Project Pitch for Self Recovery

It’s no secret that alco­hol and drug use is wide­ly con­sid­ered an inte­gral part of social life in Amer­i­can col­leges. An image exists in the minds of most Amer­i­cans of what the “col­lege expe­ri­ence” looks like, and this almost always con­sists of some sort of sub­stance use. It would­n’t take long for an observ­er to see that this image isn’t based entire­ly in fic­tion if they were to stand on the streets of a col­lege cam­pus on a week­end night. Here at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut, for exam­ple, mas­sive groups mak­ing their way down the street to the bars is a com­mon sight. Emp­ty nips and crushed alu­minum cans lit­ter the ground almost any­where you go on cam­pus. The same can be said of used cig­a­rette butts and dead vapes. The cul­ture of sub­stance use is cer­tain­ly here, and it’s dif­fi­cult to ignore. 

For most stu­dents this isn’t much of a prob­lem. They can walk down the street and see these drunk­en groups of peo­ple and not think much. They can go out to par­ties where they know there will be alco­hol and feel noth­ing more than the ordi­nary nerves that go along with social events or even unadul­ter­at­ed excite­ment. But for some stu­dents, the col­lege expe­ri­ence as we know it is not so sim­ple. Albeit small, a por­tion of col­lege stu­dents have strug­gled with sub­stance mis­use dis­or­ders in their lives. For some, the jour­ney to recov­ery from these behav­ioral dis­or­ders has been a long and painful one. For these stu­dents, those week­end rit­u­als that so many oth­ers enjoy can mean incred­i­ble stress and anxiety. 

Recov­ery from sub­stance mis­use is a dif­fi­cult process for any­one, but for those that are in recov­ery while in col­lege, unique cir­cum­stances can make it even hard­er. Social inclu­sion can often feel depen­dent on sub­stance use, leav­ing these stu­dents in a dif­fi­cult posi­tion. In the midst of this chal­lenge, resources meant to help can often be dif­fi­cult to find, dif­fi­cult to arrange, and expen­sive. Some even feel dis­cour­aged from ask­ing for help because of a stig­ma attached to their sub­stance misuse. 

To make the expe­ri­ence of these stu­dents eas­i­er, we must bet­ter under­stand their unique circumstances.

Music used is Melt­ing Snow­man by Loco Lobo.