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LiLo Starts New Year By Leaving Rehab

LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) — Lindsay Lohan is scheduled to be released from the Betty Ford rehab center in Palm Springs sometime Monday, only to face an uncertain career and looming legal issues.

For months, the actress has been haunted by her inability, or unwillingness, to shake a 3 1/2-year-old drunken driving case that resulted in two rehab stints and two trips to jail in 2010 alone.

And now she also remains under investigation for alleged misdemeanor battery on a Betty Ford worker and needs to satisfy a criminal judge that she's been in compliance with her probation terms during her three-month stint at the Ford center.

Still, experts say Lohan has a good shot at recovery. Provided, of course, that she wants it, changes her party girl lifestyle and remains in continued therapy.

If a New Year's Day message posted on her Twitter account is any indication, the "Mean Girls" star seems ready to do just that.

"Today is the first day of the rest of my life," it said.

'"The future depends on what we do in the present.' -Mahatma Gandhi... One step at a time..."

In an exclusive interview with Chris Wragge on CBS' Early Show, Lohan's father, Michael Lohan, said the actress would be surprising people as she brings some "amazing people" into her new life to help her on the road to sobriety. He also said her success would rely on his own ability to mend fences with his ex-wife, Dina Lohan, and that he was "begging" her to find a way to reconciliation for Lindsay's sake.

(© Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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