Author: Erik Parker, Torch Staff
This semester, Emmons Health Center introduced a 12 Step Alcohol and Substance Abuse Program to give students an anonymous space to discuss and recover from alcohol or substance abuse. The group meets every Thursday at 12 p.m. in the Green Family Dining Room in the Johnson Student Center.
Richard Youngblood, the Director of Student Health Services at Emmons Health Center, believes that the 12 Step Program is important because the college age group has a “high propensity for alcohol and substance use and abuse.” Up until now, he and some students were aware that Occidental College did not have many resources in terms of programming for students to deal with these issues.
“The idea [for the 12 Step Program] was brought to me via an Oxy student who noted that there was no resource on campus for students who struggle with alcohol and substance abuse,” Youngblood said. “I asked faculty, staff and students about receptivity [to such a program] and got a totally favorable response.”
In collaboration with staff members and students, Emmons Health Center made plans for the student support group.
Currently, Youngblood is very involved in the 12 Step Program’s weekly meetings, and he said he is “happy to step up to the plate.” He hopes that in the future, the group will “take on some of its own energy” and become sustainable in his absence.
“Hopefully some more people will become interested,” he said. “It would be great if more students recognized their own need.”
However, Youngblood said that the 12 Step Program can work regardless of size. “All you need are 2 people to have a meeting.”
The Director of Health Services emphasized that the group is part of Emmons Health Center’s larger goal of encouraging students to make thoughtful decisions about alcohol and drugs. “It’s just a little piece of it-getting a toehold and putting it on the radar,” he said.
Youngblood said that he hopes Emmons Health Center will be able to increase programming for alcohol and drug awareness and prevention, including guest speakers. He stressed the importance of student involvement in the planning and execution of such programming.
“It’s everyone’s issue. It’s the culture of the school,” he said.
Youngblood has some other ideas on how to reduce alcohol and drug abuse problems on college campuses. “I think Oxy should be dry. . . . A bunch of schools are going dry,” he said, citing nearby Pepperdine University.
“Does that solve the problem? No. I think it does send a message though, and it doesn’t help any that it’s not dry.”
However, Youngblood said he does realize that college students are going to drink, which is why he thinks it is important to “talk about drinking responsibly.” He calls this a “harm reduction” approach that gives students ideas about how to modify unhealthy drinking habits as opposed to forbidding and condemning it altogether.
“It’s the same with cigarettes,” he said. “It’s about weaning off and slowing down.”
The 12 Step Program aims to encourage students to make these healthier decisions by “sharing their own issues to the extent they want” in an anonymous setting, Youngblood said. He is not very worried about students disrespecting the group’s anonymity principle because students who attend are “there for themselves.”
“I was pleased with the first meeting,” Youngblood said. He plans to continue facilitating 12 Step Program meetings for the time being and hopes that they will carry on in the next school year.
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