Sober living may be one of the hardest courses to take in college. Binge-drinking before a sporting or social event or ‘pregaming’ is rampant on the campus. ‘Football Saturdays’ may start with booze as early as 8 a.m. Parties happen on lawns and porches of fraternity houses, balconies and roofs of students homes, and in dormitories. The party influence may be everywhere but within the academic premises.
To aid this ever-growing influence of substance abuse and misuse, various colleges are aiming to guide the students to sober living while helping them thrive with their studies. This thrust is why various programs are present in multiple universities or small student-led organizations.
In 2013, the data from The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration suggested how the substance use attitude in adolescence affect one’s future. The data also suggests that the rates of substance-use disorders tripled from 5.2 percent in adolescence to 17.7 in early adulthood. As the Americans continually seek treatment for substance abuse, there’s no demographic that grows faster than the age group of 18-24.
In 2009, treatment providers said that the percentage of students within the age group of 18-24 who seek help to experience sober living doubled. The rate was higher than the 9% increase in the 25-and-older category.
Sober Living in Colleges
More than a decade ago, most college students who suffer from the effects of substance abuse problems received only little help. Student health services and local Alcoholics Anonymous chapters are the only services available for students who need assistance on journey to sober living.
Today, about 150 universities and colleges in the 49 states offer counseling for students to aid their recovery. As recent as 2012, 32 programs are present in various colleges. Newer programs were able to start through the $10,000 seed grants from the Stacie Mathewson Foundation. The foundation is based in Reno, Nevada that strives to raise awareness about addiction and its impending effects.
Experts say that College Recovery Programs (CRP) aren’t drug treatment schemes. The CRPs are for students who have been through treatment and are looking to live and study with like-minded students.
Successful recovery programs provide spaces that the students can call their own. They’ll have a dedicated counselor who can work closely with the college to coordinate activities. Retreats, leadership workshops, academic courses in recovery, and recovery conferences are organized for the students to aid their recovery and experience sober living. The general idea of CRP is to create a community with a culture of commitment for students to stay sober.
How do sober living colleges help an addict?
Collegiate sober living may include the several programs such as:
1. Recovery program
This program offers continued support for students who need to find sober entertainment, how to handle social situations and dealing with peer pressure through workshops and groups.
2. Academic services
This service allows the students to receive support and help through the transition process from a drug treatment program back to school. Academic tutors may help in giving help and support throughout the student’s college career.
3. Crisis Management
This program gives support and help to students to cope with the mental health issues that may arise during his/her studies. It’s a big leap to have medical professionals around to understand the addiction recovery process.
4. Relapse prevention
Promotion of a sober environment that gives 24/7 support for maintaining abstinence from alcohol and drugs is of utmost importance to collegiate recovery programs.
A.R.H.E. (Association of Recovery in Higher Education) as a resource for sober living on college campuses
The A.R.H.E. exclusively represents the College Recovery Programs (CRP) and Collegiate Recovery Community (CRC), the faculty and staff who support them, and the students who serve them.
Providing education, community connection, and resources is the goal of A.R.H.E. This association also serves as a national support for propagating the vision of CRPs.
Time-tested research and experience-based modeling are given to those students who are in the process of recovery and are aiming to excel in higher education. A.R.H.E. is the core authority on the tailoring and modeling of CRPs to best integrate them into the academy.
Check out the list of some universities that give options of sober housing and understand this need as a priority for college students in recovery:
- AUBURN UNIVERSITY
- BAYLOR UNIVERSITY
- CARNAGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
- CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
- EMORY UNIVERSITY
- FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY
- GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
- GEORGIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY
- GONZAGA UNIVERSITY
- KENNESAW STATE UNIVERSITY
- LORAIN COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE
- MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
- MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY
- MONMOUTH UNIVERSITY
- NORTH CAROLINA A&T STATE UNIVERSITY
- NORTHERN STATE UNIVERSITY
- OHIO UNIVERSITY
- OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
- PENN STATE UNIVERSITY
- SOUTHERN OREGON UNIVERSITY
- ST. CLOUD STATE UNIVERSITY
- TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY
- THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY
- THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
- THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
- THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
- THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS
- UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA
- UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT RIVERSIDE
- UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SANTA BARBARA
- UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER
- UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
- UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
- UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON
- UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
- UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
- UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI
- UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA AT OMAHA
- UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA
- UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT ASHEVILLE
- UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL
- UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHARLOTTE
- UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT WILMINGTON
- UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS
- UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
- UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
- VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
- VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY
- WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY
- WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY
Life of Purpose and its Mantra
“No one should have to choose between recovery and education.”
Life of Purpose goes by these words. It’s the first substance misuse treatment facility situated on a university campus in the United States. It started in Boca Raton in 2013 and had grown to embrace Denton Life of Purpose at The University of North Texas (UNT) and Murfreesboro Life of Purpose at Middle Tennessee State University.
The methodology of the Life of Purpose lies in offering academically-focused treatment to clients who have experienced a vocational or educational disruption as the result of substance misuse and abuse.
College campuses have been tagged as ‘abstinence-hostile’ environments because of the culture of substance abuse in the campus. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found out that an estimate of 22.9% of the 5.4 million college students fall under the criteria of substance use disorder.
All campus offer On-Campus 90-day programs with at least 9 clinical hours per week. The program also includes giving group and individual therapy sessions. Relapse Prevention and Individualized Treatment Plans and Academically-Focused Case Management are also served for students who aim for sober living while in a campus.
Florida’s Life Purpose gives an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), Primary Residential/Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP), transitional housing options and Academically Focused Aftercare Program™. Various care options may also be available.
Experts call for campus-based services for recovering students have been mainly overlooked. The U.S. Department of Education noted that “the education system’s role as part of the nation’s recovery and relapse prevention support system is still developing”.
Prevention of students’ relapse is critical since it’s associated with college depreciation. This factor means that youths’ unique challenges in college and developmental stage both stress the need for a recovery support infrastructure on campus.
Factors like the need for a supportive social environment that promotes social connectedness fueled the emergence of CRPs. There were only 4 CRPs back in 2009. It grew to 29 in 2012. An estimate of 5-5 CRPs is emerging annually.
CPRs may vary in the budget, orientation, budget, and in the extent of services. Most of them are peer-driven and involves 12-steps in fostering recovery, and give on-site support groups and sober events.
Upcoming CRPs
Finding treatment on campus can be taxing, but it doesn’t mean that institutions of higher education don’t offer collegiate recovery programs at all.
Below is a list of CRPs that were expected to rise in 2017:
- Case Western Reserve University
- CSW University of Utah
- Jacksonville State University
- Louisiana State University
- Lorain County Community College
- Loyola Marymount University
- North Carolina A&T State University and Technical State University
- Northern State University
- Rutgers University
- Slippery Rock University
- Southern Methodist University
- University of Central Florida
- University of Connecticut
- University of Minnesota – Rochester
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- University of North Carolina – Greensboro
- University of North Carolina at Wilmington
- University of North Texas
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Southern Maine
- University of Texas at Austin
- University of Texas Rio Grande
- Virginia Commonwealth University
- West Virginia University
Sober living colleges help solve the epidemic in the USA through CRPs and it’s a smart move. Building a stronghold for students who need help to experience sober living while in campus is a sustainable attempt to decrease problematic adults as the of The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration suggests.