Teen Challenge Southeast Helps Men, Women, and Teens Struggling With Life-Controlling Issues

Teen Challenge Southeast offers twenty-one locations in six states for adults and teenagers.  Our six adolescent programs — three for boys and 3 for girls — are full-time boarding schools for ages 12-17 that are specifically designed to help improve the behavior and academics of troubled teenagers.  Our fifteen adult residential programs for men and women are long-term alternatives to addiction treatment.  All programs are year-round and last from 12-15 months.  We also offer outpatient addiction and life recovery counseling through our Hope Counseling service.

For over 60 years, Teen Challenge has pioneered ridding individuals of life-controlling issues, behaviors, and harmful addictions.  While our adolescent therapeutic boarding school programs help troubled teenagers deal with inappropriate behavior, lack of motivation, or failing academics, our single-gender adult addiction treatment programs are wholly focused on long-term recovery from addictions that are destroying the individual’s life and future. 

For all individuals who enroll in Teen Challenge Southeast, we work on their underlying needs and issues, rebuilding them from the inside out.  They learn to “own” their mistakes, solve them, and not repeat them. Addiction and bad behavior always start as a way for the individual to fill a void in their life that only God can fill, so a strong relationship with the Lord is foundational to our entire program. We construct this foundation by teaching our residents the truth of the Word of God, mentoring them, and placing them in an environment where they can bond with the other growing disciples. Along with the mentoring and counseling of our experienced staff (many who once had similar issues themselves), the more advanced residents in the program are also a critical force in showing the way to the newer residents who arrive.  These individuals who have been in the program for months naturally mentor and lift up the newer residents, and in doing so, it strengthens their own resolve. 

For adults in our low-cost rehab programs, we unwrap the layers of addition, and these steps cannot be rushed.  Right thinking cannot even begin to develop until all of the drugs are entirely out of the individual’s system, and depending on the substance, that can take a few weeks or even many months.  Typical high-cost, short-term rehabs are quite convincing that they can solve additions in a much shorter period of time. But we often hear of their failure, such as celebrities attending one quick rehab after another and never solving their addiction.  That is because life issues and physical dependence must be dealt with, and new habits must be formed, and all of that takes time.  Short-term “revolving door” programs must be attended, again and again, temporarily stopping the substance abuse, but never solving the core problems leading to the addiction.  They can cost tens of tens of thousands of dollars each time. 

Taking a year away from family and work to attend a Teen Challenge Southeast drug and alcohol recovery program can be difficult, but it is often necessary for lifelong sobriety. Teen Challenge Southeast is one of few programs that will dedicate so much time working with each individual adolescent or adult.  Each resident is a big financial commitment for us, but recovery doesn’t happen quickly.  We focus our efforts on permanent addiction recovery, no matter how long it takes.  We keep the fees for the individual or their family to a minimum, seeking much of our operational funding from donations from the community.   

The Teen Challenge Southeast counseling, community, and faith emphasis over an extended period of time bring the individuals in our programs out of their behavioral issues, or drug or alcohol impacted thinking into an awareness of their place in the universe.  They discover God’s purpose for their life and an entirely new way of thinking and living.  

That’s why the support of the community is vital to the Teen Challenge Southeast program — it gives us the time needed to work with each individual to totally transform their life, for good.  Over a period of one year, the once self-destructive and self-indulgent individual turns into a godly person overflowing with care for others, honesty, peace, happiness, and excitement for the future.