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11/25/2009 11:00 PM

The Improbable Players brings its anti-drug, anti-alcohol message to Old Saybrook High School


The message of the play the Improbable Players brought to Old Saybrook High School last week was to urge students to avoid the downward spiral of drug and alcohol abuse because it could ruin their lives. And the four actors onstage should know: each one announced before the play began that they were alcoholics or drug addicts in recovery and that the play touched on aspects of their own personal stories.

The play told the story of four friends-two of the friends begin to sample alcohol and then drugs and their usage increases until they become increasingly disconnected from their lives. Finally, they even lose the friendship of their two sober friends who, while still concerned about them, can no longer witness their friends' increasingly destructive

behaviors.

Said the sober, goal-oriented fellow student to her girlfriend, "I'm still your friend, but I'm

going to let you go for a while. I'm tired of picking you up off the floor. I'm tired of being your

rescuer."

The play included a litany of excuses that the two alcohol and drug abusers used to convince themselves that their addictive behaviors were not that bad and were somehow justified-and therefore excusable: "My parents are always on my case," "I'm different than everybody else," "It's just beer," and "I'm absolutely fine."

But it was when the play

ended-and the actors encouraged the students to ask them personal questions-that the four actors' own stories of lives unraveled by addictions riveted the high school audience.

One actor who introduced

himself as Brian said that he had started drinking and doing drugs at 12 and had seen people die and lost friends as a result of drug

addictions. He said he'd been clean now for six years.

An actor named Chris said she had her first drink at 12 at a girls' sleepover party and soon became an alcoholic. She got control of her addiction while in college and said she's now been sober for 12 years. The other two told similar stories.

When Brian was asked is he's ever tempted to go back to drugs and alcohol his answer was,"Often. "But if I use, everything I have goes away," he said, speaking of his happiness with a current life that includes a job, doing music, exercise, and being an

Improbable Player.

But it was the actor Mark's

answer to a student question of what was the hardest thing about quitting that helped crystallize why quitting can be so hard for drug addicts and alcoholics.

"The hardest thing was losing my friends when I quit. I had nothing in common with them anymore and couldn't be with them because of the temptations," he said. "It was my biggest obstacle at first: Who do I hang out with now? Where do I go?"

Brian said that once he decided to quit, what helped him most was to attend lots of meetings with other addicts and alcoholics also struggling to stay in recovery.

When the assembly ended, the REACH Team that sponsored the Improbable Players visit and REACH Team Coordinator Jane Moen spoke to students of their planned efforts this year to stem and prevent alcohol and drug abuse by students.

Following the assembly, small groups of juniors met to discuss their reactions to the presentation with a facilitator helping to guide the discussion.