Collegiate Recovery Community provides college-focused group support for addiction sufferers

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reported from a study by professors from New York University and Columbia University that found 20 percent of college students meet the criteria for an alcohol use disorder.

Typically, behavior from people with an AUD “include suicide attempts, health problems, injuries, unsafe sex, and driving under the influence of alcohol, as well as vandalism, property damage, and involvement with the police,” the report notes.

While not every student dealing with an AUD exhibits those behaviors, alcohol abuse can be a destructive force for college students.

Sean Cleland, a psychology student at Kent State, struggled with alcohol abuse in his time in college. After two years of, as he said, “drinking, drugs and partying all the time,” he left school in 2006 and joined a 12-step alcoholism recovery program the next year.

Cleland managed to get the help he needed and get back on his feet, eventually re-focusing on college in 2011, switching his major from international relations to psychology and paying out of pocket to take one class per semester. This year, he was able to reapply for financial aid, which will allow him to come back to Kent State full-time for the spring 2019 semester.

“I decided I wanted to work in addiction and recovery services,” Cleland said. “I thought back to what kinds of resources or what kind of community I wished I would have had the first time around. And I figured since I was back in school I could try to see what could happen.”

 

This led him to Maureen Keating, the first-ever chemical dependency specialist hired by Kent State. They worked together to puzzle together a way to bring the benefits of community-based recovery to the university.

“I just had ideas to start a support group of peers that were either sober or attempting to find recovery,” he said. “And she brought an even bigger idea of a collegiate recovery community. I didn’t even know that was a thing… It was empowering to find a staff member at the university that had similar ideas, and even broadened what I thought was possible.”

Keating eventually left the budding program, called the Collegiate Recovery Community, to join the Summit County Community Health Center. Ashley Holt, who previously worked with Ohio University’s Psychological Services department, stepped into Keating’s role as the university’s chemical dependency specialist.

Holt works out of the newly-created office for the Collegiate Recovery Community. On the second floor of the DeWeese Health Center on campus, the office serves as both a cubicle-style office for the handful of people who work in the department, but as an open-door lounge for anyone interested in being part of the CRC.

While there are plenty of students who float in and out of the office, come to a couple meetings and don’t seek further involvement with the CRC, Holt said there are a group of about 10 to 12 students who make up the community’s nucleus.

“I know I can expect if they’re not here, like there’s something — I’d need to check in on them or someone in the group needs to check in on them,” Holt said.

Cleland said this tool is exactly what he believed the university was in need of.

“I was never able to, through luck or determination to find a group of peers that… knew how to stay sober and you know, how to demonstrate recovery,” he said. “To me, it was a resource I thought was lacking in the campus community and I’d always wished I’d had that outlet when I first attempted going to school full time.”

With the program still in its early stages, it stands on shaky financial ground. Holt said the CRC is largely supported through a mix of grants and university funding.* The grants include a three-year, $10,000 grant from Transforming Youth Recovery (of which they are in the second year of) and $1,000 grants from Kent State’s Seeds of Wellness program and Northeast Ohio Medical School, the latter of which runs out in December.

“We really have to advocate for ourselves to continue to be sustained or we’ll have to kind of look at a donor model,” Holt said. “I feel confident that the university really is supportive of us but we have to really think about long-term sustainability moving forward.”

 

While Cleland represents a classic success story for community-based recovery programs, William Lechner, an assistant professor in the Psychological Sciences department, said there are several approaches to recovery that see success.

Lechner said the programs offered by Kent State’s CRC, which include weekly lunches, sobriety-focused social events and group outings to the movies, closely follow the types of activities used in programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

“The literature on alcoholics anonymous is a bit mixed, which means that there’s a few really good studies that show that it’s really good effective, and then there’s some studies that show that it’s not effective,” Lechner said. “And, probably, the truth is it depends on the person and how motivated they are and that principle is true for any type of drug recovery.”

Lechner said studies have found the most effective way to treat alcohol and substance abuse is a combination of medication and therapy with a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist.

“For instance, if you had an alcohol use disorder the best case scenario probably would be that the psychologist works on the cognitive and behavioral issues that maintain that addiction,” Lechner explained. “So, maybe working on underlying anxiety and depression, maybe working on some behavioral things, like ‘I’m doing too much or too little of certain activities.’ Then, combining that with a pharmaceutical, like Naltrexone, which helps reduce some cravings for alcohol.”

He made a point to note, even if there are methods with more empirical evidence of success, recovery paths such as Alcoholics Anonymous or CRCs should not be disregarded.

 

“If you think about it, it’s kind of common sense,” Lechner said. “If you go from a group of people that are partiers and are out drinking all the time, it’s gonna be tough for you to resist that and find some kind of meaningful social interaction.

“Most people don’t do well with going out with a bunch of people who are getting intoxicated and trying to stay sober. So, if you find an alternative group that is going to go out and do stuff that’s enjoyable and fun, but whose main focus is not going to be the opposite — not to get intoxicated but to be sober — it’s going to increase your chance (of success).”

*When I spoke to Holt, she said she would send me a breakdown of the funding sources for the CRC. After reaching out a couple more times since we spoke in-person, I still haven’t received the numbers. I’m using some funding info she gave me during the interview in the story, but once I get back a full breakdown from her I want to replace what she said with that source and use it to create a chart breaking down the funding sources for the CRC.