Hiding In Plain Sight – College Students In Recovery
Nico Doorn |
TEDxVanderbiltUniversity
• November 2017
No one plans to become addicted. But it happened to me. After struggling through years of failure, regret, and lost dreams, I found recovery. Entering college as a student in recovery, however, was another matter. Sobriety and college life simply do not go together. Little did I know, there are on-campus programs – “Collegiate Recovery Communities” – that bring together students like myself.
Despite their success in terms of preventing relapse, increasing GPAs, retention, and graduation rates, few have heard of Collegiate Recovery Communities. Few have heard of them because we do not talk openly about the truth of addiction and the potential of finding recovery, even as a college student. Tens of thousands of students across our nation are practicing a recovery lifestyle and it is time we create a campus climate that accepts them through normalization and open dialogue. Acknowledging the problem of addiction is not enough, we must embrace the solution of Collegiate Recovery Communities and support the amazing students within them.