Emily has a brush with death this week that sends the teenager to the hospital - and forces her brother A.J. to confront his demons.

After Ned and Jax rescue Emily from a near-fall off the rooftop of the Quartermaine mansion she collapses into unconsciousness.

Jason administers first-aid, before Emily is rushed to the E.R., where she and the rest of the Quartermaines are treated to the bedside manner of none other than Dr. Dorman. Ironically, it's Dorman - the secret source of the drug problem in Port Charles - who gleefully delivers the bad news: Emily collapsed from an ovedose of heroin.

Like a protective mother bear, Monica claws into Dorman for taking such pleasure in Emily's predicament, but her strength gives way to vulnerability later on in the park, where she rages at fate - and Alan who, feeling guilty about his inaction, retreats into a funk of his own.

A.J., meanwhile, is unaware of his sister's medical situation. He's recuperating from his latest drinking binge - which landed him in bed with Carly. What drove A.J. under Carly's covers? "The fact that he hasn't gotten laid in about six years!" jokes Sean Kanan (A.J.). "It was mutual - they were both buzzed," he explains. "I think it was a case of two people who really needed each other at that point satisfying a void in each other's lives."

After her night with A.J., Carly knows she must convince him not to tell anyone about their dangerous liaison, but she soon realizes he doesn't remember what happened. "A.J.'s a black-out drinker," Kanan reminds us. "I think it all stems from a culmination of all the pressure in the Quartermaine house, and never being able to quite measure up in anyone's eyes."

When A.J. learns that Emily is in the hospital, he rushes to his sister's bedside - only to be painfully shunned by Alan, Monica and the family. "It's a really painful scene," promises GH head writer Richard Culliton. "Because of what happens to Emily, Alan and Monica basically tell A.J. 'That's it.' They can't say go away, because they love that kid, but they basically give him the tough love he needs. They say, 'We can maybe save Emily, but you can't be around her.' It's a very tricky, carefully written scene, as Monica pulls away and really focuses on Emily. In a weird way, we're geting back to where A.J. and Monica can start over again."

The sight of Emily, coupled with his family's rejection, sobers up A.J. He realizes he needs to do something about his addiction. "I think this is a cathartic and catalytic event that's going to cause a profound change in A.J.," says Kanan.

Culliton explains that this epiphany is different from all the other wake-up calls A.J.'s had, which eventually turned out to be nothing more than false alarms. "(This time A.J. is) seeing someone younger than him starting down the same path," Culliton explains. "It's seeing it start again in the family. This comes out very slowly - it's something A.J. isn't even articulating yet. It's also the recognition of what's happening...it's almost as if he sees what happened to her and goes, 'My God, look what I am.'"

A.J.'s powerful and productive reaction to Emily's plight begs the question: Why didn't Jason's accident hold the same resonance? "Because A.J. is very self-destructive," Kanan explains, "so that when things happen to him, he's able to rationalize them. Jason's accident was so profoundly painful to A.J. that he almost had to drink himself into oblivion to dull the pain of what he did to his brother."

"But Emily's such an innocent," Kanan continues. "I've loved having Emily's character around because she's really allowed me to show some of the profound vulnerability I think A.J. has. We see it sometimes with Monica also."

When A.J. leaves Emily's bedside, he wanders downstairs in the hospital to an A.A. meeting, which is led by Lee Baldwin. "This is a huge turning point for him," says Culliton. Adds Kanan: "No one is talking him into it, this is absolutely from himself. A.J. feels at a loss, and realizes he has to do something profound and right away to try and salvage his life."

As the character of Lee is headed for GH's upcoming spinoff, Port Charles, Culliton reveals that "the person who really takes on the mentoring role for A.J. is Tony. Where Alan can't reach that kid, Tony does. It's like an uncle dynamic. Alan and Tony are so close, like brothers, that it becomes a very interesting relationship."

Interesting, indeed, when one remembers that A.J. just slept with the girlfriend of his newfound mentor. "I think this is going to be a really big story," Culliton promises. "Carly's going to be so busy!"

While A.J. joins the AA meeting, Emily undergoes some addiction counseling of her own. She comes to grips with the disillusionment of her adoptive family, which propelled her into drugs - an adoptive family that, by most standars, hasn't been much of a family for her.

That's something that will have to change if her drug counseling is going to be effective. "The drug counselor who works with Emily says, 'I don't work with that kid alone. I work with the whole family,'" Culliton explains. "Emily doesn't know where to turn, and goes back to A.J. One of the things that's really nice about the story is that A.J. grows to become someone Emily can really talk to, because he truly doesn't judge."

Despite the back-to-back wake-up calls that Alan's chemically dependent son and daughter received, Alan continues to scribble prescriptions for his own painkillers, blissfully unaware of his own emerging dependency. "We don't want to make it look like changing is that simple, so we're going to take our time," Culliton explains. "Monica, who has her own issues, is perhaps more comfortable with the idea of therapy and changing. It's very painful for Alan - and not because he's a bad person at all. He would do anything...he would cut off an arm for Emily, yet he can't see what it is you (are supposed) to do."

As Alan and Monica begin to see themselves as parental failures, "this spins out into a major, major story, for Monica and for both of them," Culliton promises. "It does not break them up, but they're getting to a place where they hold together - and they hold on (to each other) - for dear life. But there's still big issues between them."

Unfortunately, while the sturm und drang draws Alan and Monica together, it sets Alan and A.J. back to square one. "All of the ground they had gained during the past several months is lost," Kanan says. "A.J. was making some good progress," Kanan says, "but he screwed up his credibility."

Despite its immediately catastrophic consequences, Kanan feels that A.J.'s public confession - in which he admitted that he was the one responsible for Jason's accident - will prove beneficial for the young Quartemaine over the long haul. "I think there's been so much duplicity and lying in the Quartemaine house...that for all his shortcomings and internal demons, A.J. is no longer going to lie," Kanan says. "He is going to be the beacon of truth in the Quartermaine house, and force them to see it. Hopefully, in doing so, he'll force himself and the rest of the Qs to be better people. What could happen that could be worse? He's already publicly disgraced himself. There's a certain freeing quality - A.J. can't be Ned's whipping boy anymore. In a lot of respects, A.J. has a lot of the strengths that Ned lacks, and I think we're going to see that."

"The thing they've never played upon, which I've always found very interesting - and I've even shared this with Wally Kurth (Ned) - is that A.J. is the heir apparent to the Quartermaine wealth," Kanan continues. "If A.J. ever really got his shit together, he would pose a formidable threat to Ned, because we've already seen A.J. is a pretty smart guy. He has the ability to be cunning when he needs to be, and he was a pretty shrewd businessman when he was working at ELQ for the hotel. However, he's let his personal demons keep him from usurping Ned, and that's given Ned motivation to keep this kid down."

By week's end, Sonny's suspicions about Dorman continue to mount. He observes Dorman's nervousness while Taggert questions the good doctor about Emily's condition. Sharing his concerns with Luke, Sonny asks Jason to keep a watchful eye on Dorman.