Majoring In Dependence, With A Minor In Powerlessness

A story in today’s Wall Street Journal discusses recovery campuses:

“I was 16 years old when I got clean and sober and I want to stay that way in college,” says Mr. Weir, a 20-year-old business major now entering his junior year at Texas Tech. Among amenities including a sober-student hangout with study pods, pool tables and 12-step meetings, Mr. Weir receives a $3,000-a-year scholarship from the university for earning near-perfect grades while staying sober.  (SOURCE: Campus Life 101: Staying Sober)

College should be a place where you spread your wings, develop an independent mind, and prepare yourself to boldly head out into the world.  I fear for these students, that their college years will be a time when their wings are clipped, they learn to distrust their own minds, and they become further hobbled and unable to live in the real world.  The programs described in this article sound like the perfect way to teach people dependence.

These kids are being taught that they can’t control themselves on a regular college campus.  They’re being taught that if they’re anywhere near other young people who engage in heavy drinking, that the lure of it will be too strong to resist, that it will “trigger” them to “relapse.”  That is the implied if not explicit message of such programs – that without the sober clubhouses, 12-step meetings, and 1-credit courses in “relapse prevention” every semester, then they would go off the rails with drinking.

What happens when they leave college?  Do they need to find an employer who provides an array of recovery programs and activities at the workplace?  Are they likely to find this?  What if they don’t find this?

Do you want your children to learn that they can’t control their behavior, and that without an artificially created recovery environment they’re doomed to live as an addict or alcoholic?  If so, send them to a college with a recovery program.  If not, teach them that a bright future awaits them, and encourage them to develop their interests.  They will enjoy productive non-substance related activities, and they’ll naturally gravitate towards friends who don’t have these problems.

Jails are notorious for turning petty thieves into lifetime criminals – the more time you spend in jail, the more you think of yourself as an outsider to the law-abiding society.  Likewise, the more time you spend in treatment and “recovery”, the more you think of yourself as abnormal, unable to function in mainstream society, and unable to resist substance abuse without a constant battle against addiction.  You can’t lose battles if you refuse to fight them.

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Another disturbing part of this article is some statistics which show that the rate of college aged rehab admissions has doubled.  The problem with this is that addiction is usually a phase in young people that they will naturally outgrow, and just as I outlined above, they may not have the chance to outgrow the phase if instead they’re taught that they have a lifelong disease.  See Addiction Is For Kids.  We’re teaching a handicap.