I had a great opportunity to go tour and observe Life-Line's recovery center. I got to meet with many of the staff and even the director of admissions. I got to see first hand what it is Life-Line does and what they stand for. I will write what I have observed from my visit. I really like what Life-Line stands for so I will use most of this first page to tell about Life-Line itself and what they do differently! I was not paid to write this review I wrote it in hopes to help struggling parents find help for their kids!

Let me first explain a little about Life-Line. They are a recovery center to help teens who have fallen into bad habits such as substance abuse, sexual abuse, pornography addiction, suicidal tendencies, grief and loss, and many more. They follow a simple yet powerful slogan, “When Good Kids Make Bad Choices.” Their program includes eight core principles, based on evidence based research, which are:

• Family - family is involved in the child's recovery every step of the way

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 For alcoholic women there is usually one primary enabler.  This is typically a high functioning husband, a wealthy father, or a boss who spreads the work the alcoholic doesn't do among many other workers. In time these dysfunctional enablers are sucked into the alcoholism vortex because alcoholism is a disease that is progressive. It creeps into systems slowly over

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Nobody escapes paying the price for alcoholism, drug addiction, and codependency in society. Even if you are fortunate enough not to be a drinker at a level that is diseased (about 10% of our population drinks enough to hamper their daily performance) or one of the four adults who are in line daily enabling one who is (i.e., 48% of all adults over the age of 18 were either directly impacted by a diseased drinker as they grew up, or are being effected at the moment), then you are paying for the disease through higher taxes and insurance rates.

   The cost in dollars of alcoholism is almost incalculable. We have all read so many horror stories about deaths on the highway, fetal alcohol syndrome, the 88% of the incarcerated citizens who are there because they did something while under the influence, etc. that we have become numbed.

   But let's focus here on the costs to the trust and integrity within a society...something some believe is more important than even money.  Psychologists can actually measure trust within a society. Dr. Daniel Goleman, in his great books on emotional intelligence tells us that the technical term for the overall trust level in a society is its social capital.  Social capital is the sum of the goodwill and trust among the members of a society. Social capital takes in ethical values, charitable contributions, volunteerism, and such intangibles as looking out for the welfare of your neighbors, or caring for a sick friend. Interestingly enough, the three countries that have been the most successful economically on the earth (The U.S.A., Germany, and Japan) also have the highest levels of social capital.

   What is the impact of addiction on social capital? To people who attend 12-step programs such as AA, Al-Anon, Al-Atten, Nar-A-Non, or Adult Children of Alcoholics, personal honesty takes in a wide range of meaning. First, there is what everybody else calls honesty. In program parlance that is "cash register honesty." However, the sort of personal honesty involved in taking all twelve steps, or making direct amends to someone you have harmed in the past, goes well beyond what the "man on the street" calls honesty.

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As part of my continuing education as a pharmaceutical salesman covering the hospitals in a major medical center, my company had arranged for a kind of preceptor ship at a teaching hospital in downtown Chicago. I was to "shadow" a third year internal medicine resident for two solid weeks. We had three reps assigned to each resident, and that little group of four worked

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