Your school is a good place to start when you want to help your friend. You can talk with a teacher or coach that you trust. You can also tell a school counselor that you are worried about a friend. The law requires the counselor to keep your conversation confidential. That means it will not be reported to anyone else. The counselor's job is to help people. Many schools also have a counselor who is specially trained to help students who are using drugs or alcohol. This counselor can also help you to understand a friend's substance abuse problem and to help you stay away from using illegal substances.

There are also treatment programs and community organizations that can help. Look for them in the yellow pages of your phone book under Alcoholism, Drug Abuse, and Counselors. Look for Alateen in the white pages of your phone book. Alateen has local support groups for teens who are close to someone who uses alcohol or drugs. People who go to Alateen meetings talk about their experiences with their user friends. At the meetings, you can also learn how not to be an enabler. You may also want to join SADD. This organization's name is Students Against Destructive Decisions. It is a group of students and concerned adults who want to end death and injury because of drinking and driving, underage drinking, and drug abuse among young people.

There are other organizations that will help your friend when he or she is ready to stop using drugs or alcohol. Two of them are Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. There is a list of these organizations and hotlines at the back of this book.