The Collegiate Recovery Center has a new space opening this fall for students walking the long road to addiction recovery. While the program began two years ago, this is the first space students will be able to access five days per week.
The center’s goal is to assist students recovering from addiction, and the new space provides a place for students to study, do homework, research and get help with the adjustments of being in school.
“It’s a place for students who are in recovery to be able to have a place to hang out where they feel safe, relax and hang out with other students in recovery — that’s the main goal of this,” said Al Siebel, director of the UO Collegiate Recovery Center. “That’s what we want to provide and that’s the main reason for the center.”
On Oct. 18, during the UO homecoming game, the center will host a sober tailgate event that will provide free food and information about the program for students. The tailgate will begin two hours before the game on Martin Luther King Boulevard at the PK Park baseball field, and it will give students and alumni the option to enjoy the game in an alcohol-free environment.
“Plus, it might give other students who choose not to drink that day a chance to stop by and grab some food and see what the Collegiate Recovery Center is about,” Siebel said.
Recovery center students attend weekly seminars that provide assistance and cover topics related to recovery. “We talk about various topics like how to navigate campus when you are in recovery, ways to succeed academically, how to deal with other peers that use alcohol and how do you interact with those peers,” he said.
The program is relatively small now, but the center is planning more activities throughout the year as it grows. Alternative activities are important because sometimes students may feel like their only other option is to drink or party, Siebel said.
The recovery center will also host a meeting with Oregon State University’s recovery center. The two schools are going out for pizza and will attend a 12-step program meeting together. And
on Nov. 29, the CRC will travel to the Civil War game at Oregon State to attend OSU’s sober tailgating event.
Siebel said the center worked with Robin Holmes, vice president of student life, and Shelly Kerr, director of the UO Counseling & Testing Center, to get the new space.
Holmes “recognized the importance of this program so she worked on getting us space,” he said.
Students who participated in a Texas Tech University collegiate recovery program had an average GPA of 3.34 and an 80 percent graduation rate, according to the UO center’s website. Students recovering from substance abuse, gambling addiction, self-harm and eating disorders are welcome to join the CRC, as are those in other forms of recovery.
More information about the CRC can be found here. Those who need to schedule an appointment with a counselor can visit the university counseling center’s website.
―By Corinne Boyer, Public Affairs Communications intern