The purpose of this paper is to identify potential issues of risk and resilience at my proposed internship site. I am applying for internship sites where I hope to be working with adolescent age clients struggling with alcohol use and drug use issues. The research is vast regarding this profound problem facing many of our youngest and most at risk members of society, therefore raising a multitude of public health concerns. “Alcohol is the most commonly used substance among U.S. youth, with 71% of high school seniors reporting that they have tried alcohol at least once in their lives and more than 40% of seniors reporting alcohol use in the previous month” (Cleveland, 2012). The issue of labeling these younger clients and facilities into categories for treatment purposes and the impact of “shame” and/or feelings of humiliation by the client may create a barrier to resilience, mitigation, and/or treatment. Labeling a client as an “addict” or “alcoholic” or “junkies” may provide the general health care community with convenient ways to code medical billing, or perhaps even give counselors a method to understand what they believe to be appropriate clinical definitions of client “issues." However, the very nature of labeling clients and/or treatment settings may indeed provide the very barrier to guiding a client to greater understanding of his or her therapeutic objectives, particularly among the adolescent client. The idea of Labeling, shame and stigma was looked at by Rebecca Grey (Grey, 2011) with a design intent to study possible barriers to treatment. The stigma, guilt, and often shame felt by clients labeled or categorized often brings about adverse feelings, thus serving as a barrier to effective treatment. There have been a whole host of studies addressing the issues related to adolescent substance abuse. One in particular (Whitesell, 2013) clearly outline some of the issues and problems related to adolescent substance abuse, as well as a number of the associated issues identifying behaviors leading to substance use and abuse. By following the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) the paper addresses substance use disorders and defines the disorder in the same way. A clear distinction is drawn between substance