More than 48 million Americans report that they have experienced challenges with drugs or alcohol within the past year. As overdose deaths appear to be rising again after a short-lived decline in 2024, improving and expanding recovery services that help people avoid relapsing remains a public health priority.  

Noel Vest, assistant professor of community health sciences, joined a group of experts in substance use and recovery to call attention to this issue during a July 17 Congressional briefing at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill.

Led by The Friends of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), highlighted advances in recovery research, featured opening remarks by Paul Tonko, US Representative for New York’s 20th district. 

Vest, who studies public policy and social justice issues about recovery and prison reentry, spoke about the need to sustain and expand collegiate recovery programs (CRPs), which can serve as lifelines for college students recovering from substance misuse. He also spoke about his own past experiences with substance use and incarceration, and how these experiences informed and strengthened his work as a scholar now celebrating 23 years of recovery. 

“I, and many other people, are living proof that when recovery services are delivered with intention—and especially in collegiate settings—they don’t just save lives, they change them,” Vest said during the briefing. “These programs gave me and many other people not only the chance to survive, but to thrive. …These programs also train the next generation of professionals who can lead with their shared experience of addiction and recovery.”

The hearing also included presentations by Nora Volkow, director of NIDA; John Kelly, Elizabeth R. Spallin Professor of Psychiatry in Addiction Medicine at Harvard Medical School and founder and director of the Recovery Research Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital; and Aaron Hogue, senior vice president of research and clinical science/family and adolescent clinical technology and science at Partnership to End Addiction. 

The speakers highlighted the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for treating or preventing substance use disorder—a complex condition that often requires a combination of clinical treatment and a variety of long-term support from clinicians, peers, colleagues, friends, and families. 

Alcohol and drug misuse, both leading causes of preventable death, have risen sharply in the US over the last three decades, with even steeper rises during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recovery can take on many forms, from coaching and peer support, to housing, community centers, and educational and employment resources.

CRP services, in particular, are uniquely tailored to support college students as they navigate the drinking and party culture that is a hallmark of the typical college experience.

“College is a tough atmosphere to try and reduce or stop using substances, generally,” Vest said in his remarks. “More specifically, underage drinking remains a unique public health challenge in the US where—despite it being illegal for most college students—it is often socially tolerated and culturally normalized, so that not using drugs and alcohol…is seen as radical in this environment.”

Despite their value and growth on college campuses over the last several years, CRPs are critically underfunded and risk losing additional funding due to the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to federally funded research and other programming at universities, as well as Supreme Court-sanctioned layoffs at the Department of Education. Vest recently led a study that presented the first comprehensive assessment of CRPs, finding that these programs are most successful when they are funded by multiple sources. Well-funded CRPs were also more likely to offer dedicated community spaces, provide relapse management policies, and provide harm reduction and mutual-aid meetings. 

“The future of students in recovery—and the broader health of our academic communities—depends on our willingness to act,” Vest wrote in a recent op-ed about these findings. “The time to act is now. We must prioritize long-term diversified funding solutions for CRPs nationwide. No student should have to choose between their education and their recovery.”