WHITE SWAN -- Depressed by her parents' separation and an illness that kept her from competing in track, the 17-year-old did what a disturbing number of high school students do: She turned to alcohol.

"I felt alone," said Misty, a pseudonym used here after school officials asked she not be identified. "Alcohol took the pain away."

The high school junior's life mirrored many in this isolated rural community on the Yakama reservation, where poverty and a lack of resources are further complicated by drug and alcohol abuse.

But Misty attends school in the Mt. Adams School District, where readily available intervention and prevention programs have helped her and other students.

Now, however, a significant share of the state and federal funding that pays for similar programs in virtually every school in the Yakima Valley is ending.

Statewide, 522 individual schools offer substance abuse programs credited with helping more than 18,180 students last school year, according to state officials.

This school year, state and federal grants have provided roughly $8 million statewide for these services. But more than half that funding will disappear when the new school year starts next fall.

Federal budget cuts account for a $3.8 million reduction for substance abuse treatment and prevention in schools statewide. And the state Legislature cut another $970,000 as it grappled with a two-year budget last year.

Still other federal grants that aren't expected to be renewed now pay for substance abuse counselors and prevention efforts in both the Mt. Adams and Naches school districts.

"I think everybody is going to feel the impact, whether you're at the local, county or state level," said David Dickinson, director of the Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery of the state Department of Social and Health Services in Olympia.

His office oversees funding for substance abuse services in schools and across the state.

"It's a worthwhile investment, but we're having trouble committing to it."

The funding, which finances a variety of intervention and prevention efforts, has had a clearly measurable result.

Gathered around a table at White Swan High School recently, Misty along with two friends explained how the substance abuse programs are helping her stay away from drinking.

"At first, it was really hard," she said about getting sober. "Last year I was pretty down and wanted to end my life."

Instead, she reached out to friends in school-sponsored recovery programs, 18-year-old Tina and 17-year-old Chrissy, also pseudonyms.

Sobriety can be a challenge in a rural area where the school district loses about half its students before they graduate due to various reasons, including drug and alcohol use.

"This is Swan, there's nothing to do," said Tina.

But a five-year, $552,000 federal grant aimed to change that. It paid for intervention and prevention programs and led to significant declines in drinking among middle school students.

"We have an opportunity to actually prevent ourselves from doing drugs and alcohol," said Chrissy, a senior. "We actually have someone on campus."

The district got the grant after the 2004 state Healthy Youth Survey revealed that 23 percent of eighth-graders admitted to using alcohol within the previous 30 days. Since utilizing the grant, that number has declined to 10 percent, according recent survey results.

About 45 miles to the north, a similar grant at the Naches School District produced similar results.

Those grants paid for drug and alcohol counselors to do intervention and prevention work, staff to hold monthly public meetings to engage the community, and student-led groups and activities promoting drug- and alcohol-free lifestyles.

In Harrah, the grant also paid a drug and alcohol counselor to work with elementary students affected by alcohol and drug use.

Now, those grants are due to expire without renewal.

Both Mt. Adams and Naches school districts will lose drug and alcohol counselors next school year and coordinators that worked with community groups on awareness and prevention.

White Swan High School Principal Jason Nelson worries about losing the counselor in Harrah, who also works with students at the neighboring middle school.

"She sees about 50 kids," he said. "What's going to happen to those 50? I'd hate to lose her."

Funding substance abuse programs in schools in Yakima County long has been a struggle, said Dave Wilson, executive director of Merit Resources, a private nonprofit agency that provides such programs to nine school districts in the Valley.

The total cost to schools in the Valley this year is about $640,000, of which $281,000 his agency will subsidize, he said.

"We can't maintain it," he said. "Schools, they're all struggling to figure out how to deal with this."

Meanwhile, educators fear that losing services will cause more students struggling with substance abuse to be expelled or to drop out.

Often a student in trouble at school for substance abuse needs on-campus support to comply with treatment and to avoid suspension or expulsion, said Cathy Kelley, student assistance coordinator at the Educational Service District 105 in Yakima.

"The athlete that gets in trouble for drinking too much at a party but has support from family will generally follow through with recommendations -- we know that," she said. "But the kid that doesn't have support from family, they're probably not going to follow through with it. Those are the kids we're worried about."

* Phil Ferolito can be reached at 509-577-7749 or pferolito@yakimaherald.com.