Content warning: This article contains mentions of suicide, suicidal ideation, and drug usage.
Due to anonymity requests, all names in this article are pseudonyms of real students.
Herds of freshmen walk from frat house to frat house in crop tops, jean shorts, and beat–up Air Force 1s. There’s one goal for the night: start New Student Orientation blackout drunk and maybe get lucky enough to experience a dance floor make–out for the first time. “As all freshmen at Penn do, we’re going fratting and we’re gonna go wander around until we find a party, and we’re gonna take shots of bottom–shelf vodka,” Ally says as they describe their NSO experience. As the first day of class begins, many freshmen march to their 10:15s regretting the seven shots of Crown Russe they took last night. Out of the 100 people sitting in the class, there’s about 27 students that meet the criteria for a substance use disorder.
For Penn administration and students, substance abuse disorder is much easier to turn your back on than to stand up and ask questions about. In a 2021 report by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 49.3% of college students reported consuming alcohol in the past month. In a study including 1,253 college students, 20% attested they had opportunities to use cocaine over their past year at college. But despite substance use becoming a growing concern for college students, there’s a lack of transparency about the issue from the University. Only a very limited number of University–released reports about campus substance use are publicly available. That lack of transparency also extends to Penn’s programming for new students. Penn Violence Prevention’s NSO consent circles, for example, are critical in educating freshmen about sexuality and relationships. Students work through scenarios to better understand how to protect themselves and others from potentially dangerous relationships. But there is nothing in the NSO schedule that teaches new students about recognizing the signs of drug abuse, addiction, or alcoholism.
The social fabric that makes up being a college student is soaked in substances. The normalcy of getting wasted because you’re sad, happy, or anything in between insulates students from questioning their substance use habits. One Penn influencer, 2026 behavioral and decision sciences master’s student Yash Mahajan (C ’25)—@Yashthetrash on TikTok—posted a video saying that drinking on a Wednesday night can seem casual as a student. Once you graduate, however, that kind of behavior becomes alcoholism. For students like Ally, Penn’s work–hard–play–hard dynamic leads people to “drink hard and use hard,” pushing stressed, vulnerable students down the dark hole of addiction.
Ally came onto campus freshman year with what they describe as pre–existing “addict behaviors,” having used weed, psychedelics, and amphetamines throughout high school. Now, they’re in their final semester; after six months of outpatient alcohol rehab, Ally is nine months sober. When reflecting on their time before getting help, Ally says that they “couldn’t imagine a life without drinking.” They realize now that many of their classmates were also alcoholics. But the fact that other students weren’t willing to reckon with their unhealthy habits led Ally to feel like they were the only one with a problem—that they were “the alcoholic that actually had to get sober.”
In many cases, choosing to abstain from substance use can feel like choosing to miss out on the college experience. “It’s maybe not the crystal clear image of peer pressure that you might see in the media,” Ally says. Penn students often post drunk mirror selfies in a mysterious downtown bar bathroom on Instagram. In this environment, Ally felt an internal pressure to keep nodding their head and knocking more back. They feel the friendships they had before getting help were sustained by nothing more than an infinite line of red Solo cups.
Stephen, another Penn student, defines himself as a drug user, though not one reliant on substances. He recalls being at a crowded house party when his pledgemaster offered him cocaine. He “was definitely peer pressuring me,” Stephen remembers. “He was saying, ‘Come on, you’ll enjoy it. You should try it.’ So I did.” Stephen came to Penn having already tried weed, and Penn’s open drug culture encouraged him to try different substances he may not have interacted with at other campuses. “I think if you are a freshman, and maybe more meek of a person, you are a thousand times more likely to do drugs here,” he says. “I was smoking a lot of weed freshman fall just to interact with people.”
Penn students are told what to do when their friends have pushed themselves too far, but not what to do to prevent them from getting to that point. ”If [students] are blacking out twice a week, that is a problem. That was me for years, and no one said anything,” Ally says. “The whole student body should be trained on recognizing the signs of addiction and what to do about it.”
But just as damaging as the lack of information is the wall of silence that surrounds frank discussion about topics like drug use. When asked how he feels about discussing substance abuse with friends, Stephen says, “There’s a stigma that keeps you from asking about it.” In large part, that stigma comes from the constant presence of drugs in Penn’s social scene. Clubs, greek organizations, and friend groups at Penn often operate on binding, unspoken social contracts that members sign the moment they take the first shot.
Because of how normalized substance use is in college social settings, substance abuse at Penn often hides in plain sight. “A lot of students probably don’t recognize they have a problem, and that’s a big first step in seeking help,” says Heath Schmidt, a Neuroscience and Pharmacology professor at the School of Nursing and the Perelman School of Medicine.
Penn consistently makes headlines for being one of the most depressed and stressed campuses in the country. A 2020 census conducted by Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science found that 85% of students at Penn feel immense pressure to find internships and job opportunities. As both a preprofessional environment and a social scene that puts heavy emphasis on status, Penn’s campus is a pressure cooker. In an environment like this, Schmidt says, drug use can be a way to dampen those stressors, if only for a moment. “Addictive drugs are a way to numb or escape from the stresses and pressures you’re experiencing in life,” he explains.
“The last part of the brain to develop is the frontal cortex, which plays a number of roles in behaviors, attention, and impulse control,” Schmidt says. “So when young adults use [drugs] and their brains are not fully formed, the ‘brakes’ are not able to work in stopping a risky decision.”
The balance of neurochemistry in our brains is similar to our fingerprints, with each individual having unique subsets of chemicals that guide their decision making. “Your brain is constantly trying to maintain a homeostatic balance, and for someone using drugs consistently, part of that balance is continuing to take drugs,” Schmidt says. Drug use shifts the chemical scales that allow us to maintain our baseline functioning. When someone becomes reliant on drugs, it becomes a brick on their mental scale, a weight that is hard to counterbalance or lift off. “If a student lives in a frat house—where there’s parties Thursday through Sunday—they’re going to have a very difficult time trying to change their behavior,” Schmidt says. If someone is only two doors down from a closet full of Tito’s and a 24/7 mini pharmacy, the temptation to have a shot or take a hit to start the day can be overwhelming.
Another force shaping Penn’s drug landscape is medical amnesty. The policy is outlined on Penn Wellness’s website: “No student seeking medical treatment for an alcohol or other drug–related overdose will be subject to University discipline for the sole violation of using or possessing alcohol or drugs.” Due to this, students often feel comfortable walking down Locust Walk being under the influence of weed, alcohol, and stimulants. Unlike the rest of Philadelphia—where drug laws are enforced more harshly—the amnesty bubble around Penn allows students to silo their drug use behind a shield of legal protection. While medical amnesty is helpful in preventing student overdoses and promoting safer drug use, the open pasture policy on campus can leave some students lost in the abundance of opportunity this gives them.
Fourth–year student Francis remembers sitting outside a frat, talking and chain–smoking cigarettes with the brother at the door. The brother took a final drag of his cigarette and offered Francis cocaine. “When in Rome, you try cocaine for the first time,” Francis laughs. Next thing Francis knew, he was visiting the brother’s apartment every Friday, and then every Friday and Saturday. “I was thinking it would be a one time thing, but then it became an every time thing,” Francis says.
Before long, he was using a mixture of cocaine, ketamine, weed, and psychedelics. He’d tried some of those substances before, but never at the levels he was consuming at now. “When willpower can’t overpower cravings, then that’s when students have a problem,” Francis says. “I was convinced I could handle it all until it spiraled out of control.”
At the height of Francis’ addiction in his sophomore year, he destroyed his dorm room after not being able to get marijuana. His loved ones witnessed him at his breaking point as Penn cops took him away to the hospital. “This was one of the moments that got me to realize I needed help,” Francis says. “When I got to the psych ward, I realized how insane I was acting over a few ounces of weed.” Francis went to the psych ward three times that year, then went to rehab twice around his junior year.
Francis’ personal battle with addiction took a sharp turn after a close friend of his died after a drug–related suicide. The loss struck Francis and his friend group hard. “It was a catalyst in our group to actually start caring about each other,” Francis says. After his friend’s passing, Francis has been persistent in maintaining his mental health and sobriety. It hasn’t always been easy. “There’s been situations where I’ve been so sick that the last thing on my mind was reaching out for help,” Francis says. “How can we help someone who’s not reaching out at all?”
When Francis was seeking help due to his suicidal thoughts, the first place he tried was the Student Health and Counseling office. “I had to wait hours for help, and so I said ‘Fuck it.’ I can’t wait three hours before I kill myself,” he says. “So, I defaulted to checking myself in at the hospital instead.”
For students struggling with substance abuse, Penn’s resources are patchy at best. “It gives this implicit message that there’s not alcoholics or addicts on this campus,” Ally says. The time Ally spent in Penn therapy groups provided them a sense of community, but rarely a sense of healing.
Two recovery groups operate on Penn’s campus: Wellness at Penn’s “Substance Use and You” group and the Substance Use, Prevention, Education, and Recovery program. The Wellness group is run through a trained clinician, and the concerns that participants share are often put into their patient charts. SUPER, on the other hand, does not record group discussions and accepts anyone curious about recovery with open arms.
“We are open to help students in any way, shape, or form,” SUPER’s Substance Use specialist Trainor Macrone, herself a person in recovery, explains. SUPER organizes therapy groups for students seeking guidance, distributes Narcan and fentanyl test strips, and reaches out to students who were hospitalized due to an overdose or have substances found in their dorm rooms. “It’s not disciplinary or punitive,” Macrone stresses.
SUPER works hard to ensure their approaches to harm reduction and counseling are relevant to what Penn’s campus is experiencing. They collaborate with student groups—like the Medical Emergency Response Team—to ensure students’ perspectives are considered in their programming. In the 2024–25 academic year, SUPER reported 204 student referrals given for one–on–one recovery guidance and 377 students trained in harm reduction. Their efforts have changed many lives, but there are still students who fall through the cracks.
SUPER occupies little space in the campus consciousness, and as a result, it can seem inaccessible. Stephen had never heard of the group; Ally and Francis said that the process of accessing SUPER and other resources took a lot of digging and effort. “Penn doesn’t prepare us for anything related to alcohol or addiction. They don’t mention the resources for addiction,” Ally says.
Even after Ally got sober, their reputation as an ex–user stuck. “People stop inviting you to things,” Ally says. “They wanted to go out, they wanted to club or go to bars. I was fine doing those things, but people have this certain idea that addicts can’t be around those settings or have fun.” Recovery for Ally has been difficult. They’ve lost many of their friends since becoming sober, and weekend nights are a lot more lonely than when they were still drinking.
“Students fear that their peers are going to look at them differently and they aren’t going to be able to attend social functions anymore,” Macrone says. She understands this fear and supports students in making decisions that are right for them. Finding unconditional support and love from others in recovery is essential to healing. “If someone doesn’t stick by you through your recovery,” Macrone says, “maybe they aren’t a true friend.”
“Addiction touches everybody in some way,” Macrone says. She emphasizes the need for campus–wide support of those struggling with addiction. “Recovery allies are just as valuable and important as someone who is in recovery. It builds out student contacts and social circles for people in recovery,” Macrone says. “It’s always heartwarming when I’m invited to something and people say, ‘There will be alcohol but also La Croix.’”
Francis has a tattoo that reminds him every day the battles he fought throughout his addiction have been against himself. It reads, “Ipsi mihi inimicus pessimus sum”—Latin for “I am my own worst enemy.” Francis knows that only he can reckon with the traumas and loss he has experienced over the years. Like other students in recovery, he has to make the conscious choice every day to be free from his addiction. For many, recovery is a lifelong commitment—a commitment to loving yourself and picking up the broken pieces along the way.
For medical emergencies, call PennComm Emergency Communications Center (24/7) at 215–573–3333. Dial 911 if outside of the Penn patrol zone.
Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (24/7): 988
Crisis Counselor (24/7): text HOME to 741741
Trevor Project for LGBTQ+ counseling: 1–866–488–7386
PENN STUDENT HEALTH AND COUNSELING (24/7): 215–746–WELL (9355).
SUPER’s Recovery Group meets on Tuesdays from 4–5 p.m. at the Public Health and Wellbeing office, 3535 Market St. on the Mezzanine, Suite 50.
“Substance Use and You” group meets on Wednesdays from 5–6 p.m. at Counseling, 3624 Market St., 1st floor.
