Strained counseling services and isolation to reduce the spread of the coronavirus have strained access to effective recovery programs for students struggling with addiction.
“Right now, during a pandemic, we’re in deep shit,” said Mary Cook, the program coordinator for the Alcohol and Drug Studies program at San Jose City College. “At the end of the day, alienation and isolation are huge issues for people in recovery, huge issues for people who are using, and what they need is community.”
Many students who misuse alcohol or narcotics experience co-occurring mental health disorders, Cook said.
“In my experience, drugs and drug relapse have always kind of been associated with depression,” said “Jeff”, a communications major and SJSU hockey player. “I guess you would find in a lot of people those things kind of come hand in hand.”
Jeff agreed to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity, his name has been changed to protect his identity.
Sinking into depression, Jeff knew he needed counseling for his mental health. He said his drug and alcohol use often resurface when his mind is in that state.
His drug and alcohol use became more problematic as he grew older.
“Cocaine came into my life when I was really young, at, like, 15,” Jeff said. “I didn’t really see it as much of a problem. It was more of a learning curve as a young dumb teenager.”
But that changed when he turned 25.
“[Cocaine] was reintroduced when I was 25, and I started doing it recreationally and then before I knew it, it was a day-to-day habit,” Jeff said. He said his drug use took a toll on his schooling, work and intimate relationships.
Addiction often causes much more damage the older people become, Cook said.
“A lot of the symptoms of addiction are often linked to consequences, and when you are 18 to 25, sometimes, depending on your drug of choice, it takes a while for you to start experiencing some of those consequences,” Cook said.
Jeff decided to seek help in Fall 2019 for his depression, which he believes is one of the causes of his excessive drug and alcohol misuse.
“I wasn’t necessarily so addicted to the drugs, rather than just kind of in a bad mental state and depressed,” he said.
He turned to services at SJSU that he thought would save him money and be easily accessible while on campus.
“We paid for it through the dues and fees, so I figured, ‘Yeah, what the hell? I don’t have insurance through my parents,’ ” Jeff said.
During 2018-19, roughly 97 students using Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) at SJSU reported alcohol use concerns and 96 reported substance use concerns, said CAPS Director Kell Fujimoto, in an email to the Spartan Daily.
According to previous Spartan Daily reporting, 2,670 students utilized CAPS, and the offices had 15 staff members in Fall 2019.
After Jeff saw an evaluator to determine what services were available, he was referred to off-campus locations.
“What I was told after I called my evaluator is he said he believed that I needed something more than San Jose State could offer,” Jeff said. “Once I was told that I have to go to an off-campus location that kind of just killed my motivation to get help.”
Although Jeff was not seeking help specifically oriented toward drug or alcohol misuse, addiction experts said clinicians need to make more of an effort to assess co-occurring disorders.
In the United States, half of people who experience mental illness have a substance use disorder, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
In turn, this can make the creation of effective forms of counseling much more challenging, Cook said.
“There are some addicts who would rather be given a psych diagnosis any day than admit that they have an addiction problem,” Cook said. “Vice versa, [some would] rather be a meth addict than to believe they have clinical depression.”
However, recent research shows that Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are more effective than clinical services.
According to a study published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Review this March, people who have gone to AA meetings reported higher rates of abstaining from alcohol.
For years, medical professionals have doubted the effectiveness of programs such as AA to reach sobriety, said Keith Humphreys, Stanford University psychiatry professor and one of the authors of the study.
“I think it has something to do with a bit of professional snobbery,” Humphreys said. “It’s something most professions believe, that you need a professional to solve your problems whether it’s to file your taxes or write a will or recover from an addiction . . . Yet everyday, people do those things without professionals.”
However, young people could feel a disconnect at general AA sessions, Cook said.
She referenced groups such as AA and Narcotics Anonymous for young people.
“They still like to do what young people do and they kind of need that because, you know, they don’t relate to somebody who’s 40,” Cook said. “They need to relate to each other.”
Cook said students can build stronger counseling programs for students with substance use disorders by launching awareness campaigns and working with outside groups to visit campus.
However, Santa Clara County’s shelter-in-place order has forced groups online.
In turn, the loneliness can be deadly for addicts, Cook said.
SJSU’S Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Committee, which focuses on substance misuse prevention and intervention, is deliberating on how to connect with students online in groups such as AA, said Mira Mustafa, the committee’s Associated Students representative.
“Due to the shelter-in-place [order], some people who are part of Alcoholics Anonymous might not be able to talk to their sponsors, or attend meetings,” Mustafa said. “So we’re trying to think of ways to just support them a little bit more and give them, like, another point of contact.”
Mustafa said one of the committee’s biggest struggles is connecting to as many students as possible, which is difficult if the students have lost control.
“We know this is a very difficult time for people and we might see an increase in abuse problems,” Mustafa said. “So, we’ve been talking a little with athletics, peer health and CAPS just seeing what we can all do together to see what we can do to support students going through a difficult time.”
