When the end finally came, it came fast. Spotting Steve’s red BMW convertible parked in the driveway, Culver City police in tactical vests and armed with assault weapons quickly deployed, swarming the front and rear entrances. Wearing a green nylon jacket with RAID splashed across the shoulders, Sergeant Jason Sims knocked on the front door, then ordered his men to break it down with a battering ram. Inside, kids screamed, cried, or just stood there trying to wrap their heads around what they were witnessing—and what their parents were witnessing. Because this was a Thursday, this was Family Night. Expecting to endure an evening of candor with impunity—Guess what, Mother? The world doesn’t revolve around you!—parents had their bean dip and decaf upended by an armed raid. Tilling the big wayward ship of their children’s adolescence had left them chronically alert to trouble, but not like this.

In their nightmares the cops came for Junior, not the person they entrusted with his health, his welfare, his very life—not Steve Izenstark, held to the floor with a knee against his spine, demanding to know why he was under arrest. Sims told him he could hear the charges in front of the kids and parents or in the squad car. When Steve chose to go quietly, he took with him all the crisis counseling, the group sessions, the one-on-ones, and the desperate 3 a.m. promises. There would be no more hard sell of sobriety or buying coffee in bulk. The relapses, the victories, the stylish homilies, and the countless family dramas lit up by a billion synaptic fires of repressed memories were over. All of it ended like a bullet to the brain. Bang. On May 17, 2007, The House was history. That’s what Steve called the nonresidential treatment facility he founded in 2005 for adolescents with chemical dependency, substance abuse, and behavioral problems—just The House.

Being a teenager did not go well for my son, Bey. Bad luck went out of its way to find him. One night...