Assertive/leveling communication and empathy in adolescent drug abuse prevention.

This paper presents the feelings reported by 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th graders when role playing situations in which they wanted to say "no" to alcohol/drugs or to talk to a friend who was "using." These role plays were part of SAY IT STRAIGHT (SIS) training, which was described in the preceding paper. Youngsters described themselves as feeling good and having high self-respect/esteem only when they said "no" in an assertive/leveling way. Only youngsters toward whom an assertive/leveling "no" was addressed described themselves as surprised/shocked and respectful of the person who was saying "no." Finally, youngsters reported that the most effective way to convince a friend to quit "using" and/or get help was to express caring and friendship, and to touch the friend rather than being aggressive/blaming, irrelevant or super-reasonable. This feedback from youngsters opens conceptual issues relevant to some assertiveness training and drug abuse prevention programs.