and other drugs, in the hopes of motivating them to make a positive difference in their own communities.
Over the weekend, 218 teens, mostly from Southwest Virginia, gathered for a two-day workshop designed, as one teacher/sponsor put it, "to keep clean kids clean."
"We want to motivate these kids to be concerned enough about other people that they'll spread the message and not keep it to themselves," said Joe Stephens, a REACH trainer.
"We give them ways to do that that will be unique, fun and energizing. Kids need to see alternatives."
Stephens kept the atmosphere lively with humor, games and occasional physical activity.
His tactics worked. By noon Saturday, he had the kids - who had sacrificed an unseasonably warm, sunny day - singing their own rendition of an old James Brown tune, "I Feel Good."
The workshop was sponsored by the Virginia State Police Association, the Insurance Women's Association of the Roanoke Valley and the Transportation Safety Division of the Department of Motor Vehicles.
by CNB