Jessica Garrison
Seven times a day, Alexis* slipped a Ritalin tablet out of her pill
box and into the palm of her perfectly manicured hand.
Usually, she crushed the little white pill, and then sniffed the
powder up her nose using a rolled $100 bill kept unspent in her wallet
for just that purpose.
Other times, she tucked the powder into the soft little crevice
between her thumb and index finger and ran her nose across her hand.
She did this every three hours. Every day. For 14 months.
The method of getting the drug into her body wasn't important.
The point was, she had to have it.
It kept her thin.
She lost 20 pounds. She lost her period. She lost the ability to
distinguish between a craving for food and a craving for speed.
She kept snorting.
She got to the point were it was impossible to get up in the morning
without the drug. She wondered whether she was addicted, but she quickly
pushed those thoughts aside because she had become even more hooked on
the constant stream of envious praise from all the girls at school: "Oh
my gosh, you are so thin."
She kept snorting.
She wound up so sick she couldn't get out of bed, and her secret came
out.
It's a secret shared by a lot of students at Corona del Mar High
School -- though few go to the extremes Alexis has. According to an
informal student survey, half the girls in the class of '99 said they had
sampled the drug.
"There have been cases," said Corona del Mar High School Principal Don
Martin. "But I would doubt very seriously that even 25% of the girls have
abused Ritalin. I think that's extremely high, based on the number of
cases that I know of and doing a kind of multiplier effect of how many I
don't know about."
'I must have paid him $500. ... We'd be pulling up at his house behind
each other, crying and saying, "Please get some for us." '
But Ritalin, commonly prescribed to treat attention deficit disorder,
is merely the newest technique girls at Corona del Mar use to keep
themselves thin.
At least eight students were hospitalized last year because of Ritalin
abuse or anorexia, said Corona del Mar student Chelsea Hover, a senior
who works on the Trident school newspaper and did a special report on the
Ritalin phenomenon last May.
The problem of eating disorders has been an open secret on campus for
years. The school has developed a reputation, within the Newport-Mesa
school district, and beyond, as the eating disorder capital of the
county.
"It's a stereotype of our school," Chelsea said.
