FORT ANN — Sitting at a table with three other recovering addicts, Jake Nestor looked at the Fort Ann Central School students sitting in the bleachers in front of him and asked how old they were. He got various answers — 12, 13 and 14 — and he looked at them very seriously. “When I was 14, I was addicted to prescription pain relievers, and at 15, I was already using heroin,” he said during a workshop session Wednesday. “I had started out by smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol, that’s when my life started going downhill.” At 23, Nestor, who is from Hudson Falls, is sober and in the best shape of his life, working out and enjoying his new life much more than the old one. Nestor was sitting at the table with Alyssa Kelly, Nigel Reeks and Patty Neddo, all recovering addicts who each had a message for the Fort Ann students, a message counselor Ashley LaVine is convinced they were listening to. “This is the second year we have done our ‘Destructive Decisions’ workshops,” she said. “The kids really respect it coming from recovering addicts.” Principal Nanette Blanchard also believes that inviting the Washington County Youth Bureau and Alternative Sentencing to talk to all 250 students in the junior-senior high is an important use of time. “It can have an impact on their lives,” she said. Michael Gray, director of the two programs, said visits like this indeed do have an impact. “We’re raising awareness with students on risky situations. They are still at that phase of their lives where we can get through,” he said, noting the program with a collaboration of the Youth Bureau, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the County District Attorney. The program had three stations — a Jeopardy-style game run by Sue Mowry of Gray’s office, the testimonies from the addicts and a session with sheriff’s Officer Bobby Sullivan, who lost a brother to drunken driving. Sullivan talked to the students about how officers determine someone might be driving drunk. “They do everything they can to avoid looking at you, and it’s hard for them to do several things at once. That’s why we ask for the license, registration and insurance card all at once,” he said. “That’s the reason we sometimes ask them to do the alphabet backwards, but sometimes I can’t do it all backwards, so we have them do it from M to Z.” Sullivan also put the students through their paces with prism goggles that simulate being drunk. “This is like going from being sober to being very drunk,” he said, then tried to get them to walk a straight line or “slap him five.” The students all failed pretty miserably. It was the panel of recovering addicts that really caught their attention. “I think it’s really helpful,” said student Nathan Brown. “It’s important to see people recovering from drugs. It’s pretty mind-boggling.” Classmate Alexis Taylor sees a lesson in it. “This way we can see this, so we don’t have to go through it.” Reeks said he remembered someone coming to speak to his class when he was in middle school. “I wish I had listened to him,” he said. Instead, Reeks, who started by sneaking sips from his father’s beer went down a rough road. “I didn’t like the taste of it, but it wouldn’t have been cool to not drink it, because my father liked it,” he said. “I got to the point where I was drinking a six-pack, then two six-pack, and finally I would send my girlfriend out to get me a 30-pack. That’s crazy. It just went bad. It was really bad.” Neddo, who is older than the other three panelists, said she knew she needed to stop drinking, “because I didn’t want my grandchildren to have to come to jail to see me.” She warned the students against even starting. “That sip can lead to another and another,” she said. “When it does get you, it will get you hard, and it will kill you or kill someone else.” Nestor said that while the session may help the students, it also helps him. “It’s nice not to be doing things you are sorry for and to be able to give back,” he said, “It’s nice to share our experiences and hope it helps them.
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FORT ANN — Sitting at a table with three other recovering addicts, Jake Nestor looked at the Fort Ann Central School students sitting in the bleachers in front of him and asked how old they were.
He got various answers — 12, 13 and 14 — and he looked at them very seriously.
“When I was 14, I was addicted to prescription pain relievers, and at 15, I was already using heroin,” he said during a workshop session Wednesday. “I had started out by smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol, that’s when my life started going downhill.”
At 23, Nestor, who is from Hudson Falls, is sober and in the best shape of his life, working out and enjoying his new life much more than the old one.
Nestor was sitting at the table with Alyssa Kelly, Nigel Reeks and Patty Neddo, all recovering addicts who each had a message for the Fort Ann students, a message counselor Ashley LaVine is convinced they were listening to.
“This is the second year we have done our ‘Destructive Decisions’ workshops,” she said. “The kids really respect it coming from recovering addicts.”
Principal Nanette Blanchard also believes that inviting the Washington County Youth Bureau and Alternative Sentencing to talk to all 250 students in the junior-senior high is an important use of time.
“It can have an impact on their lives,” she said.
Michael Gray, director of the two programs, said visits like this indeed do have an impact.
“We’re raising awareness with students on risky situations. They are still at that phase of their lives where we can get through,” he said, noting the program with a collaboration of the Youth Bureau, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the County District Attorney.
The program had three stations — a Jeopardy-style game run by Sue Mowry of Gray’s office, the testimonies from the addicts and a session with sheriff’s Officer Bobby Sullivan, who lost a brother to drunken driving.
Sullivan talked to the students about how officers determine someone might be driving drunk.
“They do everything they can to avoid looking at you, and it’s hard for them to do several things at once. That’s why we ask for the license, registration and insurance card all at once,” he said. “That’s the reason we sometimes ask them to do the alphabet backwards, but sometimes I can’t do it all backwards, so we have them do it from M to Z.”
Sullivan also put the students through their paces with prism goggles that simulate being drunk. “This is like going from being sober to being very drunk,” he said, then tried to get them to walk a straight line or “slap him five.” The students all failed pretty miserably.
It was the panel of recovering addicts that really caught their attention.
“I think it’s really helpful,” said student Nathan Brown. “It’s important to see people recovering from drugs. It’s pretty mind-boggling.”
Classmate Alexis Taylor sees a lesson in it. “This way we can see this, so we don’t have to go through it.”
Reeks said he remembered someone coming to speak to his class when he was in middle school. “I wish I had listened to him,” he said.
Instead, Reeks, who started by sneaking sips from his father’s beer went down a rough road.
“I didn’t like the taste of it, but it wouldn’t have been cool to not drink it, because my father liked it,” he said. “I got to the point where I was drinking a six-pack, then two six-pack, and finally I would send my girlfriend out to get me a 30-pack. That’s crazy. It just went bad. It was really bad.”
Neddo, who is older than the other three panelists, said she knew she needed to stop drinking, “because I didn’t want my grandchildren to have to come to jail to see me.”
She warned the students against even starting.
“That sip can lead to another and another,” she said. “When it does get you, it will get you hard, and it will kill you or kill someone else.”
Nestor said that while the session may help the students, it also helps him.
“It’s nice not to be doing things you are sorry for and to be able to give back,” he said, “It’s nice to share our experiences and hope it helps them.
You can read Bill Toscano’s blog at poststar.com/blogs or his updates on Twitter, @billtoscano_ps.</&box_em>
You can read Bill Toscano’s blog at poststar.com/blogs or his updates on Twitter, @billtoscano_ps.
Bill Toscano
reporter
