My parents divorced when I was one. My father and mother fought over custody of my brother and me for years. Our parents loved us but they used us to get back at one another. We were their ammunition and they fired shots at each other constantly. Each tried to be the better parent by getting and doing what we wanted and rarely laid down rules or punished us when we were out of hand. If a problem arose it was always the other’s fault. Nobody every pointed the finger at my brother or me. I never had to face my problems because my parents looked at my behavior as an opportunity to argue and vent their issues instead of punishing the culprit, which was usually me. This set up became quite useful when I decided I didn’t like a teacher or when I wanted to live with Mom in order to avoid Dad, or vice-versa.

My teenage years were spent hopping from one Connecticut suburban town to another, occasionally going to a boarding school. My transient lifestyle had nothing to do with my parents’ jobs -- they weren’t in the army or anything like that. I was the one who couldn’t stay in one place for too long. And it wasn’t just the drugs I took. It was a mixture of things I did or didn’t do that would leave teachers and my parents feeling helpless. There was nothing they could do to stop me.

The first drug I used was pot. I was living with my mom at the time. My mom decided that it would be better parenting if she allowed my brother, Will, who is two years older to smoke me up for the first time. I remembered Will and I taking bong hits in my bedroom closet with his friend Nate, a boy I had a crush on. We clam baked the closet, insulating the room by shoving a towel between the cracks under the door.

I enjoyed the rest of the evening watching “Cheech and Chong” then driving in the car with Mom to get some doughnuts, which I stuffed in my face, only to regret it later. The cycle of pot smoking and overeating was a bad one and I was usually tempted to throw up after a binge. After months of tolerating this pattern, Mom started to change her mind when our “experimentation” went too far. All of a sudden, Mom was reading me the riot act. As soon as this happened I moved in with my dad.

My dad disapproved of all illegal substances but there were advantages to living with him. He was in denial about his responsibilities as a father and whenever confronted with a parental challenge, he looked the other way. He was also completely consumed by his work. This made it easy for me to do what I wanted. If my brother and I hadn’t gotten into fights, which were loud and sometimes turned physical, or run away to live with friends for “a little vacation,” I would have slipped by unnoticed, thanks to my father’s denial and my mother’s absence. I would have never gotten in trouble for anything.

Looking back, it was a miracle that they came together and agreed to ship me off to Peninsula Village in Knoxville, TN to undergo treatment. It was the first time in a while that Mom and Dad actually agreed on something, let alone came together to make something happen. My mom was the one who found the place after shopping around for the “best of the best” in boot camps and therapeutic facilities. She chose Peninsula Village because it was a little bit of therapy and a little bit of boot camp and had a very high success rate.

My dad was the one who paid all $100,000 for it. He was also the one who dropped me off with the idea that I was going to summer camp. Little did I know that I would spend that summer and the next year of my life in a level-three lock-down institution.

At first, the place was hell. I didn’t see the point in something like that existing and I didn’t understand why I was living with girls with issues far worse then mine. There were bulimics, anorexics, 13-year-old cutters, state kids who had been in and out of the foster care system for years, coke addicts, devil worshippers, child molesters and prostitutes from L.A. who had pimps with names like Joaquin. I spent every moment of every day with these girls. We slept in the same room and we all went to therapy together.

Although I hated it at first, after a while, I started to learn some valuable lessons. Most importantly, I started facing my own issues and taking responsibility for my behavior. I had to start answering questions for myself, questions like, Why do I feel the need to steal things? Why did I drink when I didn’t even like it? Why did I lie? or Why do I hate my stepmom? You could say the boot camp straightened me out and I can now see that I took a lot from that place. It helped find a new way to live my life.

I left Peninsula Village four years ago. When I got out I started writing a book about my experiences there. I haven’t smoked any pot for five years and I don’t drink. I live in New York City now and I am taking a screenwriting class and I have a lot of ideas about what I want to do in the future. Going out and staying clean in New York can be a challenge. I sometimes feel like an uptight overbearing mother when I don’t join in on what people call ‘fun’ -- like drinking till you get sick or you sleep with some stranger.

It is hard for teenagers to stay away from drugs, sex and alcohol, and it's not because there are drug dealers lurking on every corner giving out free samples, waiting to corrupt the youth. No, kids do these things because they want to, because they feel it is the only way to be accepted. Drugs and sex create a false identity for a lot of kids. Everywhere we look, be it in movies, ads or in schools, sex and drugs are glamorized as coming-of-age rituals, rites of passage. Kids see sex and drugs as a way to connect with each other. This couldn't be farther from the truth.

I have to zone people out when they tell me to loosen up and “just have one drink” and make me feel as if I’m the only freshman in college who doesn’t feel like spending my time at bars. It can be hard to have a social life without drinking or drugs, especially if you had a problem with them in the first place. I have seen what drinking does to other people and it is more or less the same with any addiction. It destroys people and the lives of those around them.  Staying clean is not easy -- it takes a strong person to do it.

I admire kids who can get out of the drug scene, get over alcoholism, bulimia, anorexia or cutting.  They have made their own choice to get out and hopefully, they can get into something that really matters to them. Drugs lose their glamour quickly and in the end, they only bring sadness. When kids find something they love to do and that they're good at, then they can create a real sense of identity. Then they’re truly independent people. For me, that “something” has been writing.

“Just say no,” DARE, and all the other catch phrases seem so tacky and are used so much that they tend to lose their meaning. I know they used to bug me out and I'd just ignore them. But there is a lot of truth to them. Saying “no” to drugs or alcohol or sex is daring. It does make you different. What some kids don't get is that by saying no, you are creating your own identity. And that makes you stronger and gives your life meaning and direction.

19-year-old Abigail Vona wrote a memoir of her year at Pennsylvania Village titled “Bad Girl: Confessions of a Teenage Delinquent” (Rugged Land, 2004). You can also visit her web site at www.badgirlbook.com.