Live in Philadelphia Collegiate Recovery Conference at Saint Joseph's University

Gambling addiction is silently devastating college campuses across America. From the Collegiate Recovery Conference at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, we witness firsthand how sports betting has become an epidemic among 18-24 year old males. The statistics are shocking: 20% of financial aid money now goes toward gambling debts or creating accounts for more betting. What starts as an exciting way to enhance sports watching quickly spirals into anxiety, depression, poor academic performance, and financial disaster.

But reaching these students requires more than warnings about gambling, alcohol, or drugs. Their 20-year-old minds often tune out direct addiction talk. The most effective approach? Simply asking "How do you feel?" and "What are you trying to do with your life?" College represents an intense period of identity formation—figuring out careers, potential life partners, and personal talents—all while navigating immense pressure. We must normalize that feeling anxious or depressed during this time is perfectly natural, while emphasizing that numbing out through substances or gambling only compounds problems.

The universal message resonating throughout the conference applies to everyone, whether in recovery or not: hard work is the only pathway to the life you want. Nothing worthwhile comes without effort—not financial success, loving relationships, spiritual growth, or personal fulfillment. Part of this work involves stepping outside comfort zones. Don't just attend your usual meetings or stick with familiar campus resources. Travel more. Meet diverse people. Attend conferences. Learn from others' approaches. As we finished our day at St. Joseph's before heading to explore Philadelphia (including running up those iconic Rocky Steps), we were reminded that each 24-hour period offers magical potential for transformation. Whatever challenges you're facing, keep moving forward—you're capable of becoming a winner in your own recovery story.

Chapters

• 0:01 Live from St. Joseph's University
• 0:29 Gambling Epidemic Among College Students
• 1:36 Coping with College Stress
• 3:24 Hard Work is the Only Way
• 5:19 Exploring Philadelphia and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Here we are once again on the travels live, philadelphia, pennsylvania, on the campus of St Joseph's University, the good Jesuit University, at the Collegiate Recovery Conference. There's a lot of exemplary recovery here in the Northeast between Pennsylvania, new Jersey. Of course, there's a lot going on. Mckay now was talking about gambling. Unfortunately, gambling is becoming that epidemic. Are those 18 to 24 year old males that are looking to make sports, watching sports, sports betting, and somehow think they're going to make money in an intent instead, deal with the consequences of gambling, sports betting, gambling sports betting, which then leads into mental health, anxiety, depression, grades, class attendance, using financial aid, which is scary 20% of financial aid now is dealing with trying to pay off gambling debts or to have some type of bank account to gamble, which can have disastrous results. So, but also we talked about how to reach more college students, how to make it more accessible. How to reach more college students, how to make it more accessible, how to create community, what type of families also, what type of ideas are aspirational, because a 20-year-old mind isn't going to grasp recovery and if you focus in talking about gambling, weed, alcohol, you get that deaf ear and you want people to really just understand is number one, which is always the case how do you feel? How do you feel that has always been the case. And also, what are you trained to do with your life? Don't try to escape into the alcohol, drugs or gambling. Don't try to numb out. College can be very stressful. You're trying to figure out how you're going to make money in life, how you may even find your partner, your life partner, your spouse, how to create family, and also the ability to experiment and to go into different activities that most college campuses, most universities, allow people to just search and find out all their true talents and true gifts. And so there's a lot going on, and so you've got to always let people know perfectly normal to be depressed, perfectly normal to be anxious, perfectly normal to feel like you are bulletproof, and that life is never going to be that hard. That life is never going to be that hard, like they say. This too shall pass the good times and the bad times, but here we are. So we spent the whole day here at St Joseph's just meeting a bunch of people here on the East Coast, because life is wonderful.

Speaker 1: 3:39

The 1% In Recovery podcast likes to interact with people that are ultimately spreading the message of hope, of faith, of love, living your best life, being able to just smile and understand that whatever you want in life is going to require hard work. That is a beautiful message that I kept hearing that, whether you're in recovery or not in recovery, hard work is the only way to that type of life. Whether we're talking about money, love, even we're talking about God, relationships they all require work and also to love more, to laugh more, to express, to be vulnerable. But I want people to truly engage. Go to more conferences, travel more, meet more people. Don't just go. Let's say, if you're in 12 Steps, just go to your 12-step meeting. Or if you're on your college campus, just stay with your student services. You've got to meet more people. You've got to see how wonderful the world is, and you've got to see how wonderful the world is and you've got to learn from other people, because whatever you're doing doesn't mean that it's the best way.

Speaker 1: 5:07

And so there was a lot of excellent tips. There was a lot of excellent suggestions. There's just a lot of different ways to just get better, because that's what we want to do. We talk about 24 hours. These 24 hours can be magical, and so later today, going to explore more of the Philly food scene. Going to also be able to, tomorrow, go to the Liberty Bell and you'll see another video of yours truly, hugo, running up them rocky steps, Because I love running uphill, to let you guys know that you just got to keep moving, keep running and then you can do the old rocky. I'm a winner. With that, we're going to conclude this episode of the 1% in Recovery.