Alcohol Rehabilitation Programs

Leslie is no stranger to drama. She's acted on stage with the West Coast Actor's Ensemble in Hollywood and earned a degree in theater from Pomona College. She's also a self-described master at creating high drama in her own life. Leslie, 29, began drinking vodka and smoking marijuana at age 15 and eventually added prescription drugs such as Prozac and Xanax to her mix of madness.

Sean Young has entered rehabilitation for alcohol abuse following a weekend outburst in which she was heckling from the audience at the Directors Guild of America awards. The 48-year-old actress was escorted from the ballroom at the Hyatt Regency in Century City on Saturday night after sparring with Julian Schnabel, who was nominated for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." "Actress Sean Young voluntarily admitted herself yesterday to a rehabilitation center for treatment related to alcoholism," a statement from Insignia PR said Tuesday.

Inspired by earlier programs such as Outward Bound, the wilderness therapy industry in the western United States grew largely out of academic experiments at Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah, in the late 1960s. A young Idahoan, Larry Dean Olsen, was giving a course in wilderness living. When he took groups of troubled students into the desert to teach them survival skills, he noticed sharp improvements in their behavior and academic performance.

"I'm Mike, alcoholic, addict. I thanked my God this morning for giving me another day. Today is Day 697 and I have another chance. It took 27 police officers to get me into these rooms. I was completely demoralized and I wanted to die. I didn't care about anything else. I had no concept of what it meant to be alive." *** Mike Hernandez appeared to have made it.

One of four men accused of running an unlicensed North Hollywood detoxification clinic where recovering alcoholics were allegedly tied and force-fed alcohol has been sentenced to probation in connection with a death there. Authorities initially said Jose Rodriguez was in charge of the "mattress room," where patients were kept for days, in some cases against their will. But on the eve of trial, Deputy Dist. Atty.

Robert White recalls the years he spent searching to find the bottom of a down-and-out life that had him sleeping in cardboard boxes in alleys, scrounging for food in trash bins and waiting for his next high. But hitting rock bottom wasn't easy, especially in the murky troubled waters of his life. Looking back, White, now 46, often wonders how he ever managed to turn his life around. He has been sober for eight years.

Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan is urging the city's police and sheriff's departments to cite people found drunk in public so that repeat offenders can be charged. Hallinan hopes those charged can then be placed in treatment programs. The city recently said that 3,100 people live on the streets of San Francisco, and that many of them are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Hallinan wants police to arrest those found drunk in public after they have received a public warning and three citations.

Television host Pat O'Brien, anchor of "The Insider" newsmagazine show, has entered an alcohol rehabilitation program, he said in a written statement Sunday to Associated Press. "I have had a problem with alcohol. I have decided to take action by checking myself into an intensive recovery program," the 57-year-old broadcast journalist said.