We believe that recovery is possible through the introduction of new thoughts and healthy, honest relationships.
Separating troubled teens from the erroneous thinking and harmful relationships that have gotten them into trouble is essential to recovery, and is why many parents choose an entirely new environment for them—often a therapeutic boarding school—hoping to replace their destructive thoughts, relationships and behaviors with healthy new ones.
That replacement process begins here almost immediately as new students encounter peers who are going through the same crises. The culture of the campus is one of mutual support and accountability, making the friendships fostered and built here physically and emotionally healthy—the opposite of the co-dependent, enabling relationships so many students had at home.
The honest relationships essential for recovery are also built here. Students discover the value of opening up emotionally and develop respect and empathy for one another in sharing laughter, tears and struggles. They also learn that real friends can disagree on certain things and still be friends—that conflict is inevitable in honest relationships, and that when we sacrifice honesty or personal integrity to avoid conflicts or disagreements, we give away the best of what we bring to our relationships: our real selves.
The new thinking that is essential to recovery and which also takes place in this therapeutic environment, is as much about the thought process itself as it is about substances. Students learn to pay attention to what they’re paying attention to! The mind is fertile soil, and whatever they plant there will grow. Thoughts of “God” or “Higher Power” or “Love” are going to produce a different reality than thoughts of “heroin” or “crack” or “whiskey.” Recovery is also about acting on those new thoughts. Students learn that the past is still the past, and focusing on it won’t change that. Or them. But focusing and acting on their good thoughts—their “winning thoughts”—can change them, bringing good into their life and the lives of others where they once brought nothing but pain.