NEWS

Colleges creating safety net for recovering addicts

Jona Ison
Reporter
Karen Lehman, 31, and Marty Lewis, 24, talk about their battles with addiction and how a fledgling recovery community at The Ohio State University helps them maintain their hard-fought sobriety while living on campus.

Just a drink or two or three or more, and all their insecurities seemed to melt away.

Karen Lehman, 31, a Phoenix native, and Marty Lewis, 24, of Cleveland, never drank together, but they both understand that compulsion and how it tore at their lives. Leaning on that shared battle is what's helping them realize their dreams at the Ohio State University. Lehman is working on a doctorate in math education and Lewis graduates in December with a bachelor's degree in communication.

"For a person in long-term recovery, it's amazing (to be getting a doctorate). It sometimes seems surreal that I'm even here," Lehman said.

If it weren't for a fledgling collegiate recovery program at OSU Lewis and Lehman likely never would have crossed paths in the sea of nearly 65,000 students. The program is in its second year of connecting students in recovery, something Lehman said helps keep her grounded when self doubts creep in.

"In recovery, you can't do anything alone. We need one another," said Sarah Nerad, who manages the program.

Over the past three years, the number of collegiate recovery programs has exploded across the nation, growing from 35 in 2012 to 168 that are operating or in a stage of formation. Three Ohio universities have programs: Ohio State University, Ohio University and Case Western University.

Deadly problem

Although overall substance use among teens has been declining, Ohio's battle with prescription pain pills and heroin has been especially deadly for youth ages 19 to 25. According to a recent report, Ohio's rate of nearly 17 overdose deaths per 100,000 people 19 to 25 made it the 11th highest in the nation and well above the national rate of about 13.

Ohio youth drug deaths quadrupled since 2003

In addition, nearly 2,400 Ohio crashes in 2014 involved drunk drivers between 15 and 24 years old, according to statistics from the Ohio Department of Public Safety. Last year, Ohio drivers 21 to 25 were the largest age group of drunk drivers found at fault in fatal crashes. They were responsible for 52 deaths; 38 of them their own.

For Lewis, college exacerbated the drinking he'd begun at around 15 years old. According to the 2013 Monitoring the Future Study, 40 percent of college students had reported being drunk within the previous 30 days compared to 34 percent of noncollege students of the same age.

"It didn't matter if it was a sunny day or a cold day, if it's a good test or a bad test, I didn't need any excuses or reasons to drink. It was nothing more than the effect it had on me," he said.

As Lewis sought sobriety, he got involved with the collegiate recovery program. Last year, he went from living with seven roommates in an "Animal House" off campus to living in the program's sober residence hall, and taking over as the dorm's community adviser.

"It's incredible the leaps and bounds that I've come and really being a product of this university," Lewis said.

Paying it forward

Nerad could've been part of the youth overdose statistics if it weren't for early intervention and sustained recovery supports with the help of a collegiate recovery program at Texas Tech.

Nerad was a high school junior in Houston when she went into rehab with an addiction to heroin. She sustained recovery on her second go, partially with help from attending a high school geared toward teens in recovery.

"I was terrified of going away to university and living in a dorm," Nerad said.

After opting to do two years at a community college to remain surrounded by supportive people, Nerad found Texas Tech where they not only had a supportive program, but scholarships targeting people in recovery.

"I couldn't just drive home (nine hours) and see my family, so that (collegiate recovery community) was critical for me getting connected to others (in my situation) … because it's hard moving in recovery and then starting school, learning a new town, learning a new campus," Nerad said.

Nerad has taken her experience at Texas Tech to build OSU's program, even bringing on Ahmed Hosni, a Warren native and fellow collegiate recovery friend she met at Texas Tech.

Members of The Ohio State University's Collegiate Recovery Community pause for a photo with Brutus during their Scarlet, Gray and Sober tailgate in September.

The program began in March 2013 with meetings and sober social events — typical socializing minus the booze and drugs that can permeate college activities.

The program has grown to have its own office and a 28-bed sober residence hall that is within walking distance of recovery support meetings and costs the same as other on-campus housing. Before moving in, students have to hit at least six months of sobriety and make a commitment to recovery. Although only a handful of students live in the sober dorm, about 40 are involved with the program, Nerad said.

Before the program, OSU was much like other universities where there were counseling services available, but the primary focus was drug and alcohol prevention.

Hosni thinks recovery supports should be mandatory alongside prevention.

"If we're going to allow this segment of our population to be completely hit by this drug epidemic and we're not going to offer a continuum of care, which extends past going to treatment for a couple of weeks and then you're on your own, then we can't expect them to recover to be the leaders that we need them to be, to be the workforce that we need them to be, be the backbone of this country," Hosni said.

Untested waters?

A handful of collegiate recovery programs have existed for 30 years or more; the first started at Brown University in 1977 followed by a more comprehensive program at Texas Tech University in 1986. But the idea never really caught on and just four universities had a program as of 2000, according to the Association of Recovery in Higher Education.

A "second wave" of interest took hold, including at Case Western in 2004 and Ohio University in 2010, and by 2012, programs numbered 33 across 19 states.

The real fuel for collegiate recovery came when Transforming Youth Recovery, a nonprofit focused on promoting addiction awareness, recovery, prevention and education, made it a goal to provide startup money for 100 universities, said Teresa Wren Johnston, founding president of the Association of Recovery in Higher Education. As of September, there were 168 collegiate recovery programs.

"The opportunity to have $10,000 grants has allowed students and universities to have money to think about it … I'd like to say it's youth overdose deaths (spurring interest), but I don't know that's true," Johnston said.

While she suspects youth overdose deaths may spur future growth, historically the problem with collegiate recovery program growth is a lack of research on their effectiveness. However, as the number of programs increase, the research into them and a best-practices model is likely to emerge.

The National Development and Research Institutes Center for Study of Addictions and Recovery conducted the first-ever national survey of collegiate recovery program students in 2013. The survey indicated students — who mostly were in recovery from heroin, marijuana, pain relievers and alcohol — had a higher average GPA than the general population and were less likely to relapse.

Respondents had been in recovery on average nearly three years and 4.8 percent reported last-month drug or alcohol use. As for how much a collegiate recovery program helps, 60 percent reported it was either "extremely" or "quite" helpful.

Sara Sheline, 26, of Lancaster, has been in recovery from an opiate addiction for four years, more than half of which she has spent in college. When getting her associate's degree at Columbus State, she created her own support network with fellow students she knew through recovery meetings.

However, it's a network she's lacking now as she works on her bachelor's degree in social work at Ohio University-Lancaster. While the university has a robust program at its main campus all OU students can use, it has not expanded to the branches.

"I think it's overwhelming for a while when you return to society (after treatment) and you go back (to school) and everyone is younger than you," Sheline said, noting it would be helpful to have a social group with the same challenges.

Students are often the ones spearheading programs, but the key to ingraining it into the culture of a university is to have a dedicated, paid program director and dedicated space on campus, Johnston said.

While the OSU recovery program gets some in-kind help from the university, such as office space, the $200,000 program budget is patched together through grants and donations, Nerad said.

Nerad was brought on board at OSU with the help of a grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

jison@Gannett.com

Twitter: @JonaIson

Want to know more?

More information about the Ohio State University Collegiate Recovery Community can be found online at go.osu.edu/recovery, by calling 614-292-2094 or emailing recovery@osu.edu.
A national list of college and university collegiate recovery programs and contact information is available at the Transforming Youth Recovery's web site at www.transformingyouthrecovery.org/grant-initiative-update.

What students report

The National Development and Research Institutes Center for Study of Addictions and Recovery conducted the first-ever national survey of collegiate recovery program students in 2013. Students from 29 programs responded.
32 percent lived in sober housing
23 percent had roommates who used at least some drugs or alcohol
33 percent had been homeless at some point
76 percent had received mental health treatment in the past
4.8 percent reported past-month use of drugs or alcohol
34 percent reported they would not be in college without the program
60 percent reported the program was either "extremely" or "quite helpful" overall