Episode Transcript
Victoria F. Burns and Alcohol Tipping Point-20230405_103450-Meeting Recording
Deb: Welcome back to the Alcohol Tipping Point Podcast. Today on the show I have Dr. Victoria Burns. Dr. Burns is an associate professor at the University of Calgary, and she is the founder and director of the u Calgary Recovery Community.
As a registered social worker, educator, researcher, and engaged activist, she has worked in the homelessness and addiction recovery sphere for over 15 years. She combines her lived experience of addiction, recovery, and disability with a passion for storytelling and the arts to raise awareness and compact stigma for marginalized populations in scholarly and mainstream spaces.
So welcome Victoria to the show. I'm delighted to have you on here and talk about collegiate recovery and what your experience has been like and where do we go from now, like to help our students and our faculty and staff. So thank you for being on
Dr. Burns: the show. Thanks for inviting me. Happy to be here. Yeah.
Can you
Deb: just give a little background about who you are and what you do?
Dr. Burns: Sure. So I am an associate professor at the University of Calgary. I did my, I'm actually originally from the East coast, so I grew up in New Brunswick. I did a bachelor. Degree there in psychology and then a bachelor's, social work, master's of social work and PhD in social work at McGill University in Montreal.
And moved with my husband Elvey and my dog named Pino, who was named after the wine before I got sober in. In 2013 we moved to Calgary, Alberta in western Canada in, in 2017 for a tenure track position. So I did get sober during my PhD and it's, I was also doing research on homelessness and harm reduction and it's those combined experiences.
They say, you know, research is me search. I. I did live that, and it's a result of, of that journey that inspired founding a collegiate recovery program at the University of Calgary.
Deb: Oh, that's fantastic. So you, I, I had read an article you had written about being a sober professor and kind of coming out in academia, and I just thought it was so interesting.
Can you share what your experience was like getting sober and then coming out? Bit of sorts in this world. And I, it's also a world I don't really think of. When I think of collegiate recovery, I was thinking, oh good, like we're helping the students and well drinking culture, which that's part of it. But also I was not thinking of the, the faculty and the staff and what goes into that working environment.
So I'd love to hear about your experience.
Dr. Burns: Sure. Well, I'm not surprised you haven't heard much about it because there's, it's very taboo still to talk about addiction and recovery amongst faculty and staff and. I struggled with alcohol all throughout my university career and I tried, you know, the controlled drinking harm reduction strategies for many years as many of us who, you know, decide that abstinence is, is the only safe pathway tend to do so.
I saw multiple therapists. I. You know, tried all of the techniques and tactics and had chaperones when I went out and all of the, everything to try to drink in safety and I just couldn't. And I was a blackout drinker, and that was normalized. It wasn't seen as particularly problematic in the circles I rolled with in university, in the party culture.
So during the second year of my PhD, I, you know, my, my drinking was getting progressively worse, but I was also a fully funded six figure, you know, scholarship winner. I was married, still am homeowner, you know, the, the whole, the CV looked good, but I had this other side of my life that was really unmanageable with my drinking and.
On top of that during my first year of my PhD, I was sexually assaulted labor Day weekend going into my PhD. And that triggered an autoimmune response that led to being diagnosed with Type one diabetes during my PhD and my drinking, because of that trauma really took off. So I already had a problem and.
It was like every insulin injection was a painful reminder of the sexual assault and things really went off the rails for those two years where I was trying to, you know, where I was dealing with unprocessed trauma through the only tool I really had in my toolbox at the time. So, I didn't tell anyone about the trauma experience my husband knew.
I was too ashamed. I was too, you know, and, and also my drinking. I didn't tell my supervisors and my PhD and finally hit a rock bottom in 2013 and was advised, basically, I told a few people in, you know, I was in, I ended up getting sober through aa. I didn't go in on willingly really, but it was the only thing I could afford at the time, and I had tried everything else.
So I ended up going, you know, connecting with people in my, in the recovery community of the AA community. And there were some academics actually who I knew in my community and they advised me not to tell anyone I was in recovery. And I was also. Advised later on when I did start disclosing to a few people I deemed to be safe who were academics, when I was looking for tenure track jobs, they advised me not to tell anyone because it could affect my career prospects and I didn't wanna be stigmatized and have that label.
So I remain silent and. I snuck around to meetings. I basically, you know, was pressured to continue drinking. Even at my PhD defense, I tell this story often, but my PhD supervisor who knew me as a drinker for the first couple years started, you know, in after my successful defense. Said you know, pulled out the bottle of champagne in front of everyone there, and come on, Victoria, take the first glass.
And I was two years sober at the time and said, no, thank you. Come on. It's your defense. You deserve it. No thank you. No, really, I camped hired. And then finally he said, come on, Victoria. It's not like you're an alcoholic in front of everybody. So I took the glass and pretended to drink it, and then threw it out.
But these kind of, this pressure in the context of academia we're so normalized and encouraged, particularly around drinking culture, was a huge stress for me. And having this dual identity as a person in recovery, and then as an academic and a social worker, a registered social worker who. Really, it was at my core Values, like use of self was really important.
I was looking for a psychologist or a social worker who had lived experience. I couldn't find anyone. I thought it was important to disclose, and there were many teachable moments in the classroom where I think I could have done a good job at reducing stigma. So anyway, this. This continued on and when I moved to Calgary from Montreal, it was a bigger, or sorry, a smaller city, and it was becoming increasingly unmanageable to compartmentalize this identity.
And I basically got to the point where it was negatively affecting my recovery and I was prepared to leave my tenure track job, and I talked to my dean about it. After doing some, I talk about this in the Sober Professor article of people kind of along the way who encouraged me to disclose and, and were allies in that.
And my dean, who is extremely supportive, said, you know, I will personally make sure this doesn't naly affect your tenure. I give you green light to do research in this area, cuz that was something I was really passionate about doing, but was scared to because I felt like a hypocrite. If I'm trying to reduce addiction stigma and recovery stigma, but I'm perpetuating it by being too afraid to disclose.
I, I couldn't live with myself. The integrity just wasn't there. So that led to doing. Embarking on a program of research looking at addiction and recovery stigma in higher education, particularly for faculty. And then that connected me to the collegiate recovery world, which in Canada is very new. It's started in the 1970s in the United States, but there were only two programs in Canada that had just started the first one.
2019 at University of British Columbia, so university, and then there's one at U Windsor and they're starting to come up, but it's really not as developed as it is in the United States. And in the United States. It's mushroomed. Over the past 10 years, there's about 150 programs across the states now.
Deb: Oh, interesting.
So what, well, first of all, thank you for sharing your experience and your coming out of sorts and, and just the whole identity thing. And I mean, that's so huge and so important. So then it kind of led you down to starting your own collegiate recovery program. But, but what is that, what does that mean?
Dr. Burns: So a collegiate recovery program, Is typically a grassroots initiative that includes programming to support recovery, so that can include sober social events, peer support, mutual aid meetings, substance rehousing, residence housing. It can include scholarships and awards for students in recovery. It. There's usually ally training, recovery ally training.
So these are some of the best practices of collegiate recovery programs. They, so the first one actually started at Brown University in 1977, and some of the larger programs include Texas Tech has one of the flagship programs. They're typically. Funded with private dollars. I think about 70% are privately funded through endowment funds and people in, you know, alumni who are in recovery.
The so basically it's the, the philosophy is that, It started for students in recovery. So the faculty and staff piece is, is not as common, and that was something that was really important to the creation of the University of Calgary recovery community because, I came at this as a, as wanting to create a recovery friendly workplace so that if people did disclose about being in recovery or about needing help, that they wouldn't be at risk of losing their job, and they would be met with compassion rather than punishment.
So that was a really important piece of the program. But there were not precedents for this faculty and staff piece. And that's been a learning curve in itself because working with staff wellness, working with employee assistance programs, working with unions, like there's a whole other P policy piece that needs to be looked at.
And that's part of the work that I'm doing now is to build that framework, the student side. So all of the evidence-based practices I mentioned but the idea also that students should not have to sacrifice their recovery for their education. So we know that about 40% of attrition. Rates are associated with problematic substance use.
And this is something that, you know, we, a lot of the support student wellness services don't have specialized training or necessarily support for folks who are struggling with substance use and behaviors. Right. And then they'll end up needing to leave their, you know, not being able to complete their programs.
So collegiate recovery programs are also. Good for business in that sense, where students are, they actually have higher GPAs if they're part of collegiate recovery programs. There's been research done on that, and we know from, not collegiate recovery research, but the staff side that that workers who are in recovery missed fewer days, you know, have, are more productive employees.
So there is definitely an economic benefit to the institution. But it's really about, I think, normalizing the recovery identity is what the, these programs aim to do. And that's by having that me Too built in opportunities for me too, you know? And that was something I did not have. And I, the reason I ended up getting into recovery was because of a me Too moment where, I was at a party with a colleague at McGill, someone who was in the PhDs G program from the States, and his name's Ben, and he was the life of the party.
He was throwing a party. He was older than, you know, I was 32 or something and he was in his fifties. But really, you know, he is from New York City and everything, and I noticed at the party he wasn't drinking and I, this was a month before I got sober, so I was pretty, Like I was in the depths of my addiction and asked him, you know, why are you drinking?
He is pouring out sangria in my glass, and he said, oh, I've been in recovery for 25 years and very nonchalantly and everything I thought about being sober. He challenge because I thought not drinking, being sober meant that I wouldn't be able to have. And he was providing, he was restoring that myth for me right there.
And he really was that role model. I needed the, oh wow. Here's a person who is living his best life in recovery and he is not a boring TTO alert. All of the negative things that I believed. The, the idea of the Collegiate Recovery Program is to provide more of those built in opportunities where someone you can connect with someone cuz there's so much shame tied into it, right?
Like mental health. Has come, I think, a long way. Mental illness, we talk more about anxiety, depression, but with addiction, there's that double stigma still where it's still viewed as a choice. And we're finding that a lot with the faculty and staff as well, where people are just terrified of being found out.
So having more people who are recovering out loud is really important just to create that safety for those who maybe face other barriers. That I don't, or that people in positions of power don't. Right. As a white woman, for instance, as you know, these are things I can, I can do this now and realize, you know, I'm a tenured professor now that there are people out there who need to get help though and aren't getting up because they're too afraid that someone might find out.
Deb: Yeah, and, and not just in academia. You hear it in all, all kinds of jobs. You know, I'm from healthcare and it's like doctors and nurses don't wanna speak out. Lawyers don't want to like it. It's really across the board. Any profession, they're afraid to. Get help or even like get a prescription for naltrexone.
Like, oh, what if that goes on my insurance? What if I can't get life insurance? What if my employer finds out, you know, just, just so many different fears. So how do you address some of those fears for the worker? And then we'll get back to like college students.
Dr. Burns: So for the worker, what we found, Is that at our institution anyway, that when people do disclose, they, they are supported.
So we have a wellness advocate who works with staff, and the problem is though we have such a lack of resources that are timely available for substance use. And they're expensive. So what happens often if someone raises their hand and says, I need help with my drinking at work, or other drug use, and they're put on a waiting list for two to three months, there's a problem there.
We know that that's the most vulnerable time for many folks. So what we've been looking at are models, and that's for the public sector. I know in the states it's different, but. We have public treatment, residential treatment centers, but there are long waiting lists for them. We have private treatment centers, but they're about $30,000 a month.
So what we've been looking at is safety sensitive industries like the airline industry, for instance, air Canada and WestJet, which are the two Canadian airlines. They do. A copayment of a third, a third, a third, where the employer, the management will pay a third, the union will pay a third and the individual will pay a third.
In order for people to get ready, rapid access to treatment if that's what they need. Cuz that's, so that's like trying to create more avenues, more pathways, right. For recovery. And of course, not everyone needs residential treatment. And that's where, like, I didn't go to residential treatment. we know that the long-term results of residential treatment, there's a revolving door often because when people come back to their communities, to their workplace, to their school, they're out of their recovery bubble, right?
So we have to work on rec recover, building people's recovery capital in the workplace, and that's where. That support of having managers who understand substance use disorder, who understand, you know, even non-stigmatizing language, who are able to support people who are returning to work as well, and recognizing it's not a choice.
You know, all of this, all of the things that we learn as a recovery ally. Are important, but a lot of managers are not even aw, are not aware of that unless they've had personal experience or, you know, close family members and friends often. And even that, that can lead to even more bias in the workplace.
So we're working on now, like we ha we do offer a recovery 1 0 1 training to faculty and staff and students to try to get a baseline of just knowledge. So that we're better able to engage in those hard conversations with people, and so people understand what recovery is, what addiction is. That's the starting point right now.
And then building up Just more compassionate policy around how to support people when they do raise their hand and say, I need help, or they want to return to the workplace. And we have a lot of work to do. I know in the states, like New Hampshire has done a phenomenal job with recovery friendly workplace initiative that was initiated by Governor Sununu and.
You know, they, they're really supporting people, workplaces, to even hire, actively hire people who are in recovery and doing that kind of thing. Like, we're not there yet in academia. It's you know, it's, and, and it's such a, a powerhouse in terms of. The number of people that we like. At our university alone, we have 40,000 people, which is like the size of a small town, right?
The university next to us, university of Alberta has 50,000 people. So there's a lot of people affected by addiction and a lot of work to do. So that's basically kind of where we're at with the University of Calgary. Recovery community and we are scaling the, we received a $500 GRA $500,000 grant to scale the University of Calgary recovery community across the province to 26 publicly funded post-secondaries.
So we're working on that right now of administering seed grants so that people can, so that the champion schools can. Post events, recovery oriented events, like we're seeing mocktail nights when we're seeing all sorts of different events popping up across the province. So just getting the conversation started, I think, because I don't know about you, but in, in university, like I did not hear about recovery and the only image I had was old men in church basements, not college, you know, having a good time kind of thing.
Living a sober life.
Deb: Oh, definitely. I mean, that's why I'm so passionate about what I do is cuz I want to show people like, you don't have to get to rock bottom to change your drinking. There's so many different ways to change your drinking. You know, it doesn't have to be AA or inpatient rehab. You know, you, there's so many new online options.
You know, they call it like the. Recovery world. And a lot of people are just changing their drinking because they're realizing like, drinking's bad for your health. You know? You don't have to have a drinking problem to have a problem with drinking or to give it up. So I think just really, and that kind of goes back to education too, just like so people are more aware.
What does, what is alcohol really doing to your health? What really is addiction or alcohol use disorder? You know, a lot of the terminology is still alcoholic and it's black and white. It's, you know, either you're normal or you're an alcoholic and you know, it's like, no, it's alcohol use disorder. It's on a spectrum from mild to moderate to severe, like, So just like really changing the narrative there.
And then like you're doing, creating a safe environment for people to come out and just be like, yeah, me too. I had a problem. Or I need help. And just having alternative ways to offer help. So, so,
Dr. Burns: well even, I think, yeah, that's a good point too, is we're. I use the term hitting rock bottom in a sense. But that is a loaded term for sure.
And I think, I think William James referred to it as the misery threshold. Like where is it to the point where you wanna change? So it could even be what we see a lot of as the recovery, curious people, you know, I'm just a safe place to even question your relationship with the substance,
Deb: you know? Yeah.
Sober, curious. Totally. So curious. Yeah, and if you don't know, like maybe take a break or do something different. So let's talk about like young students and college students, and how do we change drinking culture on campuses? I, I don't know, do you guys have a Greek system in. Canada. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I have a niece right now who's going to Boise State University, and I'm just like, the drinking culture is still strong.
It's still like a lot of binging and whatnot. So what, what have you noticed with student drinking culture and, and how can we change it?
Dr. Burns: Yeah, it's, it's about changing attitudes, which takes time and changing the, the norms around drinking. So what we are seeing with gens ears though, so the real, you know, the 20 year old folks is that Alcohol is, there's still a huge alcohol binge drinking culture, but there's also the positive sobriety movement that I know for myself was not there, like mocktails and things like that, that are gaining popularity and there was less evidence.
About the risks of drinking. And like in Canada, we just came out with the Canada's guidelines on alcohol and hell yeah. So it's not even considered low risk drinking guidelines because any amount of drinking comes with risk. So, Those are important things for people to consider. And, but honestly, like as a 20 year old, and if you, you know, I knew about the quote unquote low risk drinking guidelines.
I didn't really care because it was all about, it's about belonging, right? And it's about fitting in. And at that age, people are more vulnerable to addiction. Becoming to falling on that spectrum of, of the substance use disorder, 18 to 25 is the most at risk group. So what we're doing is the, is the sober social events which are actually, we had the St.
Patrick's Day one as mentioned, and we, there were about 60 students there. We partnered with the residents. So we're targeting residents quite a bit right now. We have a. Relationship with them and implemented substance free housing this year. So just as a pilot, we wanted to see if we would get an in get interest, and we had two suites, so four.
Four bedrooms in the, so eight units, essentially eight spots, and we had more than that in interest, but we're also not marketing it as recovery housing, it's substance free housing. So it's also that, again, that normalizing that. It doesn't have to be someone who hit rock bottom. And this is sort of, You know where all of the people in recovery are living.
Cuz that can be stigmatizing too as people who don't drink or use substances as a lifestyle choice for religious reasons, for health reasons. Maybe they had a family member who you know, was in addiction and they don't wanna be around it. They feel vulnerable. Like we have all, I did the interviews myself and a colleague in interviews with students to see, to make sure like what their motivation was too.
Cuz we don't want people. Whose parents want them to live there, but they don't really want to cause. So that was encouraging though, to see the interest. So we're hoping to expand that next year to see, and I think that that's where. It's gonna take time to, to shift cuz we have the Greek, the sororities, but not like in the states.
I think. Not quite as entrenched in the culture, but there definitely is. And we're also a commuter, our, we're commuter campus too. We have about 3000 students in res, but we have a lot of students who are commuting as well. So that also changes the drinking culture I think. But it is definitely a problem.
Still and a lot of ambulance rides to the hospital on the weekends from residents and, and things like the risks are definitely there. So the we also have this year we did lived experience of recovery, scholarships and awards. So we had 10 valued at 2,500 for students and 10 for staff. And it's a service award as well.
The goal was to. Have the winners continue in a service role championing the program, and we had 21 applicants for students in recovery, and we only had 10 spots, and then we had seven for staff, which was more than I expected. But the stigma still, we have some of the winners who don't wanna share that they are in recovery and they're worried cuz their parents don't know or they don't want their employer to know.
So we're still have some work to do on that as well.
Deb: Yeah, I mean it's just like chipping away, right?
Dr. Burns: Chipping away. Yeah.
Deb: Well, can you speak to the double stigma in drinking cultures where you're shamed for drinking too much or not?
Dr. Burns: Yeah. Yeah, it's, there's such a paradox, right? That it's, I think it depends on where, where you're situated culturally, because there's definitely this sober stigma in academia, which is, you know, this idea that if you're not.
Participating in the drinking culture, then you won't be invited. You know, you'll be labeled as this was, you know, as boring and, and there's research supporting this, right? Like how do you survive in as a non-drinker in a culture where every, or where everything's telling you to drink. And we see that not only in in academia, but mommy wine culture, you know, everything is telling you to drink.
So all of these marketing messages create this social stigma around not drinking, cuz you're somehow not having fun. You're not. But also the self-stigma that it, if you are drinking too much, you are and you're we're, we're being. Bombarded with messaging also of drink responsibly, meaning that if you can't quote unquote drink responsibly, you are somehow at fault.
So there is that double stigma. It's like, okay, I'm supposed to be imbibing basically 24 7 now it's at my nail salon everywhere. Otherwise, I'm being judged. Right. You go to a restaurant and they give you the drink menu right away, and if you're like, no thanks, sometimes you'll get a look, right? So people, there's an expectation, so you're you.
So then that's carries some shame. But then also when things go off the rails, because it is an addictive substance inherently. Then we're somehow at fault because we can't quote unquote, drink normally like everyone else. Even though we know people are, a lot of people are not able to quote unquote drink normally because we're not.
It's not healthy to drink either, so Yeah, it's like if you replace it with cigarettes, right? It's like smoke responsibly. No one would, you know, kind. It's, it's inherently an addictive substance.
Deb: Oh, totally. I mean, it's such, ugh, that double standard. It's just Yes. Well, is that what the sober paradox is, or what is the sober paradox?
Dr. Burns: So I think the, the sober paradox is, I think a few different things, but it, it is that idea that you're kind of damned if you do when you're damned if you don't when it comes to drinking. So, like I was saying, but also just the, the, the. The idea that it's, it, it is a healthier choice not to drink, but you're somehow still, you still feel bad about that decision because of the culture that we're in where everything is telling you to drink.
Mm-hmm. Does that
Deb: make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I think it we, that was kind of covered before too. Totally. So how, you know, and this, this could be for anything that you feel stigma or shame about. What are some ways that we can reduce that stigma or shame with getting sober, changing our drinking? So,
Dr. Burns: so can you repeat the question?
Deb: I'm sorry. Well, a and also, I just kind of phrased it that way because I was like, this could, we could probably take out drinking to some of our conversation and plug in any identity based change, you know, whether that's coming out, you know, with your sexuality or, or, and that just came to mind, just like whatever it is.
If there's something associated with stigma or shame, what are some ways we can reduce that?
Dr. Burns: I think having more people reclaim the identity in a public way is part of that, and that's what we've seen with all stigmatized identities in it's these, you know, these movements where people. People do reclaim, you know, the queer identity for instance, you know, is something you did not talk about being part of the L B T Q community at work and you, or if you had to work in certain places that were quote unquote safe.
Right? And it's the same in with addiction and recovery. Often people will go work in treatment centers where it's actually seen as a strength, right? So by having people talk about it more and have the visibility of it. So that's why I do recover out loud as an academic, because I don't want students to leave university thinking.
Recovery does not exist cuz there's been so much about the narrative of addiction, right? The doom and gloom, the hitting rock bottom, the living under the bridge, drinking out of a paper bag. This, these images are pervasive. What we don't see are ordinary people thriving, just living in recovery. And yes, it, and that's something that, I think we need to shift also in research as there's been so much research on addiction and pathways into addiction and that acute model of, you know, but with, with recovery, it's a process, right?
It's not, it, it's a lifelong journey and there's ups and downs and it's very, I think, misunderstood because there aren't many. Rep, there aren't people talking about it because of the stigma. Hmm. Ordinary people. Right. And I think that that's where also like what your goal is of this podcast is saying like, you don't have to hit rock bottom.
You you can change your relationship with substance or behaviors at any time and. There are many pathways of recovery and 10 years ago when I got sober, there were not as many pathways. There wasn't. I think that's one of the benefits of, of social media. Uh, And the sober movement online particularly because you can connect with people, you can listen to stories, you can, you know, I was listening to a speaker tapes on CDs and things like that, you know, like it was, that was only 10 years ago in my car.
Amazing. Right? And now you go on spot, you know, you can listen to things at any time to. To, to hear different perspectives, I think. And that's where I think having those different perspectives and people of color and p you know, all different, we need more representation of people in recovery. Cuz it's also been very whitewashed.
Right. And it's something that I'm seeing there's more kind of an equity. Focus, I know next week is actually Collegiate Recovery Week and the Association of Recovery in Higher Education. They have a bunch of stuff coming up, but one of them was a talk on equity in collegiate recovery, cuz that's been an issue that's, you know, we haven't really addressed is like, how do you address.
Folks who are indigenous the black community, what are the different intersections that will affect someone's ability to access resources, right? Because we don't all come into this being able to access the same resources on our recovery journey. So I think that's kind of the old school mentality too, was, oh, I got sober doing this, so you should too, you know, one size fits all and it's not the case.
So, I think, yeah, having more representation is gonna be a way to really reduce that social stigma, but also I think the self-stigma is huge. I know for me that was like the shame associated with addiction, not being able to control it, and then everything that happens as a result of, of active addiction.
So working through that as well. It's both, it's it's changing our policies, changing the narrative, but also. I think for folks to let go of their own shame. Often trauma is a part of that why we drank in the first place. So I strongly encourage folks if they can, to do some trauma work because that's very freeing, I think.
And gives perspective on maybe why we drank the way we did.
Deb: Yeah, it, it is freeing to talk about it. I, I think obviously I'm like out and proud and I'm owning it, like you said, like changing the narrative. Like that's why I call myself an alcohol free badass. Like Yeah, exactly. You know, you can decide what you call yourself.
You don't have to use the term recovery. E even No. Or sober or any, you know, that whatever is important to you and how you identify and. I am, I'm guessing maybe you have had this experience just let me know. But whenever I have shared about it, not just like, I'll call Tipping Point, but like p like on my fa my personal Facebook page or at work or something, I've, I've always.
It's always been a good thing. I've, it's always been a, an experience where someone has come to me and been like, Hey, I, I've been having a problem too, or My husband has a problem, or like, I'm so glad you said something, or You really got me to think about my drinking. You know, just So anytime we do. Share out loud our true au authentic self.
Like it, it does benefit us and maybe it's not as scary as we think it will be. What, how about you sober for sober professor? Right? How has your experience been now that you've spent a lot of time hiding it, and now here you are out and about living it. What has that been like?
Dr. Burns: It's been extremely freeing.
I will say it was like a hundred pound weight on my back. It felt very crippling to not be out, and I think doing this work is. Is a dream come true to be marrying? My personal recovery with my work has been something that I think part of my definition of recovery too is. Becoming whole and integrated because addiction really pulled apart.
It's sort of fractured my sense of self cuz I would be doing things that were not in line with who I was. And it's really piecing that together and. Being able to do this work and connect with other academics who are in recovery has been extremely rewarding. I will say though, there's nuance about recovering out loud that I think we need to take into consideration because again, the privileges and things that some of us have that others don't, and I would love, you know, I, I just, I forget sometimes because of how positive it has.
To recover out loud that I have colleagues who are literally terrified that anyone will find out. And I think we really have to meet people where they're at on that journey. Cuz I, it's sort of when you're on the other side you think, well look cuz I've had such positive experiences, I think but not everyone is there yet.
And I have to remember I was paralyzed by fear for five years. First five years of my recovery. Where I wouldn't tell hardly anybody and lost sleep about it. And you know, so I think that's something just to be mindful of, that we do really have to meet people where they are at. And our program does that as well.
But I think also to invite people to look at what their fears are, right? Like what's holding them back and are they actually, it's got a C B T, right? It's like are is there actually. Some substance to this, are you really going to lose your job? Because, you know, there are protective measures in place as well around addiction, you know, being a protected disability, like under the a d a.
And so there's things that I think we need to raise awareness about. Like what are, what are, what is the fear and is it substantiated? Because I think a lot of the fears. I don't know from your experience if you're out at work or if that's something that you've had to like with your professional college.
That's what we find with students. Well, I don't want my professional college to know that I am in recovery, cuz that will be on my record.
Deb: Oh yeah. I mean, my work couldn't, well, I worked in a small department and they all knew, they knew when I got sober and they've been with me throughout this whole journey of, of changing my drinking and then getting sober and, yeah, definitely.
But I mean, I, I have a very unique work environment. Well, did I told you I just, just quit my job as a nurse. Oh. So that I can focus on this. Which is interesting. You know, when you were talking about a lot of people in recovery go into addiction also because they feel like they fit in there. What I also see just to help people who are changing their drinking or they are alcohol free, it does really help to find.
You're people who get it to, to find like a, a, a tribe, if you will, of people who get it, who've been through the same experience or you're going through it together, you're changing your drinking together. And earlier you were talking about trying to find a therapist who had that same shared, did you describe it as a shared lived experience?
Lived
Dr. Burns: experience? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just people
Deb: who get.
Dr. Burns: Yeah, and I couldn't find one because I think that's something where it is shifting, but disclosing, especially in the psych, social workers are a bit more open to disclosing, I think. But a lot of psychologists still, it's taboo to. Sh, you know, have that as on your record as being in recovery.
And I don't think it should, I think it would really help people connect because there's so much shame around it and knowing that someone, it's not saying it's the same journey, but that, you know, understands like how difficult it is to, to actually. Change your relationship with the substance when there's addiction.
Right. And who has gone through that themselves. Yeah,
Deb: I agree. Well, before we wrap up, is there anything else that you wanna share that we haven't touched on yet?
Dr. Burns: Yeah, I don't know. I feel like we've, we've touched on quite a few things. If anyone has any questions about collegiate recovery or anything, please feel free to reach out.
And I love hearing from anyone who is. Especially in academia, I think connecting with other academics who are unsure how to navigate conferences and things that are very alogenic in nature. And I think that just by connecting with someone to kind of, to, to see, well, how do, how do you navigate this?
Especially when you are early in recovery or early on, your alcohol free. It can be very overwhelming. So always happy to connect with folks. Cuz a lot of people don't have anyone in their workplace, right? It's, it's very isolating. Yeah. It can be. It can be I think. But there are resources out there. So it's really about just taking that step and reaching out and whether it's online, going into Zoom meetings now, that's one of the silver linings of the pandemic is there's so many.
Mutual aid meetings out there, not just aa, there's Smart Recovery, there's well variety, there's, you know, she recovers, does a lot of amazing stuff. There's so many resources out there. So I just encourage folks to reach out and try something and if it doesn't work, shop around.
Deb: Yeah. So many choices now. So many choices.
Well, how can someone find you?
Dr. Burns: So I am on the University of Calgary website. You can Google my name, Victoria Burns. I'm also Dr. Victoria Burns at Dr. Victoria Burns at on my Instagram account, I have a Instagram account that is called at recovering academics. And if you are an academic in recovery, we'd love to feature you on our Instagram page, and you can also check.
Recovery on Campus Alberta, which is the website for the Province-Wide Collegiate Recovery Initiative, and University of Calgary Recovery Community is on the u Calgary website. So maybe you can link that in the show notes.
Deb: Yes. Perfect. I will. So, I, I just wanna thank you again so much for sharing your story and doing this and, and helping so many people now and so many of our young people.
And, and in this area that needs explored even further. So you're making a big difference. So thank you. Thanks so much.
