Collegiate Recovery Program at SOU (blog written by a Dragonfly student on the Ashland campus)

Moving to Ashland created a scary moment in my recovery. With a small group of eight Dragonfly students, I was scared my recovery community would be limited. I was scared it would also be limited to older NA and AA members. Southern Oregon University cleared my worry quickly when their program known as C.O.R.E. was presented to me.

C.O.R.E. stands for collegiate recovery, and it is just that. A small group of students come together roughly bi-weekly to supplement and support their recovery. It is expected that C.O.R.E. is a program used in addition to a stronger recovery program, but it seems that this program is still a significant part of students’ lives. I’ve only been to the Wednesday night, strictly student meetings.

My first meeting fully convinced me that this was the right addition to my recovery. There were ten of us in a relatively small, dimly lit room with comfy couches. Chattering died down at about 7:05 when one student announced, “I think its time to begin.” From there, we went in a circle introducing ourselves by name and any information we wanted to give, whether it be favorite music genre, or the reason we were at the meeting. One student was there to understand honesty and openness as a newly diagnosed bi-polar young adult. Another, a heroine addict, just last year, came to terms with how it was destroying his life. Ten completely different stories with very similar symptoms of addiction. After introductions, as we pop-corned the discussion, I realized how much I could relate to these different individuals and how they would definitely be able to support me. “I’ll, for sure, see you next week,” I told the group.