Fighting Substance Abuse, One Community at a Time

Though the honorees at the gala of the National Center on Addiction and SubstanceAbuse at Columbia University were from out of town, their presence at the event Thursday at the Pierre Hotel wasn’t remarkable: The president of the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney, and the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue, who both work in Washington, D.C., and the chief executive of Aetna, Ronald Williams, based in Hartford, Conn., all do business in New York routinely. Mr. Williams even got some business done at the gala, announcing Aetna will now reimburse primary care physicians for conducting consultations with patients to identify and treat alcohol and drug problems.The guest of honor, however, was out of her element. To attend the gala, 19-year-old Cassandra Larson of Burwell, Neb., (population 1,200) took her first airplane ride, and made her first trip to New York City.Ms. Larson came as an example of the success of the center’s CASASTART program, designed to keep high-risk children free of drug and crime involvement. The program is deployed in more than 140 communities throughout the country, including Burwell, a town that has nine churches and a whistle that blows several times a day to signal lunch, dinner, and curfew.In her sophomore year of high school, Ms. Larson walked out of her house in the middle of the night to escape the trauma of her mother’s alcoholism and her stepfather’s abuse, and she never went back. That night, she called her gym teacher, Marcie Smith, who, along with her husband, Terry, agreed to temporarily take her in. Ms. Smith then called the president of the local Children’s Council, Trisha Crandall, who brought Ms. Larson into the CASASTART program (the center is known as “Casa”; “Start” is an acronym for “Striving Together to Achieve Rewarding Tomorrows”).At the gala, Ms. Larson sat with Ms. Crandall and the Smiths as a video telling her story played; watching it, she fought back tears.The intensive support the program offered helped the Smiths decide to make Ms. Larson a permanent part of their family, which includes two young boys. With a new home, Ms. Larson shook off despair.“I used to think there was no other way to live. It took a while to get past that,” Ms. Larson told me.While her mother’s alcoholism puts her at high risk for abuse, Ms. Larson has stayed clear of illegal substances. Her social life in high school was isolated; she refused to go out to parties where she knew her friends would be drinking alcohol.Yet she thrived and grew close to the Smiths. “They became the parents I always dreamed of,” she said. When her boyfriend, a welder, proposed, Ms. Larson asked Mr. Smith to act like her father and walk her down the aisle. The wedding is scheduled for the fall of 2009.After graduating Burwell High School, Ms. Larson moved to Grand Island, Neb., (population 43,000) to attend Joseph’s College of Beauty and Barbering. She will graduate next year, though she is considering further education in cosmetology. Eventually, she would like to open her own salon.Told a haircut in New York can cost as much as $200, Ms. Larson noted the cost of a haircut at her school: $6.50.Ms. Larson did her own hair for the gala, a cute yet sophisticated natural wave, which she got to show off onstage with the event’s emcee, CBS “Early Show” anchor Maggie Rodriguez.The president of Casa, Joseph Califano, ended the event by asking parents to go to the Web site — www.casacolumbia.org — to contribute their stories about addressing drug and alcohol use with their children for a new book Casa is publishing, “Parent Power.” The event raised $2 million.agordon@nysun.com

Fighting Substance Abuse, One Community at a Time

Fighting Substance Abuse, One Community at a Time

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