Just over half of the participating youths were males, and the majority were Caucasian. Participants were equally distributed among the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. Over half of participants had tried alcohol sometime in their lives, and nearly one-third drank alcohol during the last year prior to the study. An abbreviated version of the Youth Alcohol and Drug Survey was used to collect data on alcohol and drug consumption. The intervention involved a telephone discussion on why and how adolescents should avoid alcohol use. At 6-month post-test, fewer suburban intervention youths intended to use alcohol during the next 6 months and fewer rural intervention youths used alcohol during the past 30 days, compared to control youth. When suburban and rural school samples were collapsed, intervention youths had significantly lower alcohol use on three of four measures than control subjects. 13 references and 2 tables