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Abstract
The project is a comparative evaluation of the Christian drug treatment program Teen Challenge. The history and procedure of Teen Challenge is described, and its moral understanding of addiction is contrasted with the disease model of addiction found in other programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). In order to assess the effectiveness of Teen Challenge according to several outcome measures, a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design is employed using self-report telephone interview data. Outcomes considered are freedom from addictive substances, return to treatment, employment, and precipitants of drug use such as depression and cravings. The control group is composed of clients in short-term inpatient (STI) programs who are funded by Medicare or Medicaid. Post hoc matching, multiple regression, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) are statistical techniques used for control in comparing the Teen Challenge group: with the STI group, and with the subset of the STI group who went on to attend AA (the STI/AA group).
The starkest program outcomes to emerge from the comparison were employment and return to treatment. Far more Teen Challenge graduates were employed full time than either those in the STI group or the STI/AA group. Far fewer Teen Challenge graduates had returned to treatment than had those in either comparison group.
Teen Challenge appeared to be especially successful for “special social capital populations,” i.e., those who registered low on measures of social connectedness prior to the program. On some outcome measures, the comparison programs showed no positive effect for these groups, such as absent fathers and minorities having been severely addicted prior to the program. In the Teen Challenge sample, however, these groups emerged stronger than their STI or their STI/AA counterparts on the outcomes of employment, addictive substance usage, severity of relapse, and severity of depression.
Responses given by the Teen Challenge sample to open-ended interview items are extensively analyzed. The preponderance of acknowledgments were of Jesus and of friends and advisers within the program. It is concluded that Teen Challenge is successful because it fills a void in the lives of addicts, it dispels their loneliness by building social capital within the year-long program and by equipping them to find and utilize social capital once they graduate, and it provides for them a new reference group.
