A peer-facilitated group designed to develop a community for students who have struggled with alcohol or other substances will begin holding meetings today. The group is led and organized by Anna Reyes ’15 and Patrick Toomey ’17, two students who have struggled with alcohol themselves and were looking for others with similar experiences.
“We are trying to find students who have gone through some sort of realization that their prior relationship with substances or alcohol, or both, didn’t satisfy them,” said Reyes.
Reyes struggled with alcohol as a first year, which led her to take a year off.
“Coming back, it made me realize, at least for me—dealing with depression as well as just being a bit of an introverted person—that finding a social scene around campus that didn’t make me want to me drink really heavily or do anything else was difficult,” Reyes said.
Reyes and Toomey came together with the help of Whitney Hogan, associate director of health promotion.
“My hope is that the group will be really fluid and be really welcoming to people who are kind of all over the spectrum in terms of their drinking habits, but the common denominator will be people who are looking to have weekends that are really fun and fulfill their social needs without necessarily being emotionally or physically disruptive,” said Hogan.
It is different than other more educational groups on campus such as Peer Health or the Alcohol Team because it is more social and is structured around a community of like-minded individuals.
“I think this group is going to be really helpful for students to find other students who are thinking critically about what the alcohol scene is on campus and finding peer support and camaraderie with other people,” Hogan said.
Unlike some other services on campus, the vision for the group does not focus on counseling or professional guidance.
“We don’t want it to feel like its a group therapy session,” said Reyes. “We decided we wanted to focus on the social scene.”
The hope when creating this group was to get away from the stigma which can be associated with groups like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Bowdoin’s group is not designed to encourage total abstinence from substances.
“We are not an AA group, but we are a group that you can come to and we can hopefully connect you to an AA group if that’s what you want to do, or just discuss things pertaining to alcoholism,” said Toomey.
In order to create a comfortable and relaxed environment for discussion there will be no faculty present at the meetings.
“There is definitely a heavy drinking culture at Bowdoin and a heavy party scene and it’s easy to get sucked into that, but there is also a lot more to college than just that. It will be strengthening to myself and hopefully to Anna to know that we are not alone in that and to other people who are struggling with similar issues.” Toomey said.
The group is still in the early stages of development, meaning there is a lot of room for adaptation and change. The needs of the group will change depending on who attends, which could call for more or less structure and also the possibility of working with other similar groups on campus.
“Pat and I didn’t want to make it too strict of a setup as of yet because for us we want to create a community that we can also interact in,” said Reyes.
While Friday meetings are designed to be very informal, there are plans to have a more facilitated discussion once a month with a member of Counseling Services or Geno Ring, a licensed drug and alcohol counselor that often works with Bowdoin students.
“I think that being able to help other people with similar issues is just another way of helping myself, and being able to create that healthy dialogue regarding substance abuse in its many forms. It can only help,” Toomey said.