I'm Joe ... I'm 19 ... I live in the Cranberry area ... and I'm a drug addict. I'm in recovery right now. I'm two years clean."

Joe's clipped sentences made his words seem dispassionate, but the power behind them became stronger when the subject turned to Sunday. It was the official two-year anniversary of his hard-earned sobriety and on Friday he was looking forward to it.

"It's a powerful accomplishment, and I'm proud of myself, and I have people who are proud of me," he said.

He also has a full courseload at Butler County Community College, a job delivering pizza and a volunteer gig at Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Aliquippa, where he got clean, helping other addicted teens try to break free of their drug habits.

Some of them manage to do so, and Joe allows himself to take some credit.

"I see them afterward, and it makes me feel good," he said.

This is the second time the Post-Gazette has written about Joe and his victory over addiction. The first time was in late June 2008, when he was nine-months clean after becoming the second graduate of Gateway's Liberty Station, the state's first halfway house for male teenage drug and/or alcohol abusers.

A user of "everything," but mostly prescription drugs, from the age of 14, Joe had tried one-on-one therapy without success. He did no better in tenures at Shuman Juvenile Detention Center, a West Deer rehab center called Ridgeview, and a private organization known as The Academy.

Then came Gateway's YES Program for teens, the one at which Joe volunteers now. Four months later he went to Liberty Station, where he stayed three months and one week.

Fourteen-plus months later he's a different person. He's lost some of his shyness and about 30 pounds.

"You go off drugs, you start eating right, you get fat," Joe said of the excess poundage he has shed.

He's also learned to be a good student.

"I was getting A's, B's and C's, but I wasn't trying my hardest," he said. "But now I am."

He hasn't decided on a major or a career, a fact that clearly bothers him. "I'm terrified to commit," he said. "I've thought about getting into the education field. Both my parents are teachers."

But Joe can be too hard on himself.

Dr. John Massella, regional program director for Gateway, said it's more difficult for a 17- or 18-year-old teenager to beat a drug addiction because he or she is still learning how to interact with others as well as how to cope.

"The level of social pressure associated on teens trying to make a change in drug and alcohol use is much greater than with an older population, and usage and abusage ... is almost revered as an adolescent."

That social pressure still preys on Joe. Asked what is the hardest part of staying clean, he said:

"The whole party [scene] can be appealing at times," he said. "I guess that's like the toughest part. That's what I think about the most when it comes to that kind of stuff. ...

"Everybody my age is going to parties."

But he has found an alternative social life to those destructive parties.

"I have friends who don't drink, who don't do drugs," he said. "We play cards, see movies, hang out."

And, in the meantime, he has been able to identify for him what is the best part of being drug-free:

"I guess it's being a good friend, a good brother, a good son, being a productive member of society."