• Treatment is crucial, yet funds slow to a trickle
• A family's love changes one woman's life
• Alternative program employs practicality
• Kittery leads way in prevention by giving youths a place to go
• 'Low-risk drinking' can prevent a small problem from getting out of hand
• Problem escalates among women; elderly learn to reach out for help
• 1997 deaths related to alcohol
• Series summary: Maine pays dearly as families are ruined by alcohol abuse

'The Deadliest Drug'' represents the work of a number of journalists at The Portland Newspapers.

Barbara Walsh

Barbara Walsh, a general assignment reporter, began researching the alcohol series in March. She was the lead writer for the overview of the series, which appeared in last Sunday's Telegram. She also researched and wrote articles on chronic OUI offenders, the impact of alcohol abuse on the criminal justice system and the efforts of the Passamaquoddy Indians to combat alcohol abuse on the Pleasant Point reservation.

Walsh has worked at The Portland Newspapers for the past two years. Her stories have included ''Michael Mason's second chance,'' which chronicled the life of an Embden teen-ager who killed his mother and 13-year-old brother in a moment of rage, then struggled to start his life over after his release from the Maine Youth Center.

A native of New Hampshire, Walsh graduated from the University of New Hamsphire with a degree in photojournalism in 1981.

From 1984 to 1989 Walsh worked at the Eagle Tribune in Lawrence, Mass. She was one of two reporters who worked on a yearlong series about Willie Horton, the convicted killer and furlough escapee whose crimes drew attention to the flawed Massachusetts prison system. Walsh won the Pulitzer Prize for that series in 1988.

Before coming to Maine, she worked at the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel for seven years, where she reported on the Florida criminal justice system.

Meredith Goad

Meredith Goad wrote about the impact of alcohol abuse on Maine's health-care system. She also looked into treatment and prevention programs and their role in curbing alcohol abuse and alcoholism.

Goad has worked for The Portland Newspapers for nine years, covering the science beat.

A native of Tennessee, she studied wildlife biology at Colorado State University. She studied science writing at the University of Missouri and received a master's degree in journalism in 1985.

As a reporter for the Chesapeake Publishing Company on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Goad covered the massive effort to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, traveling around the world to find out how other countries care for their coastal seas.

In 1988, she moved to Portland. Her science stories for the Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram have won state and national awards. She also writes the Press Herald's Science of Maine Life series, a regular feature that focuses on the natural world in Maine.

Abby Zimet

Abby Zimet profiled the role of alcohol in the life of a Maine mill town, and wrote about young people struggling with alcohol.

Zimet grew up in Toronto, Canada, and moved to Maine in 1971 after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in New York. She lived for several years in Solon, where she did woodswork and wrote a column for the Bangor Daily News.

She came to Portland in 1983 as a feature writer for the Maine Sunday Telegram. Since then, she has worked as both a columnist and feature writer. Her stories have won numerous state and regional awards.

Julia McCue, library assistant, for this series did extensive research on the involvement of alcohol in Maine crimes and the role of alcohol in motor-vehicle accidents, suicides and accidental deaths.

McCue has worked in the library of The Portland Newspapers since 1995. Before joining the paper she was a freelance writer and editor and worked for Congressional Quarterly as a researcher, writer and seminar manager.

David A. Rodgers

David A. Rodgers was the photographer for this series.

Rodgers has been a photographer at The Portland Newspapers since 1988. He previously worked for the Rocky Mountain News and the Boston Globe.

Rodgers won third place in the National Press Photographers' Association's international pictures of the year contest this year for his work on the newspapers' Island Odyssey series, which ran in the summer of 1996. Rodgers also has won numerous regional and state photography awards.

This year, the Maine Press Association honored Rodgers with eight awards, including four first-place awards, in the annual Better Newspaper Contest.

Rodgers tied for second place in the NPPA's 1996 New England Photographer of the Year competition.

The editor for this series was Tom Ferriter, assistant managing editor/special projects for The Portland Newspapers.

Ferriter has worked for the newspapers since 1984. In recent years he has edited the newspapers' series on trucking safety, welfare reform and the widening gap between the rich and poor in Maine.

Rick Wakely, graphics editor for The Portland Newspapers, designed the pages for the series and directed the production of informational graphics. Wakely worked at papers in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia before joining The Portland Newspapers in 1988. He has won state, regional and national recognition for design and graphics.

Brian Robitaille, copy editor, helped edit, design and lay out the series. Robitaille, a resident of Yarmouth and a 1985 graduate of the University of Maine, previously worked for the Lewiston Sun-Journal. He has been employed at The Portland Newspapers since May 1994.

Pat Washburn, online copy editor/producer, created the online version of the series with help from Lori Haugen, online copy editor/producer, and Kathy Jungjohann, designer.