As a back story, I had a fairly crappy childhood. This is coming from a fairly good looking white guy who grew up in the relative comfort of the suburbs of Northern California with parents who did well enough financially - let's not pretend that I was disadvantaged.
I reacted poorly to my crappy upbringing, lashing out and crippling myself wherever i could find the opportunity and it ended up with me getting kicked out of the cub scouts, the boys and girls club, and eventually high school. I did drop out of the second school i went to and tested out.
At 17 i was done with school and doing tons of drugs with my then mostly loser friends. I was in and out of employment - i couldn't keep a job more than a couple of weeks. I left home for about 6 months and lived my buddy and his parents. In the time i lived with my buddy I didn't shower for about the last three months i was in their house and contemplated using their shotgun to blow my brains out in their living room before finally getting kicked out for stealing change (a lot) from their change collecting jug.
I finally hit rock bottom when i was 19 and working at a Starbucks in my town. I got caught stealing Nitrous Oxide containers (they use them to make the whipped cream). I got fired for that. I remember when I walked outside, I sat down on the ground and just collapsed inside. I went home a little while later and got into bed. My dad came up to my room and asked me what was wrong and I told him what fuck-up i had done this time. I told him i needed help, so the next day I was checked into a rehab facility. I was lucky that it was a juvenile facility, and that i had already graduated high school. Since i was an adult and checked myself in, I could have legally left at any time - which was not the case for most of the people there. I saw some interesting things in there, i had never really seen what people with real problems and real disadvantage were like. These were kids who were selling crack at 13, it was pretty intense. I resolved to get my shit together, and i did.
I got out of rehab and starting culling my loser friends from my life and things were looking good. I was in an outpatient program with the rehab center for about 6 months before i got the job that would ultimately change my life. My parents had visited the Grand Canyon while this was all going on and had come back with a brochure for employment there. They suggested I apply, and I did. I got a job working in a concession store selling shirts and other tacky shit and away I went.
My dad and I flew to Phoenix and drove up to the Grand Canyon the next day. He took me to the rim of the canyon and said, "That sure is a big hole" and i agreed. He then dropped me off at the employment office and drove off. I had been sober for about 6-9 months prior to the day before i left for AZ. I moved into a dorm with a bunch of dudes who worked there and partied like a fucking rock star until i got fired for not showing up at work. This is where you think, "oh shit, he's doing it again" but its not like that. I moved to Flagstaff and started staying at a youth hostel and eventually getting a job working there and at a bus station. I had left home with a large bag and $300. Now I had two jobs, and some savings, so I got an apartment on my own and my life just worked after that. I remember waking up one morning and thinking to myself, "Noone takes care of me, I get to work everyday, pay my bills, and handle my shit." That was the moment i knew that I went from being a boy to being a man.
Long story short, the experience of going to rehab was important, but going out on my own to a strange place where I knew no one (though soon after i got there i hooked up (not HOOKED UP) with a dude i went to high school with who was going to college at NAU) and taking care of myself was the most important experience of my life.