Parents need to set standards - and also are expected to live up to them

The Daily Inter Lake

Speakers at Tuesday's town-hall meeting on underage drinking highlighted parents as the key to prevention.

Barney Stucker of the Flathead Valley Chemical Dependency Clinic said parents have the right and duty to set clear, consistent boundaries. He urged them not to assume their children don't drink.

"Part of our responsibility as parents is not to be friends, but to ask the hard questions," he said.

Stucker said those hard questions convey the message that "I care about you and I want you to be safe" to children who may be looking for help.

He said that parents also need to adhere to standards of healthy living. Stucker pointed out that 19 percent of adults also indulge in binge drinking.

He asked the community to support compliance checks at liquor sales locations, legislation which discourages youth drinking and law enforcement efforts to find and halt youth drinking parties.

"Wherever we have underage drinking, we have an adult who messed up," Stucker said.

Participants in the meeting received a list of local agencies and organizations that help teenagers and adults to resist alcohol and drugs and recover from addictions.

Those include:

. AWARE - 755-9471

. Mental Health Crisis Line - 752-6262

. Pathways Treatment Center - 756-3950

. Stillwater Therapeutic Services - 752-6100

. Two Rivers Counseling - 756-0887

. AA Hotline - 257-7185

. Flathead Care - 751-3710

. Flathead Valley Chemical Dependency - 756-6453

. Teens in Crisis - 752-3703