This year, USC's Substance Abuse Prevention and Education office hired a full-time faculty member for Gamecock Recovery, and with this new staff member came the Addiction and Recovery-Informed Seminar (ARISE). These seminars were created to provide a new forum on campus to discuss addiction and its aftermath. The inaugural seminar was held on Sept. 27 at the Strom Thurmond Fitness & Wellness Center.
The goal of the new monthly series is to gather a variety of professional addiction experts who can bring their own unique expertise to the conversation surrounding the complex issue of addiction recovery. For example, speakers can address addiction's impact on the human brain, local programs for individuals in recovery and instructor's research, among other expertise.
"It's about bringing those voices together and creating an opportunity where we can connect, and also where students can connect to a larger recovery community," said Gamecock Recovery coordinator Larkin Cummings.
The vision for ARISE is to create a community on campus that embraces recovery and raises awareness for substance abuse, holding discussions on the last Thursday of each month.
"Ultimately that vision is a campus, a whole campus, that embraces recovery," Cummings said.
Nathan Lee Tate was the featured speaker at the seminar and said he wanted students, faculty and community members who are impacted by substance abuse to attend these new events, so they "can be a part of something a lot bigger."
He said the goal is to make the events an opportunity for students to hear new perspectives on substance abuse from across USC and the community to create a collegiate recovery system. He said that it's the responsibility of recovery professionals and adults of the community to help those in recovery or in need of.
"Service when divided, is actually multiplied," Tate said. "You don't diminish it by dividing it, you multiply it. And, so that's a message that I'd really like for students and other participants of form like this, to take away with."
Nathan Lee Tate was not exempt from this reality. When in college, he found himself consuming a large amount of beers daily, not for pleasure but because he said he needed it to feel right. This resulted in driving under the influence.
Tate said he comes from a privileged background and often got out of trouble because of who he was and what he looked like. Because of that, he didn't realize the consequences and did not take responsibility for it, which he now does.
“Me driving drunk is not that dissimilar than firing a loaded gun into a crowded room,” Tate said. “Because when I’m behind the wheel and under the influence, I'm as dangerous as a random bullet cruising through a crowded room.”
During the summer of 2006, Tate was 28 years old and began to see a therapist and became sober. Tate stressed that outside help was essential to his success. He went on to graduate from the University of Wisconsin and has two graduate degrees.
Tate said he hopes American society considers the real consequences of promoting alcohol as a celebratory drink and be honest about it and its impacts.
Tate is now a recovery services coordinator at the Department of Alcohol and Other Drugs Abuse Services, where he works to help others recover.
Joshua Gray's college experience was similar to Tate's. He said that in his freshman year he was a competitive soccer player who often worked out and was amazed at how other students could drink without considering the impact on their health.
However, his friends introduced him to marijuana, which he used until he began drinking at age 21.
He wants students and USC to remain aware of substance abuse and guide those in need of help.
"One of the things that you find really rapidly is that while our stories have some difference in detail, they're more or less the same story over and over again," Gray said.
Gray, now a mechanical engineering adjunct professor at USC, hopes his story might help those currently in need.
"I don't know what you could've said to me when I was 20 that would've gotten to me. I don't know, you know, I was pretty headstrong, whatever," Gray said. "But if it plants a seed, maybe it would've kicked in, in my mid-20s and instead of my late to mid-30s, you know?"