Unglued & Tattooed How To Save Your Teen From Raves, Ritalin, Goth, Body Carving, GHB, Sex, and 12 Other Emerging Threats by Sara Trollinger with Mike Yorkey Click here to return to book details Chapter 1 Nothing to Rave About IF YOU LOG ONTO AMERICA ONLINE and inquire about the hottest nightclubs in the country, you will discover that the Firestone Club in Orlando tops the list. Sure, you can find bigger or more famous nightclubs in New York City, but for square foot per square foot of dance parquet, AOL partygoers rank Firestone Club as the best “dance club” in the United States. Perhaps the Firestone Club’s lofty status can be attributed to Orlando’s position as the international party crossroads of the world. There’s no doubt that our year-round warm weather and proximity to Disney World, Epcot Center, Universal Studios, Sea World, and other resorts lure millions to Central Florida every year. Many of those are teenagers who step off the wide-bodies at Orlando International Airport in a party mood. Clubs like the Firestone know how to pack them in, and they do so by creating an otherworldly atmosphere that begins with brilliant and mood-altering lighting and is underscoredby pulsating, frenetic music. These nightclubs also turn a blind eye to underage drinking, drug taking, and sex in the bathrooms. Technically speaking, you have to be eighteen years old to enter, but the beefy bouncers operate under a no-questions-asked policy. Even if they “card ” a gum — smacking, pimply teen who looks as though she still belongs in middle school, the bouncers will accept the flimsiest of fake IDs, as long as her money is green. I ’ve seen kids twelve, thirteen years old at raves. Nobody got ID’d; all they wanted was your money. People sold pills, cocaine, and ecstasy — a drug that took a while to hit you, but once it did, you’d start dancing crazy and doing weird stuff. — Jimmy, age sixteen The moneymaking success of “legit ”clubs like the Firestone has created a market for dance clubs flying underneath the radarscope of many parents of teenagers. They are called “raves,” and these midnight-to-dawn dance debauches have spawned a new hedonistic subculture. The rave scene is mainly a major metropolitan phenomenon, but they are catching on in Middle America, where the “clubbing ”mentality remains a novelty. There is something about the marriage of modern electronic music and the rave culture’s celebration of childlike escapism through dancing and drug taking that makes raves something to watch for in the next few years. Teens would tell you that raves are just another dance party for kids, but, in reality, raves have a unique ability to create an anything-goes atmosphere in which teens drink till they passout, ingest mind-altering drugs by the handful, and (for the males) enjoy indiscriminate sex with girls too stoned to remember where or who they are. You say you haven ’t heard about raves? That’s because these energetic all-night happenings are staged in the wee hours of the night in clandestine areas, usually a rusty-roofed warehouse rented for the evening by a here-today, gone-tomorrow “promoter.” The venue is transformed into Party Central by a crew that installs colorful lights, computerized lasers, blinking strobes, a hefty sound system, and stands that sell alcohol. The promoters also hire jive-talking DJs proficient at getting a dance floor moving by playing songs such as “Ecstasy ”(an anthem to drug taking), “Rough Sex,” and “I Do Both Jay and James ” (the latter song being an exhortation to “get it on”). The dimly lighted floor is transformed into a sweaty soup of hopped-up kids. They dance with wiry abandon, gyrating faster and faster with the beat. “Break dancing,” in which teens jump up and down on the floor, performing tricks and spins, is still popular these days. The newest thing is “liquid dancing” in which the boys and girls pretend they have a ball between them, which they “form” with their hands. This dance is very seductive and suggestive of sex. If you look closely, you’ll see teen boys and girls mimicking other sexual practices. There’s a girl on her knees while her date sidles up to her and pretends to receive oral sex. Another girl presents her blue-jeaned backside to her partner, who pretends to “mount ”her. Other couples dance as close as they can to each other, then begin dipping up and down in synchronization. Looks like sex standing up to me. This dance form is known as “freaking,” and it is banned at high schools across the country for obvious reasons. But at rave clubs, where no chaperones are present, freaking is just the warm-up before some type of sexual release occurs later that evening. Packing ’Em In To fill their warehouse — and their wallets — the promoters get the word out by “papering” area high schools, independent record stores, alternative clothing stores, coffee shops, dance clubs, and local universities with eye-catching flyers advertising the event. The promoters also build Internet mailing lists since they know computer-savvy teens can easily find rave Web sites. They call their raves “Pandemonium ”or “Zin Festival,”and they tout themes of brotherly love, peace, and becoming one. The promoters hide their identities behind bogus companies such as “Mid-Atlantic Productions” or the “Hindenburg Express.” It doesn’t matter to the kids who’s putting on the rave — they’re just interested in partying until their bodies give out. The promoters, who know that they operate on the outskirts of the law, cover their bases by having a backup warehouse ready to go in case the cops shut things down early in the evening. Early is a relative term. Most raves advertise a start time of 10 P.M.or 11 P.M., but no respectable raver would show up before midnight. Things really start cooking around 1 A.M., and revelers remain at a high-pitched frenzy for many more hours. I can tell you why I went to raves. When I was feeling lonely, I felt like I was accepted there. I didn ’t have to worry about anything when I was there. Everything was going by so fast. — Brittany, age fifteen What is a rave? It’s kind of like a social function. You see lights, lots of lights, and these glimmering effects while you ’re on drugs. — Kevin, age seventeen I loved the rave scene. I would spend from twelve midnight to 3 A.M. getting ready to go out. I put on this clear glow-in-the-dark paint on my face so when I was underneath a black light, my whole face would glow in the dark. The whole rave scene is what you wear. I wore those huge clothes that cost me hundreds of dollars. My pants were so huge and wide-legged that I could barely walk in them. Underneath my pant legs, I hid my drugs. Some clubs did frisk you down, but most didn’t. — Kayla, age sixteen A Short History Lesson The first raves popped up in the English countryside, outside London and Manchester, back in the late 1980s during the height of Britain’s acid-house culture. Early raves were impromptu, secretive events that British teens learned about through word of mouth. It took about five years before raves caught on,on this side of the Atlantic. Raves have to be seen to be believed, but let me give it a try. Imagine that you’re a teenager, riding with your buddies to a Saturday night rave. Six of you have managed to squeeze into a small sedan that comfortably seats four. Your parents think you’re spending the night at a friend’s house. Instead, you’ve been drinking beers and having a good time, waiting until the midnight hour when the real party begins. You drive into your city’s industrial district, armed with directions. Fortunately, you can hear the rave before you turn on the street where kids are parking cars and walking — well, maybe some of them are stumbling — to the large warehouse seventy-five yards down to the left. You patiently stand in a long line to enter. As you check out those standing in front of you, you notice that the typical raver wears baggy fatigues, a corporate logo – parody-shirt, and a backpack. What’s in the backpacks? It’s not schoolbooks! A better guess would be bottled water and drugs, maybe a few condoms. The promoters have hired a couple of “security guys ”to collect the cover charge and check for IDs, but on this particular evening, “security” is more interested in collecting cash than checking ID cards or backpacks. You hand over a $20 bill and step inside. A kaleidoscope of orange and purple laser lights and dizzying strobes immediately assaults you, all punctuated by the very loud, nonstop beat of electronic dance music called techno. Techno, a distant cousin of disco, contains influences from Kraftwerk, hip-hop, and reggae. The music’s purpose is rather simple: get everybody moving to a loud, repetitive, and hypnotic beat so that they can “lose ”themselves. The music must take the ravers to another place (wherever that is) while lulling the conscious mind into a stupor. It’s time to get your mojo working and suspend yourself in space while you move to the numbing beat. The DJ has an important job at raves, since the success of the events rises and falls on how well he can manipulate the emotions of the revelers swirling to the music. I think ravers go to the extreme. They really want to walk on the edge of the ledge of a high building. They want to see how far they can take things. — Jeremy, age sixteen The techno music can be rather hypnotic,but it surely seems to put everyone in a good mood. You can ’t help noticing that everyone is so friendly. Then you remember why everyone is so happy. One of your buddies told you that ravers are big into PLUR, an acronym for Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect. Ravers are caught up in this unity stuff and committed to PLUR. This means they accept everyone who steps inside because raves are a place where you can be what you want to be.Ravers draw kids of all colors, straights, gays, and a few transsexuals, all to one spot. Since ravers construct their own community inside the warehouse walls, anyone who arrives with a good vibe is welcome to be part of the scene. You continue your tour. Along the walls, you can see groups of three, four of your peers huddling around each other. Upon closer inspection, you notice one of them opening aluminum foil containing cake-like powder. This dealer — the kid next door, actually — is selling hits of heroin, Rohypnol, GHB, and various drugs to bring you down — “landing gear,” as he calls it. A few steps away, another guy is handing what looks like a two-liter bottle of water to a friend. Looking around further, you notice something really strange:many teens — especially the girls — are walking around with pacifiers in their mouths! I was only thirteen when I went to my first rave. I had never even done drugs before, except for smoking marijuana a little bit, but I thought these kids were weird. They walked around with glow-in-the-dark baby pacifiers in their mouths. I thought, What is their problem? Then I learned that when they were on drugs, usually ecstasy or acid, they would clench their jaws. To protect their teeth, they chewed on pacifiers. These glow-in-the-dark pacifiers and their stringers were pretty funky looking. — Sarina, age sixteen It’s getting darker as you walk farther and farther away from the main staging area. You spot an old couch up against the wall. A teen girl with her dress hiked up to her waist is oblivious as a guy with his pants around his ankles takes advantage of her drug-induced state. Just when you think you ’ve see enough, you walk into a restroom, where you witness various sex acts being performed,including male on male. I did have sex a couple of times at the raves. I even saw a couple having sex while they were dancing. Having sex there happened a lot, although the girls wore these tiny little skirts and seemed to ask for it. — Alex, age fifteen The rave is starting to fill up. Before the evening is over, the warehouse will be packed with a couple of thousand sweaty and stoned kids. Sometimes the party spills out into the neighborhood, where the spaced-out teens score more drugs or find places where they can have sex. They will lose themselves until dawn, which is when the party finally starts to break up. Some are so stoned that they will wake up in places they never thought possible. As a youth counselor, I ’ve talked to many girls who have gone to raves, and they all told me that they got more than they were bargaining for. Once they entered the rave, they learned that they never had to pay for drugs. This is fairly universal in the teen drug scene. Guys view giving drugs to “chicks” as a down payment for some good times later. At raves, it’s not unusual for a girl to be raped three or four times. These sex acts happen in a bathroom stall or out in the open — right in the middle of everything. There is such mass chaos that no one ever knows. Somebody could scream at the top of his lungs, but the music is so loud that no one would ever hear you. The other thing is that these girls are so high that they have very little fight in them. They have been broken down by the rave. — Mary, a House of Hope counselor The people at the telephone company in downtown Orlando said they were tired of coming to work in the morning and finding naked women lying in their parking lot. — Sandy, a House of Hope counselor The presence of drugs at raves is universal. Most ravers enter the warehouse expecting to get high, or they feel drugs add to the sensory enhancements of raving. They also believe that drugs can boost their energy for the long night of energetic dancing ahead. Others enjoy the feeling of getting blitzed and escaping whatever their “reality”is. They feel a desire to indulge in the forbidden fruit. Raves give a false sense of security, a sense that their enclosed environment is a safe place to do drugs.For whatever reason, teens feel tremendous pressure from fellow ravers to let loose and get high on hallucinogenic drugs such asecstasy. Marijuana is still popular,mainly because of the rave’s mellow PLUR mindset. (Remember? Raves are all about peace, love, unity, and respect.) LSD, the cheap psychedelic of the sixties, has made a comeback with the ravers. Protecting Them from Harm April, one of our girls at the House of Hope, had a fairly typical experience with raves. “I pretty much started going to clubs and raves when I was in sixth grade,” she told me. When I expressed my incredulity that a sixth grader could get past the bouncer, April replied, “You can get a fake ID in a heartbeat if you know the right people. I started off by going clubbing every weekend. I arrived at the Sapphire [a downtown Orlando club] sometime between midnight and 2 A.M. They never really closed until 4 A.M. I just got wasted.” “What was the attraction, April?” “I think it was just the atmosphere, being with a group of adults,” April said. “It was like being free. As long as you were inside the Sapphire, you could get anything. I ’d say, ‘Hey, give me a shot of vodka,’ and they would say, ‘Here it is,’ and not even check.” “But, April, didn’t your parents care where you were?” “No.” “Well, how did you get out of the house?” “I said, ‘Dad, I’m going to the midnight movie and probably won’t be home until three o’clock because we ’re stopping at Taco Bell to get something to eat.’ Stupid stuff like that. On school nights, I ’d say I have to go to the library to do some homework and then chill out after the library closes at a friend’s house. I thought of them all.” “But what if your dad told you to be back at 10 P.M.?” I asked. “I’d say, ‘Okay, bye, Dad,’ and just walk out. Then I ’d call at ten o ’clock and tell him I was coming home at twelve. See you later.” “But if he said he wanted you home by ten o ’clock ...” “Then I ’d say, ‘See you.’ Click. And then I ’d do what I ’d want.” “What would your father do then?” April thought for a minute. “He would tell me that I couldn’t go out with that friend for a week. It really wasn’t a big punishment because I would go out with other friends instead.” Now that you have a fairly comprehensive picture of what raves are all about, what can you — the parents of boisterous teens — do to protect your children from harm? I, along with my counseling staff at the House of Hope, am continually amazed how parents fail to parent, for lack of a more clever word. We call it the “ostrich syndrome,” in which the parents turn blind eyes and deaf ears to their teenagers. They put their heads in the sand because they don ’t want to be involved in their teens’ lives or get hassled by being the “bad guy ”or “mean mom” if they say no to letting their children go out at night. Listen to this fairly typical exchange between Jessica, one of our straight-talking House of Hope counselors, and Larry and Sheila, parents of a rebellious fifteen-year-old named Rachel. Larry: How come I ’ve never heard of raves? Jessica: Because you ’re not a teen. You ’re not in the market. If you went to any area high school and asked what a rave was, you would be blown away that every teen knew the answer, whether they attend them or not. Sheila: We think Rachel is going to raves. How can we keep her from doing that? Jessica: First of all, I guess I’d wonder how she could go. Did you allow her to go, or did Rachel just go without your permission? Larry: She said she was going to a party with some friends. I thought that would be okay, but then another parent told us they were at a rave. Jessica: Much more is going on here than meets the eye. From a counselor’s perspective, if you say to Rachel,“You can ’t go to the rave,” I don’t think that you’ll get to the issue. I think there’s something else going on here, and it’s drawing her to the rave. Larry: You ’re asking me what’s drawing Rachel to these raves? Okay, I give up. What do you think the draw is? Jessica: The draw is the sex, drugs, and the atmosphere. Rachel wants to be in that atmosphere with thousands of other teens, doing things that appear to be fun. Sheila: Now that Rachel sneaked out to the rave,we don’t know whether we can trust her. What should we do? Jessica: There’s definitely a trust issue going on here. Aside from the fact that she went to the rave, another issue is the friend she’s hanging with who took her to the rave. Many kids just don’t show up at raves unless they go with friends. Friends are a huge influence. They can be your greatest asset or your worst nightmare, to be honest. Friends make it or break it for teenagers these days because there ’s so much peer pressure. If they have friends who say, “Come rave with me,” and they don’t stand up to those friends and say no, they will get sucked in. Initially, they may not be willing to get stoned or have sex, but more than likely they will become involved in those activities. The ravers that I ’ve worked with have told me that raves are an obsession. Larry: How often do they go during a week? Jessica: I’ve worked with teens that have gone three to four times a week; as much as they can do it. More typical is all weekend long — Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. They are just sucked in. Larry: Since you ’re saying that it ’s their friends sucking them in, does that mean I should forbid Rachel from seeing certain friends? Jessica: That ’s a catch-22 because when you forbid teens from doing things with the friends they see every day at school, you’re going to create a rift with them. My goal as a counselor is to find out what’s inside your daughter. What is drawing her to the rave scene? Is she moving toward the rave to feel loved or get attention because she’s not getting enough attention from you? What’s pulling her there? Is it loneliness, wanting to fit in? Many troubled teens have identity issues — not knowing where they ’re accepted. They have a hard time figuring out who they are, so they go out and try this to see whether they fit into these places. Since raves are places where it’s pretty easy to be accepted for who you are, you can see what makes it so attractive to needy teens. For those who feel that they can’t fit in elsewhere, they can fit there. Sheila: I ’m more pessimistic than Larry. It sounds like it’s going to be really hard for us to keep Rachel from going to the rave clubs. Give us some concrete advice. Give me some answers. Jessica: My question to you, Mom and Dad, is how much time are you spending with Rachel? Larry, are you just coming home from work, eating dinner, and then watching TV the rest of the night? Larry: I have to put in long hours. I come home around 6:30 from work, and by the time my wife gets food on the table, it’s 7:30 or 8:00. Rachel has already eaten something, so she’s in her room. She’s doing her homework or talking on the phone with some friends. Jessica: What about weekends? Larry: You know, when she used to play soccer, I coached the team. Now she doesn’t play. Jessica: Something that I talk to dads about is the importance of establishing a date night with their teen daughters. This is a set time on a set evening when the daughter knows that Dad will spend some time with her doing something. It may sound a little corny, but this has to be something that Dad initiates so that she’s not asking for it. That way, the fear of rejection is gone. The last thing she needs to hear is her dad telling her that he doesn’t have time for her. When Dad comes home on date night, it doesn’t have to be a huge deal. Make it a special time when she knows she has you to herself. You should be doing something together — eating out, going shopping, taking a drive, going out for a treat, playing tennis, or watching a live sporting event together. The ideas are endless, if you use your imagination. I believe that dads give something special to their daughters that no one else can give. I believe that dads can give a daughter the feeling that she’s beautiful, she’s loved, and that she is cherished. Many girls I see have absent fathers, so they’re looking to be accepted and loved by the world. If you are taking the time to be with Rachel, she will get something from you, which means she doesn’t have to look for love outside the home. Sheila: What about moms? Jessica: Moms need to be there so they can be sounding boards for their teens. Teens love to talk if you will give them half a chance. If you work outside the home, I would do everything in my power to be home when the kids come home from school, especially in their teen years. Teens can get in more trouble between the hours of 3 P.M. to 6 P.M. than almost any other time frame. Do everything you can so the family can eat together. This is a time when you ask how the day went, what’s going on. It shows you’re being involved. Another thing I ’ve seen at the House of Hope is that the mood of the house staff — those who live with the boys and girls — affects everyone in the home. We all have bad days. If a father comes home grumbling about his bad day, acts angry, and puts up a wall, he has just created a communication barrier between him and his kids. Be aware of your mood when you come home from work or when your child arrives home from school! Being a parent these days is much more than providing for physical needs. I have asked girl after girl over the years, including ones with both parents in the home, “Did your dad give you what you needed growing up?” They say, “Oh, yeah, he gave me an allowance,” or “He bought me a used car” — monetary things. Sure,their fathers put food on the table and kept them in clothes, but there wasn’t any emotional bonding. I think that’s huge. Larry: Are there certain sports or hobbies mothers and dads can do with their kids? Jessica: It doesn’t matter which sport or hobby a parent enjoys. The important thing is that parent and child pursue an activity together. If a father is crazy about NASCAR racing cars but his daughter hasn ’t the slightest interest in watching a bunch of logoed stock cars go around in 180-mph circles, their relationship will slide off the track. We have tons of kids here at the House of Hope whose dads didn ’t make an effort to do anything that the kids liked to do. If we turn that scenario around and see the parent pursuing what the child enjoys, then you can have some good results. Sometimes part of being a good parent is putting down your own desires and finding out what your children like to do. If your daughter likes needlepoint, well, a father doesn’t have to sit down and do needlepoint. If he can just show an interest in it — maybe take her shopping for new patterns — then he’ll move their relationship forward. A girl told me once that she took up cheerleading because she knew her football-crazy father would watch her cheer from the stands. That’s how strongly teens crave attention in parent-child relationships. Then there are the uninvolved parents. I counseled one girl who loved to play softball.Her dad came to only one game in all the years she played softball — just one game! She loved softball and hoped that he would come to see her play, that this activity would pull her dad into her life. Things didn’t work out that way. He wasn’t willing to go the extra mile to build a relationship with her. Let’s Do More Than Hope for the Best Did you catch the gist of Jessica ’s advice? It boils down to this: Your relationship with your teens is everything. I will be returning to this theme time after time in this book, because what we’ve found at the House of Hope is that you cannot rebuild teens’ lives until you develop a strong relationship with them. The following questions will allow you to gaugethe relationship between you and your teens. Take a moment and take your time while you go through them: Do you take a laissez-faire approach (“kids will be kids ”) and hope for the best? Do you think you have a strong relationship with your teens? What things are you doing together to build your relationship? Are you involved in their world?Are you looking for things to share with them? How did you do? Good? Not so good? Now I ’m going to introduce the most important part of the book,which will be a series of “Discussion Starter ” questions that you will find at the end of every chapter. These questions are designed to peel off a layer or two at a time — much like an onion. They are designed to get you communicating. They are designed to enhance and build your relationships. Be prepared for some exciting, animated — and perhaps even heated — discussions. Discussion Starter questions can’t be asked during moments scheduled in your DayTimer. In other words,writing in “Ask Toby Discussion Starter questions from Chapter 1” for the 2:45 P.M. slot on Saturday afternoon and expecting your teen to be a chatterbox at the appointed hour just won’t happen. I suggest that you take your teens out to a sit-down restaurant or their favorite fast-food outlet with the express desire of talking to them. You can talk while you wash the car together or drive around doing errands — of course, they ’ll have to turn off their Sony Walkmans, and you ’ll have to turn off the car radio. Set some ground rules. Your teens can say anything they want, as long as the remark is respectful. No yelling or name-calling for you or your teen. This is the time for them to begin acting like young adults. Remind your teens that you, as a parent, have set boundaries based on your standards and morality. Here’s one way you can say that: “Sean, I was given a responsibility to raise you and to love you the day you entered this world,” you might say. “I ’m going to continue to do that, and I ’m going to continue being there for you during your adolescent years. You ’re growing up. I’m excited for you and your future, but I want to help you avoid some of the mistakes that I made and that other teens make.” Discussion Starters Have you ever heard of rave clubs? Are there rave clubs in our city (or town)? Have you ever seen a rave-club flyer? What goes on at raves? Do you think you’d ever want to go to a rave? Have you ever been to a rave? What was it like? Did you see anyone OD’ing on drugs? Do you think raves are a good idea for teens? What do think about teens going clubbing? Do they ask for IDs at raves or clubs? Click here to order from Amazon: Click here to return to book details