Some years ago I recall watching movies such as “Animal House,” “American Pie” and “Old School” and thinking that the quality of my college experience hinged upon how hard I could party.
The best colleges were the ones that threw the biggest and best parties. My high school friends and I accepted the challenge.
We tried to win the approval and admiration of the upperclassmen during parties that lasted all night. In that world, reputations and relationships were forged after hours or on athletic fields, not in the classroom or on campus. If you couldn’t do one or both, you didn’t fit in and no one seemed to care about you.
This kind of partying can ruin reputations, relationships and academic careers, but if there were another way to be accepted and fit in or just live in general, it certainly wasn’t clear on campus, nor was it even talked about. The accepted fact was this: College is a party, and relief from the stress comes in a bottle.
Before I knew it, I had failed out of two colleges, I had been fired from numerous jobs, I barely managed to get a year done at a local community college and moved half a dozen times. By a stroke of good fortune, a friend from high school somehow got me a job selling fitness equipment with him. It was the most confident I had felt in a long time — until disaster struck.
A severe back injury at work left me on disability for nearly four years, horribly depressed, and led me to a serious opiate and heroin use disorder. Dying became more appealing than living, and it was the only real relief I could foresee in my future.
When I finally got sober, just the thought of my past attempts at college was enough to hold me back from formally applying to the University of Southern Maine for more than a year. I started slowly, taking a class here and there before going back full time.
I remember the first day of class, walking down a few hours early from the sober house where I was still living at the time. I found a campus map and stared at it for a few minutes, trying to figure out where I was and where I needed to go. I felt so lost. That’s why, to this day, when I see people on campus with that same panicked look on their faces, I introduce myself and offer directions. I often see them literally sigh in relief as I make eye contact and say hello.
Similarly, I vividly recall the first time I came across a friend from the Portland recovery community while on campus. I was relieved to know I wasn’t alone. There was help. I had friends here. Things might be OK.
That chance encounter changed my entire experience at USM and eased the fears I had about re-entering college and successfully graduating. My friend told me about an unofficial hangout for people in recovery. After seeing him and hearing about the others on campus I could immediately feel myself able to focus more on the reason I was there in the first place: to learn and go to school.
That feeling of relief is what we want to replicate with the Recovery Oriented Campus Center at the University of Southern Maine, and it’s why I am so passionate about advocating for more resources like these. The ROCC will be the lighthouse in the fog and the bedrock of the USM collegiate recovery community.
The group will offer what I never knew existed before: a community of people not only staying in recovery through college but also having fun. It will offer recovery planning services, exercise groups, guided meditation and relaxation classes, yoga classes, picnics, hiking, weekly peer-led recovery meetings and other campus groups and local resources.
We can empower people of all ages and stages to return to or continue college and discover the power of possibility in recovery. We can all help people find their way, their purpose and find themselves.
You are not alone. There is help.
Andrew Kiezulas is a chemistry major at the University of Southern Maine and co-founder and president of Students and Recovery. He is also a member of Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling’s Substance Use Disorder Task Force.