I love stories of second chances. While producing our weeklong series on alcoholism, I met many people whose lives were destroyed by alcohol, yet through humility and tenacity, they turned things around.

Samantha Wiegand is one of those people. The first thing you notice about Sam is her contagious smile. But there was a time when that smile was hard to come by.

Sam started drinking when she was in her early teens. She says she did it to fit in and that she wasn't able to function unless drunk or high. Her mom intervened and Sam went off to rehab. She's been sober since 16. But Sam was concerned out about how she would deal with her alcohol problem when she left home for college, where drinking is a major social activity for a lot of students.

Sam found out about an unusual program at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota, called StepUp. This program supports college students dealing with drug and alcohol problems. They live in community with others in recovery and meet with counselors once a week. The program boasts an 83 percent success rate.

There are a handful of similar programs at other college campuses in the United States. But the experts we spoke with say more of these programs are desperately needed as more people go into recovery at an earlier age.

Roughly 430,000 teenagers enter rehab each year, according to the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Also, a 2002 study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that 6 percent of college students meet criteria for a diagnosis of alcohol dependence, aka alcoholism, and 31 percent meet the criteria for alcohol abuse, or drinking too much.

As for Samantha, she is studying psychology and dreams of opening her own recovery center for teens.