First, yes - they will help your kid get off drugs/alcohol. However, they will exchange one addiction for another, and that's an addiction to the group, and the false dichotomy that your kid either stays in this group or will die. School and work are heavily discouraged for YEARS. Kids are separated from their families, and there is limited interaction - no family therapy, no trained psychologists on staff to deal with the root causes of your child's problems. No skills are taught to help these kids deal with the real world. They are, in fact, isolated as much from the real world as possible, including their own families who they are taught are ""toxic"" and hindering their treatment. Kids are taught to play ""the parent game"" where they're nice to you and tell you they love you, but you'll only see them when they need money for the fun-filled events. Your child's problems will be exaggerated by staff to get you to buy into the program and commit your money - and LOTS of it.
If you have a death in the family, or an important family event - no matter how ""sober"" the occasion and people may be - your child will probably not be allowed to attend, or if so, only for a few hours, and probably accompanied by an approved person in the program. Your visits with your child will be very time-limited, if you get to see him/her alone at all, and will feel very much like court-ordered supervised visitation. They wish to control every aspect of the parent-child interaction.
There are better programs, and there is NO evidence whatsoever that years and years (many times, it's upwards of 4 with no job or school or any focus apart from the program) of this isolation treatment have any positive effect on addiction remission over other treatments. Just do a web search on the founder, Bob Meehan - you'll find numerous videos of the man, and numerous Bob Meehan cult refugees sharing their stories of how they were damaged by this cultish program. I feel sorry for how ILstudent was treated, and hope that he/she recovers from the program's effects.
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