Breweries Finance Efforts to Prevent Alcohol Abuse : Teen-agers: Beer industry programs seek to turn away underage drinkers and help children understand alcoholism.

A teen-age baby-sitter promised a ride home by her employers finds herself in a quandary when they show up reeking of alcohol.

Should she accept the ride or call a taxi?

An award-winning program called Alcohol, Drinking, Driving and You helps teen-agers work out the solution for themselves.

Paid for in part by the Adolph Coors Co., ADDY is an example of how the nation’s breweries are involved in efforts to prevent teen-age alcohol abuse.

“We are working in concert with our competitors in this area,” said Bart Alexander, manager of alcohol issues at the Golden-based Coors. “This is one area where we don’t compete with each other.”

Jeffrey Hon, a spokesman for the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, was skeptical of the beer industry’s motives, saying sponsorship of such programs is often a public relations gesture.

Breweries have donated more than $200 million to alcohol abuse prevention over the past decade, supporting everything from public service announcements to in-depth programs, said Jeff Becker of the Beer Institute, a trade group based in Washington.

The National Beer Wholesalers Assn. is working with a former executive of Mothers Against Drunk Driving to fight illegal teen-age drinking, he said. Another program, Beginning Alcohol and Addictions Basic Education Studies, helps children understand alcoholism.

No studies have been done to determine if brewery-sponsored programs work, though National Institute on Drug Abuse statistics indicate that teen-age drinking has dropped. The figures show 40.3% of teen-agers surveyed in 1991 had used alcohol in the past year, compared to 44.5% in 1988.

Teen-age drinkers also are the target of proposed legislation introduced by Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) and Rep. Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.). The measure would require ads for alcohol to include warnings saying that alcohol can be addictive and hazardous when taken with other drugs, and that it is against the law to purchase alcohol for people under 21.

Alexia Spaedt, 16, took part in the ADDY program at Highland High School in the town of Ault. She said the lessons she learned were better because they didn’t come from “an authority figure.”

Her friend Hillary Hoover said the program was good, but some students who drink “made fun of it.”

Founded nearly a decade ago, ADDY has been recognized by the National Safety Council, said Bob D’Alessandro, director of the Boulder-based Prevention Center, a nonprofit group that specializes in substance-abuse prevention.

John Zola, a Boulder teacher who helped create the program, said ADDY recognizes that decisions about drinking can be difficult.