Alcoholics Anonymous Reviews

High school strives to keep students safe and sober

It’s the week before February vacation at North Shore Recovery High School and the students are strategizing about what to do with their days off.

One student proposes a laser tag outing. Another, paintball. A third suggests Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and reminds everyone to call a friend if they’re in a tough spot.

Such conversations are common at Recovery High, the first high school in the state for students recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. While their peers attend parties, often surrounded by alcohol and drugs, these students are focused on finding fun ways to stay sober.

“My first time going out with some of the kids here, we went from house to house, but it was a whole different party. I can actually remember what happened,” said Keaton Heckman, 17, of Peabody, who used to get high on marijuana, cocaine, Ecstasy and Klonopin, an anti-anxiety drug.

Located in the basement of the former Memorial Middle School in Beverly, Recovery High is a public high school run by the North Shore Education Consortium. It offers 25 students from across the North Shore the academic courses they would find at a regular high school, plus programs designed to help with their recovery.

They all come with stories — about stealing a car while drunk, spending the night in the tube slide of a jungle gym because they had nowhere else to go, or waking up from a heroin overdose after being pronounced clinically dead. Despite their pasts, they look and act just like normal high school students, dressed in trendy clothes and lugging math books.

“That’s because we are normal,” said one student. “It’s everyone else that’s using.”

As part of their recovery, students are encouraged to take part in wholesome, child-like activities. Watercolor paintings decorate the halls, and a chart hangs outside the main office with silver stars next to their names. But the stars are for attendance at AA meetings, and the content of the drawings is often dark. One shows a fisherman aboard the S.S. Recovery pulling someone out of the water.

“There’s definitely a little bit of lost childhood,” said student adjustment counselor Jim Howland. “The challenge is that a lot of kids have jumped on into adult problems.”

Recovery High was designed for opiate abusers, but it also serves students overcoming addictions to cocaine, crystal meth, prescription drugs and marijuana. To be admitted, students must be sober for 30 days. They must also agree not to associate with known drug users and to tell a staff person within 24 hours if they’ve relapsed.

Twice a month, they are escorted to the bathroom for random drug tests. If their urine sample comes back positive, they follow their Recovery Plan — a personalized regimen they draft at the beginning of the program that states what they need to do to get sober. A Recovery Plan can include anything from attending AA meetings to counseling and art therapy.

“It’s not punitive,” said Principal Michelle Lipinski of the drug testing policy. “We understand there will be relapse issues. We’d rather address those while they’re happening than afterward.”

Since the school opened in August, four students have left and been admitted to drug treatment programs. Only two have been asked to leave, not for relapse issues but because they weren’t enthusiastic about the program.

“You have to realize you have a problem and empower yourself over drugs and alcohol, and that’s a scary thing for a 15-year-old,” said Lipinski. “It has to be the student’s choice. They have to commit.”

‘Finally a light’

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