RANCHO PENASQUITOS -- A town hall meeting on underage alcohol use held Monday night at a local hotel urged parents and other community members to "Start Talking Before They Start Drinking" as a key strategy in preventing kids from using alcohol.

"Speak with your kids as early as possible, not just when they are teens but earlier on," said Chris Volkmann, 58, a parent whose son, Toran, started drinking at age 14 and became an alcoholic. Toran Volkmann also spoke at Monday's forum.

The event at the Doubletree Hotel was one of roughly 1,200 meetings being held across the country this spring to curb underage drinking before it starts.

The nationwide campaign is sponsored by the Federal Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking and chaired by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Monday's meeting, organized by the Poway Unified School District and the Safety Wellness Advocacy Community Coalition, drew about 50 parents, educators and community members.

According to the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, roughly 10.8 million -- or 28.7 percent -- of those ages 12 to 20 reported using alcohol.

Of these underage drinkers, 4.4 million were 12 to 17 years old, the survey showed.

The 2005 California Healthy Kids Survey showed that in the Poway Unified School District, alcohol abuse is down among younger students, but up among the district's older students.

The survey, administered by the California Department of Education, showed that overall alcohol consumption is down by 2 percent for fifth-, seventh-, and ninth-graders but up by 9 percent for 11th-graders. Binge drinking is down by 1 percent for seventh-graders and 5 percent for ninth-graders, and up by 4 percent for 11th-graders.

Experts say parents of teens generally underestimate the extent of alcohol use and its negative consequences and sometime view underage drinking as "inevitable."

Chris Volkmann said Monday night that she was one of those parents when her son, Toran, now 26, started drinking at 14. The mother-son duo co-authored the book "Our Drink: Detoxing the Perfect Family" about what alcohol abuse did to their lives.

After living in the dark about her son's alcoholism for nine years, Volkmann spent another two years trying to help him get sober, she said.

"Never ever give up on someone you care about," Volkmann told the audience Monday. "It's never too late to stop a bad behavior and it's never too late to start a behavior."

She said that in addition to health problems, alcohol can lead to violence, risky sexual behavior, poor academic performance, alcohol-related driving incidents and other harmful behaviors.

Alcohol is responsible for six times the number of youth deaths than can be attributed to all other drugs combined, research shows.

In addition, some studies show that teens tend to minimize the effects of drinking and have many misconceptions about alcohol use.

"It's really, really easy to be in denial and that's what I did for a while," Toran Volkmann said Monday.

"The (first) thing I wish I would have known is how alcoholism happens," he added. "It happens … progressively."

Toran Volkmann said that if he has children, he will talk openly and often about alcoholism, including his own addiction and continuing recovery.

"There's definitely no hiding what I've been through when I have kids," he said. "My kids are going to make their own decisions -- but they're going to have guidelines and know what the risks are."

Contact staff writer Adrienne A. Aguirre at (760) 740-3526 or aaguirre@nctimes.com.