I’m on the airplane heading back to Boston from the SAFE Project Collegiate Recovery Leadership Summit in Washington D.C. and yet again, I am amazed by the incredible students championing collegiate recovery. Part of the Leadership Academy, that the students have been selected to be part of, is to create an impact project that will increase the awareness and sustainability of collegiate recovery. The ultimate dream that everyone at that summit shares is that every student and every education seeker has the support needed on college campuses to navigate through their educational journey while in recovery or seeking out recovery. Three members from Greater Boston Collegiate Recovery (GBCR) attended this summit, including myself. I am a graduate from last years inaugural SAFE Project Collegiate Recovery Leadership Academy as a student who proposed and executed an impact project and this year, I have the privilege of being a mentor to two amazing students from across the United States. The other two members of GBCR who attended the summit have recently submitted a project proposal indicating their collegiate recovery impact project for the year.
On a personal level, I can’t put into words what this summit means to me. For every time I sat alone in a room for our weekly campus recovery meeting at UMass Boston, that we reserved semester to semester because that’s the only space we could get, it was all worth it. I knew that even if I was the only one in that room it meant that collegiate recovery lives on and if it lives on then it still has the potential for growth. One of the greatest things I have learned about trying to build up collegiate recovery in the past few years is that some days it’s just going to be difficult and some days it’s going to seem hopeless and that’s when you don’t give up. The secret I have found is showing up no matter what, continuing on the fight when you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. This reminds me of my own journey in recovery. I have transformed so much in the past 5 years as a human being, it’s more than I could imagine a human could grow in a short period of time. I never knew that I could genuinely even like myself. I didn’t think it was possible for me to be okay with who I am just as I am and today I can sincerely say I do. I credit most of my ability to have been able to work on myself and grow to collegiate recovery. I would have never made it through recovery if it wasn’t for collegiate recovery. That’s how much of an impact collegiate recovery has. It is so powerful, it save lives. This is why I won’t stop fighting for the growth of collegiate recovery. I want others who are struggling or in recovery to have what I have been so freely given by peers, staff, and faculty on a college campus. Early recovery is extremely difficult and if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have so many people dying. Education changed my entire journey, but without collegiate recovery I don’t think I could have made it through to finish. I needed to meet other students in recovery who understood me, who knew exactly what I was going through, and who did not judge me. Another vital piece was meeting staff and faculty who heard my story and believed in me. GBCR is a great advocate for needing allies in recovery. We all need each other on this journey. We welcome all supporters, advocates, allies, and individuals in recovery or struggling. We can’t do this without you. After sharing with my mentees the work we are doing with GBCR, joining forces with other campuses to strengthen our initiatives, the two students I am working with said they would like to start a Greater Birmingham Collegiate Recovery and a Greater Charlotte Collegiate Recovery. It takes only a conversation to impact communities. Sitting and having casual conversations on collegiate recovery with students and mentors from across the United States at the D.C. summit means that our world is changing, it’s growing, this movement is happening, it’s real and this is just the beginning of something great. Joining forces in our collaborative, GBCR, will fuel this mission.
Lina Abdalla
