Saving Lives with the Good Samaritan Policy

There is a policy that exists for SUNY Cortland students to help save lives - the Good Samaritan Policy. We explain what is, why it's so important, and why you don't have to wait for a crisis or medical emergency to talk to a friend about their substance use. We also go over tips on how you can start a conversation with friend who may be misusing substances. (Episode is 13 minutes)

Transcript

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Marissa: Welcome to the Last Call Podcast. My name is Marissa Whitaker, and I'm the prevention educator at SUNY Cortland.

Sarah: And my name is Sarah McGowan. I'm the assistant Director of Student Health and Wellness at Onondaga Community College. Our jobs are to educate students about potential risks associated with substance use.

Marissa: We approach substance use from a neutral stance, and our episodes are rooted in public health with a focus on science and harm reduction.

Sarah: Welcome back to the Last Call Podcast. So today's episode how to Save a life. We're going to be doing a deeper dive into situations that college students might happen across during your college career or maybe even after you graduate, including being Good Samaritan and what alcohol poisoning might look like in yourself or in someone else. So Marissa thinking about all of that. So what is the Good Samaritan law?

Marissa: Both of our campuses have Good Samaritan policies. In fact, all of the SUNY schools do. And this applies whether you're on campus or off campus, whether you're in a residence hall or whether you're coming back from the bars. So if you see someone who needs medical attention because they may have had too much to drink, they maybe took too many edibles, maybe you're not sure what they've taken, get them help. Our campuses work with students to remove all barriers to prevent them from getting help. Getting in trouble is a barrier for a lot of students and reasons why students don't get help for these situations. So we work with people to remove barriers so they will get help for somebody. So Good Samaritan is the case for anyone who is actively getting help for somebody. There are some exceptions to this. So if somebody shows up and you're actively smoking a blunt, that's not fairly Good Samaritan. If you are not actively getting help and someone else finds you, that might not be a Good Samaritan case. If you are hiding out because your friend's throwing up in the bathroom and you didn't go get your hall director, that might not be Good Samaritan because you didn't actively get help. So you don't have to be a doctor, a nurse, or a medical practitioner to get help on your own. So just better be safe than sorry. I would rather have a friend who was mad at me the next day because I called than what the alternative could be because I didn't call. So it costs nothing to do the right thing, and you could literally be saving someone's life.

Sarah: So, yeah, Maris going along with that, there's also a Sunni wide policy called the drug and alcohol amnesty policy, which I think is really important to talk about. So this is a Sunni policy. It applies on any Sunni campus. And because the health and safety of every student at any Sunni campus is of utmost importance. Both Sunni Courtland and Onondaga Community College recognize that students who have been drinking and or using drugs, whether such use is voluntary or involuntary at the time a sexual violence incident occurs, may be hesitant to report such incidents due to fear of potential consequences for their own action. So OCC and Cortland strongly encouraged students to report incidents of sexual violence to campus officials and a bystander reporting in good faith or a victim survivor reporting sexual violence to SUNY College officials or law enforcement will not be subject to campus conduct actions for violations of alcohol and or drug use policies at or near the time of the sexual violence. So, super wordy. But basically what this means is we're more worried about you feeling safe enough to report that you were involved in an incident where sexual violence or sexual misconduct occurred. So the colleges are willing to overlook the drug and alcohol use that may have occurred, because we're most worried about making sure that you get help that you need and that you get connected to services that you may need as a result of any incident that occurred on campus or off campus.

Marissa: Exactly. We don't want alcohol or other drug use to be a barrier to report sexual violence. So our Title Nine offices absolutely take that into account when someone comes forward to report sexual misconduct. All right, so now that we've really explained our Good Samaritan policy, let's talk about how you can talk to a friend after they've been Good Samaritan. So let's say your friend was throwing up after you came back from a house party, and they absolutely need medical attention. They're evaluated, maybe they're transported, maybe they're just assessed how do we talk to them the next day about this? So first and foremost, it's really important to have a follow up conversation with them after. Don't let something like this fall through the cracks. So we're going to talk about some things you can do, some things you shouldn't do, and how to generally start these conversations. So before you talk to a friend and this doesn't have to apply just to Good Samaritan cases, this can also extend into how to talk to a friend who might be misusing substances. So the first thing that you should do is educate yourself. Learn about the signs, symptoms, and triggers regarding substance misuse and problematic use could look different for different people. So for some people, it might be missing a couple of assignments. For other people, it might be getting into arguments all the time. For other people, they can't have one or two drinks, it turns into the whole bottle. Something else you can do is take care of yourself. It's so much easier to help a friend if you're in a good mental, physical and emotional state. It might be hard for your friend to hear what you're telling them. And you got to be prepared for multiple outcomes. Sometimes that means adjusting your expectations. So we always hope that we can get through to the people that we care about. But they might not be ready to hear what we have to say or even ready to make any changes. You might not get the outcome that you're expecting. And that can feel frustrating. Defeating, helpless, even lonely. The person might need to marinate over some of the points that you're presenting, which kind of leads me to some of the things that you're not able to do. You can't make them quit, no matter how much you might want this for them. A person who is dependent on substances isn't able to always just stop if someone's not dependent, but they might be misusing substances. We talked about this in our gray area, drinking. They might not want to make that change. So sometimes just kind of sitting with that and accepting it's not the outcome we want isn't always what we're hoping for, but is the reality of having these conversations. Sometimes, I'm just going to say honestly.

Sarah: Sometimes that's one of the hardest parts of our job is kind of knowing that people are engaging and really hazardous or harmful use, but then also having those conversations and realizing that they're not in a place where they're ready to change right now. So I think that's important to kind of throw out there is that's hard for us, even as professionals to know that people are making these decisions. So don't take it personal as their friend, because as people who are trained to do this job, it still is difficult to kind of deal with.

Marissa: Yeah. And so especially it can be very difficult if you're also misusing substances with your friends. So it's really hard sometimes to be like, hey Sarah, what happened last night? I'm really worried about your drinking. You're like, really? Because you were pouring the shots last night. So sometimes examining our own behaviors before we have these conversations and then our actions afterwards can really help or hinder a friend. So when it comes time to talk to them, being there goes such a long way. You're going to want to have some open dialogue because that's the best chance for them to share what they want and to be there when they need you the most. So trying things, just as I said before, I'm worried about you. These are the things that I'm worried about. And then whether having examples, whether those are feelings that you have, letting them know that you're concerned where this could be heading in the future and you want them to get help, you want them to get resources. Some things to avoid saying is why don't you just stop? Or why can't you just come and have a couple? I mean, there's so many things that I hear from students that might be working on trying to reduce their alcohol consumption that sometimes the things that their peers and their friends are saying to them can really make it very hard to change patterns of behavior.

Sarah: It's always best to give examples of things that you've seen and how you feel because you truly don't know where someone else is coming from. And maybe they feel that their experience is different, but making it about what you've seen and how you feel, you can only share about what you've witnessed and what you've seen. It's hard to talk on someone else's experience. So I think that's really important to just kind of think about.

Marissa: Yeah, and then using those I statements, not like, you do this when you do that. So saying something like, I feel hurt when you break our plans to go to the bars, I mean, there are a lot of different ways, depending on what the situation is, how the conversation could be approached.

Sarah: And I think going back to an I statement, thinking about your intentions too. So what's your overall goal for having this conversation? And are you coming at this from a place of caring? Like you're really concerned about the person? Are you coming at this because you're worried that you're going to lose your bar buddy or the person that you turn up with on a Friday night? Be realistic with what you're hoping to accomplish with the conversation and really think about are you coming at this from a place of caring or are you coming at this from a selfish place?

Marissa: Yeah. And then now that leads into that action phase of this. So if you're currently engaging in substance use with this friend, I would really recommend stopping doing that. At the very least, stop doing that around them, not even talking about drinking and drug use around them. So if someone's taking a tolerance break and you're talking about rolling a blunt with everybody else later, that could be very triggering for a person, depending on their reasonings for stopping use. Also, just as we said before, avoiding that confrontational approach, it just makes someone defensive. I mean, everyone has been there, even not talking about substance use. But if we come at somebody, or if somebody comes at us in an accusatory sense, people clam up, they might get upset, they might lash out, and at the very least, they are less likely to listen to your message. And also, you don't need to wait for a crisis to approach them about substance use. So ideally, having these conversations before a good Samaritan is involved, having these conversations before they get transported, we don't wait until we have end staged illness to go to the doctor. We get screened, we do things before. So substance use is no different.

Sarah: And obviously, we have no issue having these conversations with students, but sometimes it means more when a friend is bringing it up to you because you know that they actually care about you. Not that we don't care about you, but you know that they care about you. You've spent more time with them. So sometimes it's easier to hear from a friend who knows you and who's been there compared to someone that you're not familiar with or who might you might not know that well.

Marissa: I feel like this year I've gone from it's like your big sister to it's your cool aunt. And I'm like, I'm not ready for that anyway. So if you've had this conversation with your friend and they might be ready to trying to stop substance use, or if you have a friend who's in recovery too. So maybe someone has already had this conversation before and they've done the work and they are no longer engaging in any forms of substance use. Some things that you can do accept them without any judgment. You can express your love and praise their decision to stop using substances and maintain sobriety. You can actively listen to them. You can hear about their experiences. You can hear about the reasons why they're not using substances anymore. You can encourage and support them for changing their behaviors, letting them know that you're proud of them. And you can see a difference. Something really big, especially on a college campus, is to now create a bit of a substance free environment. That doesn't mean if you still want to drink that you can't. But while spending time with this friend remove alcohol and drugs from the environment, don't bring up engaging in substance use around them. You might be able to just stop after one or two, but not everybody can. And some people should abstain from using alcohol. They should abstain from using weed. How are you going to support them? And the big bottom line is to be patient. Recovery can be such a long and complicated process for people. And setbacks can and oftentimes do happen if they're making any steps in the right direction. Accepting them and their setbacks are part of this process.

Sarah: I was just going to say, Russ, it looks different with everyone. So what may seem like a small step to one person could be a huge step for someone else. So also just making sure you're not comparing your recovery with anyone else's because it can look so different from person to person. Exactly.

Marissa: I hope that you were able to take away some tips on how you can talk to a friend and how you can step up and act as a good Samaritan and how you can save a life. Thanks so much for tuning in. Bye.