Lived Experiences of Students in Collegiate Recovery Programs at Three Large Public Universities

ABSTRACT This study examined the lived experiences of 12 students in recovery from Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) who were members of Collegiate Recovery Programs (CRPs) at three academically-recognized universities that are also designated to be “party schools.” Using a three-interview series for in-depth phenomenological interviewing, this study investigated how students in recovery in CRPs make sense of their pasts, their present-day lives, and their futures. By analyzing students’ use of narrative, their use of social and cultural discourses, and the shifting subject positions they adopted, co-opted, and disputed in their ongoing identity construction as individuals in recovery, three main discursive themes were identified: First, recovery discourses were primarily rooted in the discourses of Alcoholics Anonymous. A second set of discourses drove students to acquire the qualifications necessary to gain a professional career and to avoid falling out of their social class. In the third set of discourses, students in CRPs defined and claimed social power for themselves, and their CRPs helped them establish various means to be “cool” in college. Reshuffling discourses to (re)position themselves, students in CRPs resisted college discourses that invited them to return to active use.