4 minute read
Sober at Southern
Sober
AT SOUTHERN
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College is socially renowned as a period of self-discovery through exploration. It is a time when mistakes are made, often forgotten and sometimes not even remembered. But all students are not uniform, they each face a set of unique challenges just to get through the day. For some students, the biggest problem they face is just staying sober.
The city of Statesboro, small as it may be, hosts over 80 12-step meetings every week for any slew of addictions. From alcoholism to sex addiction, there’s a rehab and support group for the estimated 1,000 people who have sought help here. In fact, as we’ve previously discussed in the spring edition of Reflector Magazine, the town plays host to one of the most widely respected rehab facilities in the country, Willingway. The problem isn’t whether or not you can find help for your vices, it’s what to do after you’ve been treated.
Half-way houses can’t let you shack there forever, and they aren’t meant to. Your next step will be realizing what it means to lead a normal life outside of your treatment facility of choice. For many young adults that will mean getting a secondary education that they may have put on hold on while in the throes of addiction.
Luckily, for the thousands of people who have been through Willingway Hospital alone, Georgia Southern offers a program for students who need that extra help. Through the Center for Addiction Recovery on the school’s campus, an offshoot of the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, these sober students are given special consideration. According to their website, the community has around 40 members who are able to enjoy privileges like early registration and scholarships.
It’s not all free money and cupcakes for the afflicted at GS, however, they attend weekly seminars in addition to whatever outside help they need to stay clean. There is a fairly extensive admittance process that prefaces the student’s acceptance that involves having at least six months of sobriety and obtaining three letters of recommendation that can attest to their sobriety.
On average, the students are about 24-years-old and have two and a half years of sobriety between them. Many also work a part-time job along with a traditional 12 credit hours per semester workload. It is these scheduling conflicts that facilitate a need for special advisement and registration protocols.
For students like Anna Billet, the program has helped her see a new life for herself after graduation. The 27-year-old Tucker, Georgia native struggled for years with substance abuse dating back to high school. After a series of run-ins with the law and an intervention from her family, she landed in Statesboro for a court-mandated bout of rehabilitation.
It wasn’t her first attempt at getting clean and it ultimately wasn’t even the first time the law tried to do it for her. After an unsuccessful stint in DUI court in her late teens, a few trips to the county jail, and towards the end of her run with methamphetamine abuse
a few years later, she lamented that she was lost. “I was always on probation and I was always like failing drug tests. It was just like I could never stop no matter whatever consequences were over my head,” Billet said solemnly, “I guess I always felt like there’s something inside me that was missing. Something was missing and I had to make everything normal. I was never okay with being sober.”
That all came to an end after her time at several inpatient treatment centers in the city. Now four years sober, the easygoing accounting major looks forward to a rejuvenated future after she graduates in December of 2018. When she’s not maintaining her 4.0 GPA, Billet acts as a part-time manager at La’Berry Frozen Yogurt Café, sponsors other sober women, and says she has reason to be excited for her reclaimed life.
Her newfound life due, in-part, to the services the school offers to work around her busy lifestyle.
“It’s busy and crazy [my life], but it’s filled with tons of amazing stuff now that I am where I am,” Billet said cheerily, “The program at Southern offers a lot of cool trips and incentives and you can be super involved if you want, but your involvement
is all up to you. It’s done a lot for me.”
To contact the Center for Addiction Recovery you can call 912-478-2288 or visit them at 501 Forest Dr. If you find yourself in need of immediate help you can call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration hotline for 24 hours a day toll-free at 1-800-662-4357. No matter who you are and no matter how bad you think you’ve got it, there will always people out there who are willing to help you to get back on track.
By. Casey Rohlen
