This thesis explores the educational experiences of students in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction within Irish higher education. While national strategies address substance misuse through prevention and harm reduction, recovery remains largely absent from institutional policy and discourse. The study examines how students in recovery experience, navigate, and make meaning of academic life amid social, cultural, and institutional challenges. Using an interpretivist approach, this qualitative study employed in-depth, semi-structured interviews with six students from various Irish higher education institutions (HEIs). Thematic analysis identified three intersecting domains: personal identity and stigma, institutional culture and academic engagement, and policy-level neglect. Recovery identities were often marginalised, prompting strategic concealment and internalised stigma. Yet participants described education as transformative, providing structure, purpose, and identity renewal. Drawing from Mezirow’s transformative learning theory (TLT), Stryker’s identity theory, Freire’s critical pedagogy, and Goffman’s concept of stigma, the analysis positions recovery as both a personal process of transformation and a socially constructed identity. Mills’ concept of the sociological imagination further contextualises participants’ experiences within broader structural forces. The findings highlight the need for Irish HEIs to recognise recovery as a legitimate and complex student identity. The thesis offers recommendations for practice, policy, and pedagogy, including greater visibility, peer support, staff development, and recovery-informed teaching. This study contributes to emerging scholarship on collegiate recovery by reframing recovery from a private struggle to a shared institutional responsibility, requiring recognition, inclusion, and structured support.