Alcoholics Anonymous Reviews

A year ago, an emotional debate raged in the Ulster County Legislature over whether a planned “Social Host” law should include a mandatory ‘education component’. Critics argued the law, mandating sanctions and fines against parents who host parties at which alcohol is available to teens, should be adopted as is, without complicating it with issues that could, in the view of some, even provide grounds for appeals.

The law was adopted on a 29-2 vote of the county legislature, without the ‘education component’.

That didn’t stop the lead voice for the ‘education component’, Marie Shultis, a parent, who lost a brother 20 years ago, in a drunk driving accident.

Shultis, and some Onteora High School teens, have organized two programs. One is the Awareness Mentoring program, intended as an outreach to younger children.

The other is the Awareness Alcohol Program, in its second year, and born out of the 2007 Prom Night death of Howard Dean-Lipson, 19, a passenger in a vehicle driven by Zephyr Dresser-Peck, currently in prison.

Dresser-Peck is a “Coordinator” for the Alcohol Awareness Program. A year ago, Dean-Lipson’s parents voiced outrage that the person responsible for their son’s death was part of an outreach. Shultis said, at the time, that Dresser-Peck is not being used as a “role model”, but as an example of how bad decisions can lead to tragic consequences.

Shultis concedes not everyone in law enforcement has signed on to what she is doing, but she does have one key group in her corner: some local magistrates, who hand down the sentences.

“Anybody we can reach makes it worth it,” said Town of Marbletown Justice Claudia Davenport. “It is something that I’ve started sentencing people because I believe in the program and I think that it works.”

During a presentation last week to several magistrates, Shultis recounted how the programs evolved out of an underage drinking party, at her home, in August 2006.

“The night of the party, we instructed the troopers to block the driveway and call each parent to pick their children up. Many were not happy, one to the point of pulling his ID in the trooper’s face and telling him was an attorney, and he knew the laws, and ‘you can’t do this to these kids’. This led me to reach out to the teens and ask them to help break the underage drinking cycle. That’s when the mentoring program was developed.”

The Awareness Mentoring program is in its third year and now has 12 of the teens who started in the program as 7th grade students as trained 9th grade Mentors this year. That is the same number of 7th graders which means they all became Mentors.

“Teens see a need for this”, said Shultis.

The Alcohol Program came a year later.

“We have a working model that has already proven it gets through to teens”, notes Shultis.

Part of that is a video, produced by the teens, who in one part, role play. The other segment is an interview with Dresser-Peck:

That’s what got through to Laura Shulte, now a student at Ulster County Community College. Schulte was arrested twice, on alcohol-related offences. After the second offence, she was ordered to the Alcohol Awareness Program. That, she said, is when the denial finally stopped.

“You know, you don’t realize how much it affects you. To see his interview … to see Zephyr’s interview … is just beyond me, because it makes everything real; to see the actual person who is in jail because he killed his own friend.”

Shultis said the success of this program will rely on law enforcement writing tickets for underage substance use, as well as the Social Host Law so that the teens can get sentenced by the Judge to attend the program.

It will be funded by the participants allowing for them to receive and education from Christopher Dennehy, OASAS certified, and the Awareness Alcohol Program Clinical Supervisor.

They are requesting that Dresser-Peck be allowed to attend the monthly program sessions, in the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center, to share his story.

“They will be educated in a proactive way to help to save lives”, said Shultis.

Mid-Hudson News Network