Turning Tragedy Into Purpose Through Collegiate Recovery

 

Collegiate recovery is more than a program—it’s a lifeline for students trying to rebuild their lives while pursuing their education. Angela O’Malley’s story is one of transformation, gratitude, and service. After a near-fatal drunk driving accident became her turning point, she committed to sobriety and to helping others do the same. Today, as Associate Director for Student Conduct and Recovery at Loyola Marymount University, Angela leads a powerful Collegiate Recovery Program that’s changing how universities support students in sobriety. In this conversation with host Tim Westbrook, she opens up about her personal journey, the stigma around addiction, and how she’s building a culture of compassion and accountability on campus.

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Turning Tragedy Into Purpose Through Collegiate Recovery

I’m joined by Angela O’Malley, Associate Director for Student Conduct and Recovery at Loyola Marymount University. Angela oversees LMU’s recovery center and recovery house, where she advocates for student mental health and recovery support. She’s been at LMU since 2014, earned her MS in the legal studies with a focus on criminal justice and is also a Certified Substance Use Disorder Counselor. She’s also been sober for seven years herself. Congratulations. We’re going to talk about her personal recovery journey, her work as a student and how she’s helping build a culture of recovery on campus. Angela, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Tim. Happy to be here.

How do we end up connecting, anyways? Tell me that.

We have a mutual friend. I met Chloe through our substance use disorders counseling program here through LMU extension. We were colleagues. We’re now friends and she has been invited to be on this show.

Were you working there at the time and she was one of the students?

We were classmates at the time.

Look at Chloe. That’s great.

We were in class maybe in 2020. It was definitely during COVID because we were home. We were virtual.

The Crash That Changed Everything: Angela’s Rock Bottom

I have known Chloe for a very long time ever since she just got out of rehab. She’s come a long way and she’s doing great. Let’s start at the beginning. Share your story. What happened? What was it like? What is it like now?

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. My dad is from Dublin, Ireland. Growing up, addiction has always been something that my family has dealt with. My dad is sixteen years sober. I’m the youngest of three. Both of my older brothers have struggled with substances. From just an early age, all I can remember is alcohol in the house, lots of screaming and physical violence. When I think about where I was as a child, my first mental health addiction piece came with food. I’ve always struggled with my weight.

When I was growing up, food was a coping mechanism for me. I was very active but I always struggled with my weight. The first time I struggled, I knew that I had a different relationship with alcohol. I was sixteen and it was my junior prom. I completely blacked out and got super sick, but I decided to try to drive home. I wasn’t even wearing any pants. That was not a very good situation. A sixteen year old trying to drive home, totally blocked out and woke up in an intersection somewhere. I called my parents. That was the first real inkling that I got that I’m like, “I drink differently than my friends.” Drinking and driving will be a pattern here that you’ll start to see.

Throughout high school, I was drinking and smoking marijuana. In college, the same thing. I started getting exposed to cocaine and partying pretty hard but I was a very high functioning alcoholic. I still got good grades. I could keep a job. Interpersonal relationships not so much. College was a blast, but I partied a lot in college. When I was nineteen, I got my first DUI, which, hopefully, I thought maybe that would be a wake-up call but it wasn’t. It was just inconvenient to have to go to classes during college.

I graduated college in four years. I started working at a bar with a great environment then I started working at a law firm right out of college. All of my twenties, again, I am a super high functioning alcoholic but I can’t even tell you how many phones I lost, how many fights I got in with my friends and how many sexual encounters that I never planned on happening happened. Very scary stuff for just years that kept piling up then I started working at Loyola Marymount University.

I was working here and I started getting my Masters. I was trying to pursue my professional goals, but the drinking was constant. I could not ever get out of the shame spiral. Drinking was always part of my life. It was part of the culture here at work. We were drinking for happy hours and stuff like that then I pursued my Masters. I was like, “Let me go to law school and get a masters.” It helps mobility here and working in higher education. Halfway through my master’s program, I got my second DUI, which was a scary situation. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Southern California, but I was up in Ojai, which is a few hours North of Los Angeles.

 I went to Oxnard High. I’m from Southern California. Junior High and High School in Oxnard, so I’m very familiar with Ojai. I can remember drinking and driving up in Ojai too as a kid.

Friend’s birthday, wine tasting and a very cool Airbnb. I have probably been on a bender on my way up there with cocaine and alcohol. We have been drinking all day and things got out of hand. My go-to was my personality would change all the time. I was a belligerent, angry and nasty drunk. I always took it out on my friends. We got into a huge fight and I tried to leave. I tried to drive home completely blacked out from the very top of the mountains in Ojai. I didn’t even make it to the 101. Thank God. I was trying to exit. Maybe a gas. I don’t remember, but I flipped my car multiple times. I woke up upside down to firemen saying, “What’s your name?”

Thank God I was so fucked up, honestly. It probably saved my life. My car looked like a semi-truck had run over it. The second DUI was eleven years later. It was basically considered a first offense but after that, I never had a drink since that was my wake-up call. It was a near-death experience. I just realized you can either continue down this path and kill yourself or kill someone else or you can change it. Remove this from your life and see what happens. I didn’t have a drink ever after that.

I can relate as I’m listening to you share. On April 19th 1996, I was in a crazy car accident, blackout drunk. I fell asleep driving. I flipped over three times and ended up on the other side of the freeway. I was in the ICU for three days, 24-hour care for 28 days, Transitional Living Center for brain injured adults for six weeks and disability classes for six weeks. At the time everybody said, “He’s never going to make it.” That’s it. I drank for fifteen more years. I’m listening to you and I’m like, I’m so happy that was it for you. You would think everybody thought that would have been my rock bottom, but I’m so happy to hear that was your rock bottom. From there, what happened?

From there, I kept to myself. I was so ashamed. I was so upset. I had a falling out with one of my best friends from the Ojai experience. I was also still in grad school. The day after the accident, I had to start my second year of grad school. I had to throw myself back into work and back into school. I isolated myself from my friends because I wanted to sit in the pain and figure out what the hell I’ve been doing, like what’s going on with me. Honestly, I practiced a lot of gratitude. I know that sounds cliché and what not.

Gratitude works. It does.

That I had a second chance. I’m like, “You can do this differently and just see what happens.” My recovery is very personal. It was very private at the time. At work, people are like, “Why didn’t you come to happy hour?” I’m like, “I’m in grad school. I’m just not drinking for a while.”

You kept it to yourself, so no rehab, no AA and no twelve -step program.

I did have to do AA or issued AA.

The Road To Recovery: AA, Jail, And A New Path

Did they make you go to those AA classes?

No, I did have to go to the meeting. Not only the DUI classes, but I did have to go to AA for a few months, too.

I say that because I also got a DUI when I was nineteen years old. They made me go to these AA. I used to say the AA classes and I don’t remember what they were. It was so long ago.

I also had to do two days in jail, so that was fun. I had to check myself in over Christmas break. Forty-eight hours is a long time when you’re sitting in a cell by yourself. That was another time that I just sat and thought, “You could be here for different reasons and you could not be coming out of this place.” A year into my recovery by the grace of the universe. Our recovery center here at Loyola Marymount University took off.

We’ve always had recovery services here since about 2007. We created a program and a physical space for our recovery center. It just aligned. It fell in my lap that my boss was like, “This is something you’re interested in and you’re passionate about. Would you want to take on this role?” I come to find like I’m a year sober now, too.

You’re sober. Are you doing anything for your recovery? What are you doing for your recovery?

I’m working with therapy and I’m also working with my supervisor who’s also a mentor for me. His name is Bradley Smith. He’s the director of the recovery center here. He’s a licensed clinician. He and I would meet one-on-one. I was in intensive therapy and putting myself out there. Working with students in recovery also started to help strengthen my own recovery. Getting to know the support group meetings and running meetings. That all helped to build my own recovery as well.

 

What about your family?

My family knew. They were super supportive of me. My dad and I have this bond because we’re both in recovery. They were always super supportive. I will say my brothers and I were probably not good influences on each other. I drank a lot with them. I might keep up with all the shots of Jameson just because it was around but my family has been amazing. One of my brothers would go to some meetings with me too just to be supportive, which is nice.

Where were you in the mix? Where were you born in the middle?

I have two older brothers and I’m the youngest.

From Personal Pain To Professional Purpose: Impact On Work

How has your recovery journey influenced the way that you show up in your work?

I would say that it manifests in my work like every day. I get to show up and be fully present and offer myself to be supportive to help build trust and build relationships with students. As I shared before, working in recovery with students also strengthened my own recovery. I’m incredibly grateful that I get to work with them. I just feel like gratitude that’s a central focus of my recovery. I’m so grateful that I’m able to be here and show up for the students.

 

In the twelve-step program, they talk about living the principles and all my affairs. How does that translate to your life in the work that you’ve done on yourself?

I would say that it definitely shows up in my personal and professional life. What’s amazing about LMU is that we are a mission-driven judgment university. The values and principles that we teach our students, education of the whole person, cura personalis, which is care of the whole person, is something that has just shown up.

I didn’t even understand that when I first got here. It wasn’t until I started working with the students and understanding the mission and the values that I was able to truly live those values. I have Loyola Marymount University to thank for so much of my personal and professional growth. I’m not personally in the twelve-step program. I’m very familiar with it. It’s an amazing program but I do feel like there’s very similar principles for sure.

That was where my question was. Maybe I wasn’t clear. I know for me, living a life of honesty and doing the next right thing, living the principles and all my fairs. I know you’re doing such good work there. It’s just being sober, thinking clearly, not wanting to live with guilt and shame and not having alcohol and drugs as the solution. I don’t want to cause pain because I’m going to have to deal with it. That was where that question was headed. What first drew you into working in student conduct and recovery at LMU?

As I shared it, it fell in my lap. I was working at a law firm prior to LMU. My boss and I were close. We were working on a murder case. He won. He was defending a gentleman and it was such an inspiring experience. He was like, “Why don’t you go to law school?” I thought, “Maybe.” His wife worked here. She was an associate dean and there was a position that opened up in student conduct. I applied and I got the job.

I had never thought I would be anywhere in higher education. When I was in school, I didn’t know a single administrator. I barely knew my resident advisor. I only have my professors. Getting to know higher ed and meeting students where they were at in such a difficult time. Conduct is something that shaped where I was headed towards recovery because in some way of these cases where the students are navigating challenging times, often substances are involved.

They are making choices that have severe consequences. As I’m working in conduct, I’m like, “I like this.” I started to shift away from law school. I was thinking, “I don’t know if I want to practice law but I can go study law and study criminal justice because I’m interested in it.” Working one-on-one with students in that capacity just drew me in. It was so fulfilling. It was trying and super challenging but so rewarding. I shared the recovery piece and it just opened up. It just aligned with my own recovery. That’s how I got into that.

Students are navigating challenging times, often with substances involved, making choices with severe consequences. Share on X

When did you go back and get your Master of Science in Addiction Counseling?

That was a couple years later. I went and through LMU extension, we did the substance use disorders counseling program here. That was 2020 to 2022. It’s a two-year program.

Tell me more about the LMU recovery center and the recovery house.

We have a recovery center here on campus. It’s a collegiate recovery program. It is an awesome place for students to find community and build relationships. There’s peer-to-peer support. We have mutual aid support groups. We do one-on-one counseling. We have substance free activities. We collaborate with other departments on campus. It’s a cool program with some amazing authentic students and I just helped run operations. I hire the students.

I do one-on-one counseling with them. I help with the events. We have an amazing Initiative for Narcan training. That was cool to get the students on board for that. We opened a substance free house off campus. It’s abstinence based. It’s co-ed for students that choose to live in recovery and support other students from recovery. It’s an awesome opportunity. We’re hopeful that maybe we can open a second house. It is co-ed, so we might open a men’s house. That could be cool.

Our program has grown. When I first started, we had maybe just a couple students and I’m like, “Where are they? I know they’re out there.” Post-COVID, we have about 35 students working in the center with us that are recovering out loud that are student advocates and are willing to share their story and to help other students. Beyond that, we probably work with about 160 students behind the scenes as well.

Changing Tides: Substance Use On College Campuses Today

Is drinking and drug use as bad on college campuses now as it was fifteen years ago, do you think? Where I’m going with this is, I got sober in 2011. If you didn’t drink, it’s like, “Are you an alcoholic?” People that didn’t drink, you stuck out like a sore thumb. Now, especially over the last five years or so, there’s a lot of people that don’t drink. Liquor sales are down. The alcohol consumption is going down drastically across the board.

I’ve also heard that I would think on college campuses as well, just because there’s no benefit to drinking. The whole glass of wine a day keeps the doctor away or whatever it was. It’s total BS. What’s your experience with the level of alcohol and drug consumption on campuses these days versus back then?

Coming from my own lived experience, the drinking was way more intense fifteen years ago. When about where we’re at even with collegiate recovery, nobody talked about this when I was in school.

I never heard anybody talk about it.

Maybe there was preventative education, but we weren’t interested or it wasn’t done in a way that was meaningful. I will say, when I first started at LMU, drinking was very prevalent. The partying was out of control. The drug use was there. COVID changed things. Students learn how to self-medicate on their own. When he came back from COVID, we’ve seen a drop in numbers here. Especially on the context side of things like reporting and whatnot. Students are more likely than not using it on their own.

That is something that I’ve noticed. The usage is more like a personal isolated usage. In 2025, though, they’re drinking again. I don’t know what’s changed. We have seen an increase in some of the parties and drinking. I will say, I do agree that a lot of people in the Gen Z population are choosing not to drink. They are choosing not to use substances. They’re maybe more into their wellness and that’s awesome. A lot of the students that we work with, most of them, whether they’ve been to treatment or referring out to treatment. A lot of them just come already in recovery. Some of that is just by choice and not because of a substance use disorder.

What are some of the most common struggles you see students in recovery facing?

The big one is bouncing recovery and academics. Being in college, it’s a sexually charged drinking culture and it’s hard to pursue recovery. That’s why it’s so important to have a collegiate recovery program. Students can find that balance and get the support on campus. They don’t have to leave and choose one or the other. Finding a community is a big one. Often, a lot of the students I met with are lonely. They’re trying to find their tribe.

When I introduce some of the recovery centers, they find other people. It’s such an authentic group of students. They’ve been to hell and back. They’re not afraid to share their stories. That’s cool too, that’s a space where they can feel safe and find community. Time management is a big one. Trying to figure out how to balance going to meetings. Some of our students run meetings, get their work done and make time for service. All of that. I say that’s probably some of the biggest challenges.

The Juggling Act: Challenges In Collegiate Recovery Work

What’s the most challenging part of your work in your position at LMU?

I wear a few hats here. Time management is probably something that I struggle with a little bit. I sometimes can create my own chaos. I respond with urgency to students. I met with students pretty much all day, every day. My bosses will say I have a revolving door, but I love it. I love working with students. If I’m not wearing my student conduct hat, I might be having an eight-hour cross-examination hearing on domestic violence or sexual assault. At the same time, the student in crisis might need to go to treatment and I’m helping refer them out to treatment.

I also work with a student run theater company, which is super fun and creative. They might have opening night and I gotta be on that too. I love my roles. I have a range here. It’s cool. I got my legal studies background, so that applies with conduct. I have my own recovery. Recovery is super important to me. I used to do musicals growing up. I love having that creative piece, but I do feel like our recovery program has so much more potential to be even more amazing than it is.

I just wish that I could focus all of my energy and give 100% but my efforts are a split. That’s pretty hard for me. I will say, trying not to take the work home. Students have my number. They can reach me at any time. I’ve had to create those boundaries and set hard boundaries, but I am available to them. I care about these students. When someone’s addressing suicidal ideation and I have to leave them at 5:00. I’ll just say, “See you later.” It’s hard, but I love my job. I’m excited to see what’s next.

You’re acting as a sponsor in a way and that’s so being available to them. You have to make sure that you take care of yourself and at the same time you’re being of service. At what point are they crossing your boundaries or at what point do you need to draw a boundary? It’s something you probably battle with constantly, I would imagine.

Also just knowing when it’s beyond my level of care. I can only do so much. We are still an educational institution. We are not a treatment center. Being able to elevate something and say, “I am not qualified to do this stuff. You need a higher level of care.” That can be difficult, too.

 

What happens if you think someone needs treatment in the middle of a semester?

We work with them. Students can take a leave of absence. They can take a medical leave of absence. It protects their transcripts. That’s something that we encourage students to do. They can take up to four semesters off without having to reply. That’s something that we encourage all the time. Students often are so focused on this hard deadline of, “My four years and I have to do it in four years.” We just try to encourage that your wellness and your mental health is so important. School will always be here. If we can help encourage working with the family, to have them take a medical leave of absence and go to treatment and come back.

It seems like more people in the world are focused on fitness, health and wellness these days. I don’t know if it’s because I’m in the recovery space, or it’s because those are the things that I’m into. Is that the same thing that’s happening on the college campuses? Is people focused more on health, wellness, biohacking, meditation and breath work and all that stuff?

I’ll say, a few years ago, there was a big push for wellness. Literally, it was called the wellness initiative. Our fitness program over at our recreation center created a fit well, which is their wellness fitness program. Students love doing sound baths, breath work and all of that for sure. Wellness is different to everybody, but if we have spaces on campus where they can try new things. Our students psychological services center just opened this meditation room. It was a quiet room. There’s some musical instruments in one section. There’s a lot of different mindfulness happening and they’re expanding their wellness over at students’ psychological services, too.

Wellness is different to everybody. Share on X

I’m sure you can probably relate to this. My whole life revolved around drinking. Everything I did. Whether it’s a concert or a baseball game or a football game or a party or going out to dinner. Whatever it was, drinking and drugs was always involved. I think that you guys creating these wellness events and fitness events is so helpful because there’s other things that people can do besides drink and do drugs.

They are hosting, I think it’s called the fit well fest. It’s exactly what we’re talking about. It’s over at our recreation center. They have different sponsors coming in with recovery tools. There’s going to be some Theragun products there for recovery for your legs and all that stuff. It’s something students are interested in. It’s just cool that we can offer that because as I share, I know we had a gym in college.

I don’t remember anything like that. We had a gym. I went and worked out, then I worked out before I went out and drank. That was pretty much it. What resources do you find most effective for supporting students on campus?

Building A Supportive Community: Resources And Promotion At LMU

Our recovery center is an amazing resource but I do feel like peer-to-peer support is essential. Students are the number one first responders on campus. They’re the ones that are out there at the parties or on campus in their rooms. A lot of our referrals come from friends of friends. That’s just an amazing thing here that students are actively advocating for one another. A lot of our support groups are peer-led. The students want to run the meetings. There’s a few professional staff led ones or clinician led but they love being in community and sharing their experiences with one another.

Again, we collaborate. We have another department here on campus called community of care, which is more of like a case management program. I do part-time work with them as well. Anytime there’s a student of concern, whether they’re missing classes, faculty members might notice this erratic behavior or their roommates are drinking in the rooms and they’re worried about them. They can get referred to the community of care, meet with a case manager and then get referred to our recovery center or an outside therapist or students like psychological services or maybe somebody can fit well. We do have awesome wrap around care here through collaboration.

Peer-to-peer support is essential. Students are the number one first responders on campus. Share on X

How do you guys promote the recovery center on campus? How do people know about it?

Social media, Instagram. That’s a big one. Another cool thing we have here is Wellness Wednesday. It’s a weekly farmers market on campus on Wednesdays. We have a bunch of vendors that come out and a lot of the student organizations or departments will table. We are out there every week advocating and recovering out loud. We do Narcan training on the spot. We do fun games, motivational interviewing for fun questions and giveaways and whatnot.

We try to just get the word out there all the time. One initiative we had a few years ago, where our student leadership team in recovery went to every student org and did a little presentation. They went to a sorority fraternity life, the service orgs and to all the registered student organizations to let them know who we are and where we are. That was very cool. It was all student-led.

That’s amazing. Talk about Wellness Wednesday. We have a Wellness Wednesday as well at our treatment center. Wellness Wednesday is a trend. We have a recovery center at our residential treatment center. We have a cold plunge, infrared sauna, red light therapy and power play. They all go out to the recovery center and we have Wellness Wed. They’re allowed to use all those things on different days but that’s the one day where they all do it together. People that have a cold plunge, there’s a day. It’s scheduled. Are you a cold plunger?

Chloe and I were just talking about that. I have not yet done it but I’m very interested. The students want to. They’re like, “Let’s bring some ice baths here.”

You got to do it. It increases dopamine by 250% to 300% for hours. I’ve seen people go in a cold plunge with a 10 out of 10 anxiety. They do a cold punch for three minutes. They are 2 out of 10 because you have to focus on your breath. When someone’s anxious, their mind is spinning out. They’re thinking about the future, things that haven’t happened yet many times. You have to focus on your breath and you have to be present. It decreases them. There’s all kinds of benefits of cold plunging. The mental health aspect of it is off the charts. I highly recommend it.

Future tripping is one thing I see here a lot. Students deal with it.

I’ll tell you what. Sometimes if I’m stressed out or if I’m spinning out, I do a cold plunge in the middle of the day. I’m like, “Everything’s okay.”

That was grounding. Nice.

It’s legit. Is there a story of a student or experience that’s inspired you in this work?

Yes. I have two that come to mind. One is a graduate assistant of ours now. He came in his freshman year. He barely made it through the first semester. He was heavily addicted to benzos, drinking, missing class terrible, car accidents and somehow got connected with Bradley, our director here. I probably had a tough conversation with him. I took him out to the student memorial and said, “There are a lot of names out here. Your name could be here or you could try something different.”

He went to treatment. He came back. He was like our first member of the community, which was just so cool. It’s such an essential part of our recovery program now. He’s been sober for five years. He’s in the LMFT Art Therapy program in graduate school. He’s our graduate assistant. He’s just a total miracle success story. It’s just so cool. To see him grow as a person in his own recovery and just seeing him find his voice was so cool.

Another student I worked with, it took her almost 7 or 8 years to finish school, but she did. She was heavily involved with methamphetamines and sex work. She got in a lot of trouble here on campus with a room search type thing, but she found her way to the recovery center. She bamboozled us for a little bit, but she finally figured it out. She graduated in 2023 and she’s just doing amazing stuff now. It’s just amazing. She’s trying to apply to grad school too, but she was someone I wasn’t sure was going to make it out.

Beyond the Stigma: What Universities Need To Understand

It’s so awesome. I’m doing this type of work myself. It’s so fulfilling. It’s like we get to work in the business of saving lives. We’re helping people. I love what I do and I know you love what you do as well. It’s such a gift to get to watch other people grow and make it through and make it to the other side. What do you wish more universities understood about students in recovery?

What’s cool about collegiate recovery is, the Association of Recovery in Higher Education is a national organization that supports collegiate recovery programs. We are members. There’s about 3,504, I believe nationally. They have some cool guidelines about what is essential for a student in recovery. Thankfully, our institution has been so supportive. I would hope that they understand that students in recovery need a physical space on campus.

A physical drop in space where they can find community, find a safe space to be their authentic selves. College is such a difficult time already, so having that physical space because I know other pleasure recovery programs are like, “We run meetings. We have support services but we don’t have a space.” Having that space on campus is essential. Also, the stigma of addiction is still very prevalent, even with the Narcan training initiative. Higher up administration and parents are like, “Does this enable drug use? Are you promoting drug use?”

We’re like, “We’re just being preventative and helping save lives. The students want this.” There’s still some barriers, but just acknowledging that students in recovery are probably some of the most resilient students on campus that we’re here. We deserve to have a space and deserve to have this support and resources. What’s awesome is we have great support here, but it’s not guaranteed. We have an endowment for funding, but it’s a space on campus that is not absolutely guaranteed. Knowing that we have support from the institution is important.

What’s next for LMU’s recovery center and recovery house?

Expanding our program. We have so many students interested. We’re hoping to bring some big speakers on campus. We’re working with a few treatment centers that want to bring in former NFL players to talk about mental health. We are collaborating with the South Bay Eating Disorders Coalition to host a hungry event, which is a cool immersive art exhibit focused on disordered eating and survivors sharing their stories through music, art, and all sorts of different media.

We’re just trying to bring a lot more collaboration and events on campus. We’re looking for speakers and any type of engagement that we can. I’d love to have a bigger space. Our space isn’t big enough, which is a good problem. I’m hoping we can maybe find a bigger space on campus and at some point, maybe open up a second recovery house.

How many students do you have on your campus?

We have about 7,000 undergrads and about 3,000 graduates. Maybe about 10,000.

How can readers support or get involved with collegiate recovery programs like yours?

Spreading the word. You can follow us on Instagram or check out our website. Our Instagram is @RecoveryAtLMU and our website is LMU.edu/Recovery. It supports any type. Fashion is awesome, but financial support is always amazing. It helps us keep our program alive. Also, maybe spreading the word to other college campuses.

Even community colleges have programs and are just essential. Making sure that we keep collegiate recovery programs going. Unfortunately, with some of the funding in the administration, I do know a lot of schools, some of their programs fell under DEI initiatives, so they’ve been struggling. Being able to spread the word about just supporting and keeping them open would be helpful.

Supporting Collegiate Recovery: Calls To Action And Future Vision

Is there anything I missed or anything I should have asked you?

I don’t think so. We covered a lot. I’d love to hear a little bit more about what you do.

This is not about me. Our specialty is dual diagnosis and mental health. If you ever have anybody that you think might be a good fit, then send them our way. We’d love to help them if we can. Keep your doors open. Help your guys stay clean and sober. I appreciate you and you taking time out of your day to be on my show. It’s been an honor to have you here.

Thank you so much for having me.

To everybody reading, thanks for joining us for another episode. Remember, recovery is possible. We’re both sober. We’re both in long-term recovery. Life is amazing being sober. You never have to walk the journey alone. Thanks so much, Angela. Thank you for your time. I will see you in the next episode.

 

Important Links

• Angela O’Malley on LinkedIn
• Loyola Marymount University
• Association of Recovery in Higher Education
• South Bay Eating Disorders Coalition
• @RecoveryAtLMU on Instagram
• LMU.edu/Recovery

 

About Angela O’Malley

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Angela O’Malley serves as the Associate Director for Student Conduct & Recovery at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). Angela began her career at LMU in Student Affairs in 2014 working as the Senior Administrative Coordinator for the Office of Student Conduct & Community Responsibility. Before LMU, Angela was a legal secretary where she gained exposure to various areas of law and found a passion for criminal law.

After a few years at LMU, she began working on her M.S. in Legal Studies with a Specialization in Criminal Justice from Loyola Law School and graduated in 2019. During this time, Angela also began her recovery journey and is now 7 years in long-term recovery. Angela oversees operations of the LMU Recovery Center, Recovery House and is a mental health and recovery advocate for students on campus. Angela is also a Certified Substance Use Disorder Counselor and a member of CCAPP.

In addition to her role as Associate Director, Angela serves as a part-time Community of Care Case Manager, the Advisor to the Del Rey Players, a student run theatre company and an EEO Hearing Panelist. When she is not at work, Angela spends time with family, is at the beach, traveling or hiking with her dog, Clover.