Studies have shown us time and again that people who suffer from alcoholism and drug addiction often suffer from co-occurring, or comorbid, mental disorders. This means many people are fighting two (or potentially even more) battles at once. For these individuals, a longer stay in a sober living home can help them to develop the coping strategies to fight on both fronts.

This support system allows residents to avoid the isolation that can sometimes come with returning home while in recovery. It further provides an environment to support recovery from substance abuse and addiction for those who are emerging from rehab. Sober living homes provide a combination of freedom and structure to help the person begin to adjust to life outside of rehab. They are set up specially to serve as transitional housing for people coming out of treatment.

What Is a Halfway House?

In order to make your stay at a sober living home in Northern New Jersey successful, it is important that you follow the house rules that are outlined by the staff there. These homes are generally set up in such a way that they provide you with the best chance for success in addiction recovery, while helping you to live on your own as quickly as possible. Most sober living homes also require residents to regularly participate in a 12-step program such as Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous to ensure residents are staying focused on recovery.

• Sober living houses provide shelter and comfort to those patients that have undergone a rehabilitation program but are not yet ready to go back to their daily lives.16 However, sober living may bring significant expenses.
• To answer the question of “how do sober living homes work” doesn’t really require splitting hairs between these different types of residences, so we’ve elected to treat them as one collective type of program.
• In our comprehensive guide, we share the truth about sober living homes, including what it is like living in a sober house and how it factors into the long-term recovery process.

Over 24 agencies affiliated with CAARR offer clean and sober living services. Halfway houses are similar to sober living homes, but halfway houses are generally more strict. Residents of halfway houses are typically required to be enrolled or have participated in substance abuse treatment services. Residents of sober living facilities must abstain from drugs and alcohol, which provides an excellent peer support system for everyone who lives there. Recovering addicts can practice life skills, such as paying rent and maintaining a clean living space, while surrounded by other sober individuals.

Choosing Between Rehab, Sober Living, and Halfway Houses

If you’re seeking substance abuse treatment, consider us here at Harris House. Feel free to reach out with any questions about our different programs — we’d love to talk to you about your options. The oft-cited average is between 166 and 254 days, which means about five and a half to eight and a half months. It’s less important to compare yourself to the average and more important to speak to the professionals you’re working with about what’s working for you. If you and your medical professionals agree that you’re still benefiting from the program, then you should be able to continue on without issue.

Other people may need some time to get used to the structure of a sober living environment and what is expected of them while they are there. Following the house rules will help you to ultimately overcome your addiction and live a clean and sober life. Outpatient programs in low income urban areas might find the Options Recovery Services model of SLHs helpful. Relative to the other housing programs, this model was inexpensive and the houses were conveniently located near the outpatient facility. Typically, residents entered these SLHs after establishing some period of sobriety while they resided in a nearby shelter and attended the outpatient program. A significant strength of the Options houses was that residents were able to maintain low alcohol and drug severity at 12-month follow up.

Rules to Remember When Living in a Sober Living Home in Northern New Jersey

The study design used repeated measures analyses to test how study measures varied over time. Because the two types of houses served residents with different demographic characteristics, we conducted disaggregated longitudinal analyses for each. For a more complete description of the study design and collection of data see Polcin et al. (2010), Polcin et al. (in press) and Polcin, Korcha, Bond, Galloway and Lapp (in press). We host nightly “family” dinners, weekly meetings, and regular outings to create an environment that promotes cohesive unity. The brotherhood between house members empowers everyone to walk through tribulations with much-needed support, and to meet our high standards. Another series of studies found that individuals who remained abstinent for less than one year relapsed two-thirds of the time.

You’ll have to take many factors into consideration as you choose the right transitional housing after rehab, such as location, amenities, house staff, and more. There are also several sober living homes run by religious groups, private organizations, or businesses. When looking into sober living in your area, you have to consider a few things—such as cost, amenities, and house rules specific to each facility. One of the most important aspects of sobriety is being active in your recovery program and having a sober community to lean on during tough times.

At first glance, you’ll feel the love and camaraderie that pervades these young men. Their care for one another, even long after they leave, is unparalleled. Join the thousands of people that have called a treatment provider for rehab information. Get professional help from an online addiction and mental health counselor from BetterHelp. At North Jersey Recovery Center, we strive to make your addiction treatment experience as comfortable as possible. If someone has broken curfew, there are typically consequences such as being kicked out of the house with no other place to go or having their privileges revoked.

There are many benefits to living in a sober living home while you are trying to stay clean from drugs and/or alcohol. Sober living homes are not meant for short-term stays and there are rules and responsibilities Top 5 Questions to Ask Yourself When Choosing Sober House that come with living in a sober living environment. To achieve the utmost level of success in your recovery and in your sober living home, it is so important to follow the rules of the house.

Pick a place where you can stay for as long as you want.

This was a home, typically placed in low-income housing, that enforced policies around sobriety and required attendance to AA meetings. Meetings were held both in the home and in neighboring organizations in the community. Leaving the structure of the treatment program can be very disruptive to your sobriety, so treatment programs have strict schedules filled with counseling, group therapy, and participatory activities. Most residents of these homes have recently completed an inpatient or outpatient treatment program. If you’re getting out of an inpatient program, there should be plenty of discussion between you and your treatment team about what the next steps for you will look like. It’s important for aftercare to be considered before you even enter treatment.