WESTBROOK – This week, most of Westbrook High’s seniors are no doubt looking to Friday night’s commencement ceremonies as a celebration of accomplishment – the completion of 12 years of schooling, becoming young adults, and making plans for the future.

That’s all true for Christopher Bowden, too, but for this 18-year-old, graduation holds even more meaning. Four years ago, he drank and smoked marijuana on a regular basis. He was beginning to run afoul of the law, his grades were poor and college was a distant glimmer on the horizon at best.

“I was going to go nowhere with what I was doing,” he said Monday.

Bowden will instead be among the 159 seniors graduating at that celebration, at 6 p.m. Friday at Merrill Auditorium. The ceremony will feature addresses from Interim School Superintendent Marc Gousse, valedictorian Ayantu T. Regassa, salutatorian Tate Herbert, and honor essayist Kathryn Violette. School Committee Vice-Chairwoman Suzanne Salisbury will speak on behalf of the committee.

For Bowden, being on stage will be proof that he has has turned away from a dark path in his life.

“There was no way that was happening two years ago,” said Kathy Bailey, a guidance counselor at the high school who remembers Bowden’s troubled past, and witnessed his growth and change.

This week, Bowden sat on the back porch of his Brackett Street home with his parents, Phil and Patty Bowden, and talked frankly of just how bad things got – and how his remarkable turnaround now includes college instead of juvenile hall.

Bowden’s future wasn’t always in question. As a child, he did well in school, played football, ran track, and had an overall positive outlook on life. He had a close bond with three other friends, too, who had equally positive lives.

“We were just normal kids,” he said.

Like all kids, though, he and his friends were lured by the temptations of alcohol, in this case late in the middle school years.

“I knew a couple of older kids who’d done it,” he said. “They said, ‘You’re going to try it eventually, why not now?’”

And so, Bowden and his friends did. It started with a trip by all four of them, on their bikes, into the woods behind the former junior high school. Bowden doesn’t even remember where they got the half-empty bottle of vodka they brought with them, but he remembers that was the day it started. More trips into the woods followed, with more vodka, soon followed by beer, and eventually marijuana.

“I didn’t do it to fit in,” he recalled. “I did it because it felt good.”

But like most substance abusers, Bowden was unable to drink or smoke without anyone noticing at all. Phil Bowden said he didn’t know exactly what his son was doing, but he suspected something was wrong. His son’s interest in sports and school waned, but above all, he said, he noticed the change in attitude.

“He got kind of angry,” he said.

It was the typical kids’ trick: All the friends told their parents they were sleeping over at another friend’s house, and since none of the parents bothered to check, trips to the woods became trips to house parties for more drinking and drugs.

That all changed in July 2008, just two months before Bowden was to start his sophomore year. Once again, he and his friends had fooled their parents and gone to a house party, this one just up the street from where Bowden lived.

But this time, the police showed up. Crowds of underaged kids ran in all directions. Many escaped, but Bowden was in the basement, and was caught.

He wasn’t arrested that night; he was issued a court summons. What made the night worse than all that, he said, was that the police had to call his parents to pick him up.

“I (thought) wow, I definitely screwed up this time,” he said.

Patty Bowden answered the phone at 12:30 at night, and at first, like any concerned parent, thought her son was hurt.

“Of course, you immediately think he’s been in an accident,” she said.

That night, she was so disgusted she declined to speak to him while she drove him home, which taught Bowden an important lesson: It’s far worse for your parents to be disappointed in you than angry.

“It’s a horrible feeling,” he said.

For Bowden’s parents, they said, the incident was a clear sign that everything they suspected, but didn’t want to believe, was true.

“It just verifies everything that you hope you’re misreading,” Patty Bowden said.

Phil Bowden said what had made it harder to believe was that his son was drinking with friends he’d known for years, friends who had been in the Bowden home, speaking with respect to adults, and by all appearances, being “good” kids.

“They weren’t the kind of kids that hang around on the corner,” he said.

Bowden did go to court for the drinking and a subsequent marijuana charge, for which he got a single sentence: 70 hours of community service, working at the Warren Avenue Salvation Army.

“We didn’t want (him) to pay a fine,” his father said. “We wanted him to work it off.”

Patty Bowden said the court experience seemed to frighten her son into thinking more clearly. She remembered the look on his face when he came out after getting his sentence.

“He said to me, ‘Jeez, I really screwed up,’ and I think he started to cry,” she said. “That’s when I thought he finally got it. He wasn’t just angry.”

He didn’t quit drinking cold turkey. It became a weekend thing for him, he said, then maybe once every few months, until he didn’t do it at all. A large part of the reason, he said, was because his parents made it harder on him, checking with his friends’ parents when he said he was going out. They also gave him a cell phone, so they could call to check up on him at any time.

But Bowden also credited the support of the school system in keeping him straight. He met regularly with Bruce Dyer, one of the guidance counselors, who talked to him, he said, like “just a friend,” not a patronizing adult.

He also joined the track team, which, he said, helped to straighten him out. His teammates, he said, looked at drinking and drugs as “childish,” and gave him a sense of belonging and obligation.

“I felt like I had a responsibility, because I couldn’t let these guys down,” Bowden said.

Today, Bowden is not a straight-A student, but he gets Bs, Cs, and some As. His grades have been good enough that he has been accepted to the University of Maine at Presque Isle, to study physical education. He even won a $2,000 scholarship from New England Technical College after he participated in a two-year college prep program.

And the track team? He’s been captain since his junior year.

“It’s a great feeling,” he said.

Interim School Superintendent Marc Gousse, who was principal at the high school for the past 10 years, said he knew Bowden well, in good times and bad.

“I think there’s an example of a person who took the support, the feedback around him and ran with it, literally and figuratively,” Gousse said.

Bailey, the counselor at the high school, said she has also watched Bowden grow and change for the better.

“It’s tear-jerking,” she said. “It’s an inspiring story. It’s why I do my job.”

Patty Bowden said she will always worry about her son, like any good mother.

“Every time he leaves the house, I still think, ‘I hope he’s being good,’” she said.

She said any parents who suspect their children may be into drinking or drugs have to maintain communication.

“Just talk to them,” she said. “Keep talking to them, no matter what.”

The Bowdens are still talking, something Chris Bowden said he is grateful for.

“They never gave up on me,” he said.

This Friday, Bowden will not be at a house party, or hanging out in the woods. He will be at Merrill Auditorium in Portland, accepting the diploma he earned, and preparing for a positive future. As for what his parents think of that, they both only have broad smiles and two words:

“Very proud,” they said.

Christopher Bowden, 18, went through some difficult times en route to graduation, but has turned things around and is heading to college in the fall. He and his 158 classmates will receive diplomas Friday night at Merrill Auditorium in Portland. (Staff photo by Sean Murphy)