The "Stop Youth Drinking, Start Thinking Coalition Project" has a message that is sobering.

The project coalition has partnered with Southwest Youth and Family Services to offer free workshops with strategies for teens to connect with parents, not alcohol or drugs.

Madison School was chosen for the survey, and it qualified for the grant because 23 percent of its eighth graders surveyed acknowledged drinking alcohol. It takes just 18 percent to qualify.

One of the workshops is geared toward parents with kids attending West Seattle and Chief Sealth high schools, plus Denny Middle School. The first of five sessions began last month at the West Seattle Christian Church, and are run by Eugene Shen and Nani Fatuesi of South West Youth and Family Services. While just a half dozen showed at the first session, the talk was tough among attending mothers of teens.

To get the ball rolling, Shen and Fatuesi instructed the parents, armed with the textbook "Staying Connected With Your Teen," to partner up and write down one thing they wanted to learn from the workshop. Their lessons will offer constructive strategies to hedge the risk of drug and alcohol abuse by their teens, as well as develop communication strategies.

The book states "During the elementary years, children may say, 'Smoking is gross. People who take drugs are stupid...In middle school they see peers participate in these behaviors and their attitudes shift toward greater acceptance...Your teen is increasingly capable of, and questioning the values and rules...Have an open and honest discussion about potential consequences of these behaviors and maintain clear standards...more effective than scare tactics." It goes on to suggest that parents provide sports and recreational outlets for their thrill-seeking teens.

One chapter explores teens' "bothersome behaviors" and parents' reactions to them. For instance, when your teen argues about trivial issues, he or she is exercising intellectual development, and your current reaction may be "getting sucked into unending arguments."

Another example is that, when a teenaged son or daughter does not want to be seen with us in public, they are exercising social and identity development. However, you may accuse your teen of "being ashamed of you." An anger thermometer graphic appears in another chapter, and ranges from "Everything OK to "Out of Control" and is further divided into "mental" and "physical" signals.

Even before the book was opened, the paired-up parents started venting instead of writing. They asked to remain anonymous due to the personal nature of the frank, candid discussions. Their names are, therefore, changed.

Sue, with her two-year old son in-tow, is also the mother of a 6th-grader at Madison School, a14 year-old at Pathfinder School, and a 15 year-old sophomore at West Seattle High School. She said that marijuana and alcohol use at West Seattle High School is "the norm," and that kids here started experimenting with it by 7th grade.

With hands already full, she does not want to lose touch with her teens, nor for them to lose control of their scholastic responsibilities. Her 15 year-old had a "bout with marijuana" for a few months, she said, and her attitude and grades shot down as a result. Sue and her husband were very direct, and intervened. They now believe their daughter is over her curiosity with drugs.

"Students go out and get high at lunch, then come back and laugh and goof around in class. They say they feel great," said Sue with eyebrows raised.

"My daughter told me she saw students making screwdrivers in the lunchroom." She meant the kind with vodka, not the kind in shop class.

Barb's14-year old daughter, a freshman, told her the kids can get sneaky with the sauce.

"They hide alcohol in 'normal' containers like water bottles, and emptied hairspray containers," said Barb. "My daughter was hanging out with friends in Lincoln Park, drinking. She blacked out. Luckily, a friend there phoned her sister for help. We have alcohol abuse in our family line, and have to be careful. My kids are beyond the age where we always know where they are. I worry they are in the car of a drinking driver."

Sue said her daughter recently attended a party for a 17-year-old friend whose parents bought alcohol for them. Within an hour her daughter observed that a lot of kids were drunk and hanging onto each other.

"My daughter said she didn't drink, mainly because her younger sibs were there and she knew they'd tell me. I say sometimes they need to get caught."

Anne brought up some specific gathering spots where students smoke marijuana before and after school. One place is a space between the high school and Safeway, another by the PCC market, and also on a set of stairs on Southwest Hinds Street, between 46th and 47th Avenues.

"Just take a whiff at 7:30 in the morning."

Renae Gaines is the Madison Middle School guru for the "Stop Youth Drinking, Start Thinking Coalition Project." She is the community coordinator, Madison SPF-SIC, or "Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant." Armed with an extensive background in alcohol and drug treatment in the public sector, Gaines now applies her passion to preventing youth from stumbling into addiction while they are still kids. Problem is, she said, nobody's listening. She explained, "Word is not getting out that kids are abusing alcohol here in West Seattle. Parents are in denial. When our kids are very young, we check inside their backpacks and keep an eye out on them all the time. When they become teens, parents start backing off. We need to still be there. Alcohol is so accessible and acceptable. We are a family here in West Seattle. I'm not talking about Prohibition. I'm talking about the kids. What is needed is to change our attitude toward teen drinking. We all need to be at the table."