aaron bicknese tracked down 59 former teen challenge students in 1995, in order to compare them with a similar group of addicts who had spent one or two months in a hospital rehabilitation program. his results, part of his phd dissertation, were published in "the teen challenge drug treatment program in comparative perspective". bicknese found that teen challenge graduates reported less drug-use recidivism than the hospital-program graduates, but not less than those who continued attending alcoholics anonymous after the hospital program. his results also showed that teen challenge graduates were much more likely to be employed, with 18 of the 59 working at teen challenge itself, which utilizes graduates in its operations.