Sober College Student: Not An Oxymoron Anymore!
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Sober College Student: Not An Oxymoron Anymore!

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This post was originally published on April 7, 2015.

For those among us who actually studied during high school instead of skipping class to get high, college is when we really started perfecting the art of getting as fucked up as possible. Surrounded by peers who knew how to deconstruct Heidegger during the week and get bombed out of their brains on the weekend, we learned how to balance hard work with hard play just enough to graduate (em, well, most of us anyway).

But this blasé attitude toward heavy collegiate drinking is irresponsible. Anyone who brushes off toxic inebriation as something relatively benign because it’s part and parcel of the college experience should take a trip to the morgue to view a few of the 1,825 people that wind up dead each year as a result of crazy college drinking. Though it’s true that students of higher education have loved imbibing for many generations, this doesn’t magically render excessive drinking innocuous.

But at the University of Texas, students are wising up, getting sober, and finding solidarity in campus recovery centers that set an important precedent.

Peer Pressure

In 2005, only 10 universities in the nation had drug and alcohol support centers on their campus. Two years ago, just 35 colleges had such programs. But today, 135 colleges have embraced sober groups that hold everything from open AA meetings to breathing and yoga workshops to simple sober “check-ins.” At the University of Texas at Austin, the Center for Students in Recovery says its mission is “to provide a supportive community where students in recovery and in hope of recovery can achieve academic success while enjoying a genuine college experience free from alcohol and other drugs.”

The sober students run the center mostly on their own, and they’ve done such a first-rate job similar centers are being expanded to all the UT campuses in the state.

Just like in AA, students take each other under their wing, socialize together and stay alert for signs of relapse. They make service work a high priority, speaking at high schools and treatment facilities to generate awareness about alcoholism. And, perhaps most shocking of all, they even help clean up Memorial Stadium after football games in the fall.

That may be more martyrdom than altruism but, hey, the university custodial team probably really appreciates the gesture.

Rite-of-Passage Culture

The Transforming Youth Recovery organization in Del Mar, California is a nonprofit pushing for more of these recovery centers on college campuses. “There is, in many ways, a ritualistic, pro-drug, rite-of-passage culture that exists [on college campuses],” says its director, Ivana Grahovac. She’s got a point. Spending the whole night puking in the bushes in front of a frat house after swallowing E for the first time might seem like a good time, but when you really think about it, it’s aberrant behavior.

“What it really gave me was an environment where it was a safe to socialize,” says 23-year-old Lizette Smith of UT’s recovery center. “And it also provided me a lot of outlets; it gave me opportunities to volunteer and meet new people. And it really built my self-esteem.”

It’s awesome that college students can band together and support one another’s recovery and, as most alcoholics and addicts can confirm, our drinking was already a veritable shit show in those good ole college days. As more recovery centers pop up throughout the nation, and as hazing and frat houses get banned, perhaps movies like Animal House and Old School won’t be anything to emulate.

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About Author

Tracy Chabala is a freelance writer for many publications including the LA Times, LA Weekly, Smashd, VICE and Salon. She writes mostly about food, technology and culture, in addition to addiction and mental health. She holds a Master's in Professional Writing from USC and is finishing up her novel.