Teenagers drinking, always a concern for adults, continued along a different and more troubling trend during the pandemic: Instead of drinking to fit in, teens were drinking alone to dull the pain. 

Overall teen drug and alcohol use during the pandemic鈥攆or every readily available liquor cabinet there was a canceled party鈥攂ut  in teens self-reported a change in where, why, and with whom they drink. 

Rather than a social behavior, teens were, like their struggling parents, drinking alone to cope with emotional pandemic fallout.  

In Austin, educators are looking to address not only the despair and frustration driving kids to drink in isolation, but the effects of living in a home where parents or siblings are also drinking.

 鈥�(The stress of living with an alcoholic) has been a very unmet need, a gap in services,鈥� said Tara Domasco, a social worker with Communities in Schools who co-sponsors the Crockett High School Alateen meeting. 鈥淭hen you add the pandemic on top.鈥� 

In the spring, Crockett co-sponsor Ginger Gannaway gave the high schoolers a writing prompt. 

鈥淛ust for tonight鈥︹�� the prompt read. They finished the sentences with their own mantras, goals for their personal recovery. Shared anonymously in keeping with the program鈥檚 pledge, the final products paint a poignant picture of the teens鈥� struggles. 

鈥淛ust for tonight I won鈥檛 let other people鈥檚 opinions matter to me. I鈥檓 strong enough for what鈥檚 coming tomorrow.鈥� 

鈥淛ust for tonight I鈥檒l try not to get mad at my mom.  I鈥檒l forgive her for not choosing me.鈥�

鈥淛ust for tonight I will love myself and know that I can overcome what鈥檚 to come in the future knowing that I survived my past.鈥�

鈥淛ust for tonight鈥� is a modification of the popular 12-step mantra 鈥渏ust for today,鈥� encouraging alcoholics, narcotics abusers, and their loved ones to confront addiction one day at a time. Alateen is designed for young people living with addicts, but many of them have begun using alcohol and drugs themselves. The children of alcoholics are four times more likely to become alcoholics themselves, according to the . 

Support for family members and prevention go hand in hand, Domasco said. As they get to middle school and high school and begin using and abusing themselves, becoming what is referred to in Alateen as a 鈥渄ouble winner鈥� with the wounds of life with an addict, and an addiction of their own. 

She鈥檚 hesitant to label any teenager an 鈥渁lcoholic,鈥� she said, but a good number of teens do turn to substances themselves to cope with the pain of living with an addicted or mentally unwell family member.  鈥淚f we can heal and work within the family of origin,鈥� she said, sometimes full-fledged addiction can be avoided. 

鈥淛ust for tonight I鈥檒l pretend that you鈥檙e not my mom and I鈥檒l dream of the mom I want you to be.鈥�

Gannaway was a high school English teacher in 2011, when she started attending Al-Anon meetings in Austin to support her as she coped with her teen son鈥檚 substance abuse. Meeting regularly with other family members of alcoholics and addicts helped her regulate her feelings, commit to her own health, and maintain her boundaries. 

She remembers thinking about how many teenagers needed such a group, and felt compelled to start one. 鈥淚 had benefited from Al-Anon, and I knew teenagers,鈥� she said. 

Since 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous has used community, reflection, spirituality and structure to help addicted people stay sober. In 1951, loved ones of A.A. members who had been meeting informally, formalized to form Al-Anon, which now has thousands of meetings in over 100 countries. Narcotics Anonymous followed in 1953 Alateen was born four years after that. 

Alateen is for students who live with substance abusers. Asking for a ride might reveal to their 鈥渜ualifier鈥濃�攖he term Alateen uses for the alcoholic or addict in a participant鈥檚 life鈥攖hat the teen is seeking help, and it might not be received well. Plus, when kids show up to a church basement to find adult sponsors and no other kids, she said, they鈥檙e not coming back. 

鈥淚n my head I鈥檓 thinking this needs to be in school. This needs to be where kids don鈥檛 need a ride to get here,鈥� Gannaway said.聽聽

It took a lot of phone calls and clearing of red tape for the Crockett meeting to finally begin in the fall of 2018 with four kids in the Communities in Schools office.

Domasco said students are finding support for more than just the addiction in their lives: Many are confronting other mental health struggles from the pandemic too. 鈥淚鈥檝e just heard again and again students saying 鈥業鈥檓 not myself anymore,鈥� she said.  

鈥淛ust for tonight, I鈥檒l pretend everything will be okay. I鈥檒l be free to do whatever I want and go about my day.鈥�

Word has started to spread between students that this specific kind of help was available. The 12 to 13-person circle is now too big for Domesco鈥檚 office, and the group meets in a classroom. As more kids show up, the adults involved can identify other needs and themes. 

Rarely does addiction exist apart from other struggles, Domasco said, and the pandemic seems to have exacerbated them all. 鈥淲e know that oftentimes in family systems where there is alcohol and substance abuse we also have relational violence.鈥�

She layers the Alateen meeting with other services specifically targeting abusive relationships, as well as nutritional support programs, as often the homes of addicts can become food insecure as limited income is spent on drugs and alcohol. 

Sometimes it works the other way around. A student is referred to her for academic struggles or behavioral issues. During intake for other issues Domesco asks about drugs and alcohol in the home, adding Alateen to her recommended services, if appropriate. 

Gannaway, who was initially shocked to see how few Alateen groups existed in Austin, sees the success of the Crockett group as proof that schools are the best place to host the groups, where professionals like Domesco and other services are all within arms reach.聽鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of blossomed into what we think the kids need. My dream is that every school in this city would have Alateen available to the students.鈥澛�

Rebekah Ozuna, who works for Austin ISD, overseeing programs funded through the Department of Justice grant that funds Alateen at Crockett, agrees. 

鈥淥ne of the reasons I think Alateen is ready to expand and has been really successful before, during, and after the pandemic, is that it’s flexible to people鈥檚 needs,鈥� she said.  

But she doesn鈥檛 see Alateen as the panacea for everything weighing kids down. It鈥檚 not just the coronavirus pandemic, she said, kids today are growing up amid other epidemics as well: opioids, gun violence, and cyberbullying. Feeling safe at school鈥攚hich more and more kids say they do not鈥攊s going to require a multi-layer effort and 鈥渄eep, deep connection,鈥� Ozuna said.

Like so many of her peers returning to classes after two years of pandemic isolation, Crockett High School senior Klyrissa Porter often feels overwhelmed.

But the Austin, Texas, teen noticed when she would reach out to her friends to share that her mental health was suffering, the replies she received were not exactly what she鈥檇 hoped for. 

鈥淭hey鈥檇 just be like, 鈥楲OL, same,鈥欌�� Porter said.

The hallways are full of teens struggling, she said, but no one seems to be able to help anyone else move forward. 鈥淓veryone is going through a lot, and because of that we鈥檝e forgotten how to be friends,鈥� she said, 鈥溾�o be there for each other, support each other, love each other.鈥�

That鈥檚 particularly difficult for Porter who has been part of Students Organizing for Anti-Racism (SOAR) since her freshman year to help confront the systemic racism at school. But confronting such large troubling issues on campus requires stamina people seems to have lost during the pandemic, said students in SOAR, which meets as a regular class at Crockett. 

To honor diverse perspectives, they first have to relearn how to hear and see beyond themselves. 

鈥淭here is not a person in the world who doesn鈥檛 have something they鈥檙e going through,鈥� Porter鈥檚 classmate, senior Lilly Swearingen said. 

Now, the same skills they use to ground their anti-racist work are helping the SOAR students rebuild the basic social skills and healthy relationships they lost during the pandemic. 

Specifically, they said, have helped them repair their relationships and see themselves in the context of community again. 

When the students in Crockett High School in Austin gather to address conflict or deepen their connection to each other, they usually gather in a circle and pass a talking piece from student to student while answering a question or responding to a prompt. 

These circles, familiar fixtures in social and emotional learning and restorative discipline, have sacred roots, said Iztac Arteaga, the restorative practices specialist at Crockett. Circles have been healing and grounding for Indigneous communities for centuries, and their power is more vital than ever in the middle of a nationwide teen mental health crisis.  

鈥淲hen people feel held and seen and valued as humans, there鈥檚 just so much more that can be done as you鈥檙e navigating difficult situations,鈥� Ateaga said. 

Difficult situations abound.

As Arteaga teaches students and teachers how to participate in and eventually facilitate circles, she is adamant that the practice not become perfunctory or sloppy. While it鈥檚 tempting  to just, for instance, grab a dry-erase marker to serve as a talking piece, she said, for a circle to be most effective, it also has to be, in some sense, sacred.

鈥淚f we knew the history and how indigneous people literally died and lost their lives to maintain these practices we鈥檇 probably treat it with a little more respect,鈥� Arteaga said. 

Instead of a dry-erase marker for a talking piece, the group should choose something to convey respect, and remind them of their shared values. Same with the centerpiece, where students can rest their eyes if looking at each other becomes uncomfortable or painful. 

In her position, Arteaga facilitates and teaches 鈥渃ommunity-building鈥� circles, which start out light, giving people the opportunity to know each other. Cross-talk and phones are not allowed. She also does trauma-informed 鈥渕ediation鈥� circles when a conflict has occurred between students or between students and teachers. 

When they returned to school, the first emotion Porter noticed was anger. Fights broke out, people lost their tempers daily. 鈥淚t got to the point that we were scared to come to school,鈥� she said, as other students nodded along with her. 

Circles at Crockett are uniquely suited for these complicated dynamics. While punitive discipline might address the behavior, restorative practices like those students learn in SOAR, speak to the pain behind the outbursts. 

鈥淪OAR gives us a place to express ourselves, and a space where everyone can just say what they need to say,鈥� said junior Daniella de Guzman. 

Community circles gather students to address harm done and feelings hurt, but instead of doling out punishments according to a policy handbook, each member of the circle can say what they need. Even the offending party gets the chance to express the unmet needs or pain that led to their hurtful actions. Addressing the pain keeps them in the community, and accountable to it. 

Arteaga knows the power of circles to sustain community, not just as a facilitator in schools, but as a participant.  As an Indigenous person whose ancestors were colonized out of their home and identity, ceremony is critical to her understanding of her own heritage. She participates in circles with the broader Indigenous community in Austin, and confers with the people there about how to best facilitate the practice in schools. 

It鈥檚 a careful balance, she said. Some aspects of ceremony need to be exclusive to Indigenous communities, because of the long history of cultural appropriation. 

Circles are a sacred part of the governance, community preservation, and identity of Indigenous groups, Arteaga explained, and were part of the religious and cultural practices outlawed for most of the history of the United States until the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act.

While she recognizes the circles happening at school will be inherently less authentic to Indigenous culture鈥攖he circles in the SOAR class are named after the houses in the Harry Potter series鈥擜rteaga wants them to be respectful of it as they gather around a centerpiece鈥攐ften a fire鈥攁nd designating a talking piece to pass from person to person.

鈥淚f we knew the history and how Indigenous people literally lost their lives to maintain these practices, we probably would treat it with a little more respect,鈥� Arteaga said.  

While she sometimes has to educate students and teachers simultaneously, the teacher for the SOAR class had the kids well-versed and acclimated to circles, Arteaga said. With the additional grounding in history and tradition, the SOAR students have been able to facilitate on their own. Her goal is for more students and adults on campus to be able to do the same, so that circles become a regular and reliable resource. Skilled listeners and communicators can strengthen the entire support network of the school.

Freshman Will Haskell actually did learn a lot about himself during the pandemic, he said, and he knew that what he鈥檇 learned about his own mental health would help his friends, but after two years online, starting the conversation in person is challenging. 鈥淪OAR has helped me to be able to actually talk about it,鈥� Haskell said. 

Knowing how to offer help is one skill the kids are developing, so is asking for help. Circles teach them the importance of asking for consent in both roles.

A lot of kids seemed totally dissociated鈥� disconnected from their thoughts, feelings, and emotions, Swearingen said. They shove the feelings down to make it through the day, and some then overshare with their friends online. She calls it 鈥渢rauma-dumping鈥� and says it鈥檚 almost a trend now. 

When one person posts about a mental health challenge, she said, their comments will often fill with others echoing the complaint, or even seeming to 鈥渙ne-up鈥� the severity of the original poster鈥檚 distress. 鈥淚f we can at least tone it down a little bit, it would help a lot.鈥�

Even when it鈥檚 not competitive, she said, rarely do teens ask for consent before sharing their burdens via social media or direct messages. They don鈥檛 check to see if the recipient is in the right place to receive the extra weight. For two years students were isolated from each other in real life, she said, but grew accustomed to constant, around-the-clock access to one another on social media.

鈥淚t鈥檚 an expectation that has been set and it鈥檚 very uncomfortable,鈥� Swearingen said.

Circles provide a structured way for students to listen, to see that others are going through their own struggles, without immediately hopping on board to trauma-dump. When the talking piece moves to their hands, they will have a turn. 

That predictable, structured place to safely share is critical, especially for students who want to take on society鈥檚 bigger challenges, Swearingen said. 鈥淚t puts us in a spot where we can be vulnerable with each other, and because we can be vulnerable together we can be productive.鈥�

As teenage boys in Austin, Texas, returned to school last fall after more than a year learning remotely at home, counselors were alarmed to see how many were talking about suicide. 

鈥淲e鈥檝e definitely seen an increase in suicidal ideation,鈥� said Roxie Frederick, a counselor at Austin Independent School District鈥檚 Alternative Learning Center who often meets the boys after their emotions have boiled over into an angry confrontation resulting in disciplinary action. 

The teens are then sent to the alternative campus after a disciplinary incident, where Frederick gets them talking about what鈥檚 really going on 鈥� and it鈥檚 not always easy to get them beyond the monosyllabic answers.

But once she does, Frederick discovers just how many of them are losing hope 鈥� like many youth across the country who are battling mental health issues after two years of isolation, fear, and struggle.

 鈥淵oung males who seem tough are opening up about it,.鈥� she said, adding it often means the teenage boys are pretty far into crisis.

The teen boys in Austin are part of a larger and terrifying trend. In 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children鈥檚 Hospital Association issued a joint statement declaring children鈥檚 mental health, especially children of color, a ; and a Centers for Disease Control survey found 20 percent of teens had contemplated suicide, and nearly 10 percent had attempted it. 

But that same offered a solution: Students who felt more connected to their peers had better mental health, and were less likely to report contemplating or attempting suicide. 

So even though the desperation at the heart of the mental health crisis is largely beyond Frederick and her colleagues鈥� control鈥攖hey can鈥檛 bring back family members who died during the pandemic, loss of parents鈥� jobs, or social confidence鈥� they are committed to making sure the young men can keep talking. To share their fears and frustrations before they either lash out and end up expelled, or worse, succumb to hopelessness.

A lot of the problems start in middle school, and this year鈥檚 12-14 year-olds are in a particular bind.

The 7th grade boys from Covington Middle School missed a critical transition year, and they鈥檝e felt it. It鈥檚 always been tempting to act tough instead of asking for help, the boys said, but the pandemic worked against them from several directions. It made them feel distant from their classmates, it deepened their anxiety and frustration, and it created a sense that the entire world was too fragile to handle whatever burdens they were carrying. 

Parents worried about jobs and health didn鈥檛 always have the bandwidth for the emotions of a kid missing their friends, or struggling with school. Friends were accessible online, but the crises in their homes often kept them from having much to offer by way of support.

鈥淔rom the pandemic, you know, we forgot how to talk to people,鈥� said Tremain Purnell, one of the kids in the Project MALES group.   

Frederick knows the reality: there鈥檚 not always a licensed counselor around when a boy is in crisis, especially for families who cannot afford a private therapist. Schools rarely have the student to counselor ratio they would need to meet the demand. Knowing that mental health resources will be hardest to access for young men of color, who disproportionately experience poverty and underfunded schools, she often connects them with Project MALES (Mentoring to Achieve Latino Educational Success), a mentoring program primarily for Black and Latino young men.

The group setting makes it seem normal to talk about tough feelings. It gives them language to describe their struggles. And when the boys are done with their stint at the alternative center, usually just a couple of weeks, there鈥檚 likely already a Project MALES group on their home campus where they can continue getting that support. 

Serving around 200 boys on 13 Austin campuses, Project MALES is preventative as much as it is responsive. The mentors want to help as many boys as possible before something happens that would land them in alternative school, disrupting their academic progress. They do that by helping them understand the social and emotional challenges at the heart of their behavior. 

After two years of pandemic pressure kids need someone to talk to about challenging emotions more than ever. But it鈥檚 not easy to tell people how you feel, admitted Jordan Kennedy, a seventh grader at Covington Middle School in Austin. Vulnerability and seeking support can be the opposite of the tough, unaffected personas young men are trying to project.

鈥嬧�嬧�淚t鈥檚 honestly kind of hard, and sometimes we try to hide our feelings,鈥� Kennedy said. Though he says he鈥檚 naturally pretty outgoing and jovial, 鈥渢here is a kind of pressure, I鈥檓 not gonna lie. 2020 and 2021 has been a lot.鈥�

It鈥檚 different when he goes to Project MALES. There Kennedy and seven other boys gather to talk through the ups and downs of their week, and practice both asking for and offering support to each other. Their mentor, a student at the University of Texas, offers support based on over a decade of research on improving academic and life outcomes for Black and Latinx young men.

鈥淲e want to provide space and opportunity for men to have these conversations they may not be able to have anywhere else,鈥� said Emmet Campos, the director of Project MALES and the Texas Education Consortium for Male Students of Color. Sessions often start with the boys sharing their 鈥渉appies and crappies鈥� from the week, he said, and using those experiences to work on social and emotional skills. These 鈥減ower skills鈥� have always been necessary, he said, but the pandemic made it even more so. Whatever challenges they had were exacerbated by isolation. 

But staying connected over Zoom was almost impossible, the boys at Covington said, especially as they started middle school with a bunch of kids they had not met before. 

鈥淚 would barely talk. I don鈥檛 really like to talk over computers,鈥� Purnell said. 

 Most kids, sick of online learning, weren鈥檛 as engaged with online mentoring, Campos said. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 replace the in person engagement for young men鈥� 

A year online didn鈥檛 give them much to build on when they came back this year, either. 

鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 be able to know people over the computer, because I might not know what they looked like,鈥� Kennedy said. Since they鈥檝e been back,鈥渢here has been some kind of awkwardness.鈥� 

The Project MALES group has helped ease that awkwardness, especially for the members who were the most uncomfortable coming back, he said. 鈥淲hen I joined the group there were more people to talk to, more team work things, more collaboration.鈥�

It鈥檚 also a place where talking about your feelings isn鈥檛 just allowed, but encouraged and modeled by the mentor, Purnell said. It makes it easy to follow suit. 鈥淚f someone鈥檚 feeling down, you can ask them 鈥榳hat鈥檚 up, how you doing?鈥欌��

It feels natural and casual, but the Project MALES mentorship is heavily intentional. Housed in the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, the mentorship is one pillar of a larger intercollegiate initiative to study the experiences of young men of color in educational settings. As they researched outcomes, particularly for Latinx males, Campos said, the founders of the initiative saw the value in mentorship, and decided to put their research into practice accordingly.

鈥淢entoring is a powerful intervention strategy,鈥� Campos said, 鈥淓verybody can point to a mentor in their life that has made a difference.鈥� 

The Project MALES staff is made up of paid doctoral students and undergraduate volunteers who receive stipends and take a two-semester class to prepare them to mentor the middle school and high school boys. The mentorship is aligned with Austin Independent School District鈥檚 social and emotional learning curriculum, and uses what Campos calls 鈥渃ritical mentoring鈥� and restorative justice. The boys chosen to be in the program are often those who need a mid-level behavioral intervention, Campos explained. Instead of punishment, a has allowed Austin ISD to expand its restorative justice efforts with programs like Project MALES. 

For those students who do end up at the Alternative Learning Center after an expulsion, Austin ISD has not given up restorative and therapeutic discipline, said Frederick. 

Having groups like Project MALES on the campus at ALC allows the licensed professional counselors to focus on individual needs, she said. For some kids this will be their first and last access to professional mental health services. 鈥淭here鈥檚 definitely a shortage of therapists in Austin.鈥� 

Many would benefit from more focused therapy, but a lot can be done if those students are willing to talk to a caring adult and peers about their feelings. 鈥淚f I can just show you that it鈥檚 okay to talk about your feelings,鈥� Frederick said, she can connect them with support, often Project MALES or Communities in Schools, on their home campus.

Given the prevalence of the crisis, she added, every school would benefit from a full time presence to be there when the need arises, whether that鈥檚 school staff, mentors, or nonprofit case managers from Communities in Schools. A scheduled check in with a counselor or mentor is great, she said, but kids can鈥檛 always schedule their crises around adults鈥� availability. The biggest impact will be in the moment, she said. 鈥淭he real work happens when they slam the door and walk out of class.鈥�

If you are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.