Editor’s Note: This column is a response to the column by Joe Sutton-Holcomb that ran in last week’s Beachcomber.

Dear Joe — and all you other wonderful teenagers on Vashon:

First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to articulate all that you have written about adolescent drug and alcohol use on the Island. It’s a prevailing attitude that needed to be addressed in public.

Noodling around the Internet trying to find a poem by Ann Kiemel Anderson called “I Love the Word Impossible,” I found this quote:

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by (people) who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. It’s a dare.” (Ahmar)

For more than 10 years now I’ve had an impossible dream. I’ve had this vision of the day the news reporter comes to the Island to find out why our particular culture has half the recreational drug and alcohol use stats of other rural communities.

You see, Joe, what they haven’t told you is that it’s not just our community. Rural communities tend to have higher than average use.

I’ve dreamed of the day that all the efforts of the adults and the desires of the teenagers have combined to bring the statistics down.

You’re right. Most of the use is the benign, “I’m bored” and there’s nothing else to do, or “I’ve just accomplished something really great” (like a sports victory or a music or theater production) and I need to unwind and celebrate (do we call that Phelpsing now?). In many ways, the youth population mimics the adult population.

Here’s the sorrow in that. You, and I mean all teenagers on Vashon, are an immensely talented and privileged group of kids. Smart people gravitate to the Island, and they have smart kids. Wealthy people gravitate to the Island, and they have kids that have so much access to resources that with our higher than average use statistic we have virtually no crime. Few, if any, of the kids on the Island have to steal to get drugs or alcohol. They may have to take their parents’ stuff or some friends parents’, but nobody’s knocking over the liquor store or Mom’s or the Chevron. They don’t have to.

Here’s where I believe you are wrong. Drinking and drugging during adolescence are neither necessary nor inevitable.

And here’s the hard cold fact. It is not the job of any adult to provide entertainment or engaging activities for teenagers on the Island. It’s our job to support the interests and gifts and talents of our older teenagers and connect them with ways to live their dreams and explore their possibilities. Adults are not a Wii handset.

Joe, it is the greatest privilege of any adult to blow air under the wings of a teenager. Never in your life will you again have the freedom to explore who you are in terms of your gifts and abilities.

Take advantage of it. Your responsibilities are limited. It’s all about you. Don’t waste in downing a bottle of beer or rolling your own. THAT’s boring.

Everyone, every adult has to learn how to let down and relax in healthy ways. Every adult is in charge of their own boredom levels. It’s behavior you’re going to have to learn. You might as well start now.

Yes, hormones that won’t settle down for a while and a brain that is still developing will be a hindrance for all of you, in a way. But what you call impossible is really the healthiest, most self-nurturing path you can take.

Do you need to rebel? We all do at times. Shape that rebellion creatively. Think of something no one has ever done before. Then do it.

You are a gifted writer. It’s never too early to start the next Great American Novel.

Want to be with friends? Scattergories, my friend. Beat them at Scattergories. Boring? Reshape the definition.

Sure, the adults set a bad example sometimes. No excuse. Choose sober anyway. There are now dozens of adults who are committed to learning how to raise children so they choose that. Some are lobbying that no education-based fundraiser would serve alcohol.

See, the bottom line is that at the end of that time of hanging out, when you all get quietly drunk and because it didn’t seem like that big of a deal and you don’t feel that impaired, you get into your car and quietly become another kind of statistic.

Drinking has a rollover effect (pun intended) and then somebody doesn’t get to live their dream.

Here’s a statistic. No teenager on Vashon ever walked away from a drunk driving accident without being hurt or watching a friend die.

We can do it. We can do the impossible. That’s a fact.

— Deborah Anderson is a family care specialist who created the parent abstinence program “I’ll Walk With You.” Her parenting blog is at www.onewiththerootbeer.com.