Halfway house residents must complete or have active enrollment in rehabilitation. Also, applicants with a criminal record will be denied at many of these homes. Once accepted, residents are usually limited to a maximum stay of 12 months. As a result, they are typically dorm-like in their living arrangements, resulting in less privacy for residents, but are frequently less expensive. After World War II, groups like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) began to develop across the country. These organizations created 12-step houses that offered an alcohol or drug-free living space while also encouraging attendance at AA meetings.

The purpose of these requirements is to help residents successfully transition into the facility, adapt to the SLH environment, and develop a stable recovery program. First, if you’re recently leaving a rehab stay or have just wrapped up an outpatient program, a sober living facility may provide you with the structure you need. While other considerations can factor into their decision, these guidelines can serve as a starting point when searching for a sober living house. Just like an addiction treatment program, a sober living facility should meet the needs of the loved one someone is wanting to help.

Risks and Downsides of Sober Living Homes

Going to a sober living house has been proven to support sobriety efforts, with results ranging from a decreased amount of relapses to long-term sobriety. They first came into existence when a group of active participants in the Alcoholics Anonymous group created a “12-step” residence. This was a home, typically placed in low-income housing, that enforced policies around sobriety and required attendance to AA meetings.

• You live in a substance-free environment while navigating the responsibilities of life in the real world.
• Of course, there are many other variables that affect overall program quality, effectiveness, and fit.
• It is difficult to ascertain the exact number because they are not formal treatment programs and are therefore outside the purview of state licensing agencies.
• Neither type of program is the same as a residential inpatient program.

They are environments free of substance abuse where individuals can receive support from peers who are also in recovery. There is no time limit on how long someone can live in a sober living house. While meeting attendance and household duties may be required, there isn’t regimented treatment programming present in the home. Sober living houses are often recommended for folks finishing up a drug rehabilitation program.Leaving the structure of a treatment program can be jarring, sometimes triggering a relapse.

Assessing the Impact of the Community Context

Interviews will elicit their knowledge about addiction, recovery, and community based recovery houses such as SLHs. Their perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of SLHs in their communities should provide data that can be used to modify houses to improve acceptance and expand to serve more drug and alcohol dependent persons. We hypothesize that barriers to expansion of SLHs might vary by stakeholder groups.

This might include eating healthy, exercising regularly, keeping a clean home, and maintaining good personal hygiene. One of the benefits of sober living is the structure it puts back into each resident’s life. In treatment or a transitional home, you will re-learn how to establish a regime and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Sober House Rules

Six-month abstinence was a dichotomous yes/no regarding any use of alcohol of drugs over the past 6 months. Some facilities require a minimum number of days of sobriety from substance abuse, but many will work with you to determine if you’re a good fit. At Footprints to Recovery, over 70% of our patients choose to stay in sober living while receiving treatment or after completing treatment with us. Most of them view their homes as a necessary component of a successful recovery.

Sober living facilities are often thought of as a sober person’s pipeline to life in mainstream society. A sober living house is a peer-managed home designed to help people maintain sobriety. This is achieved through required sobriety, recovery group attendance, and household participation.

First, we could not directly compare which type of SLH was most effective because there were demographic and other individual characteristics that differed between the two types of houses. Second, individuals self selected themselves into the houses and a priori characteristics of these individuals may have at least in part accounted for the longitudinal improvements. Although self selection can be viewed as a weakness of the research designs, it can also be conceived as a strength, especially for studying residential recovery programs. Our study design had characteristics that DeLeon, Inciardi and Martin (1995) suggested were critical to studies of residential recovery programs. They argued that self selection of participants to the interventions being studies was an advantage because it mirrored the way individuals typically choose to enter treatment. Thus, self selection was integral to the intervention being studied and without self selection it was difficult to argue that a valid examination of the invention had been conducted.

• Halfway houses, also known as Sober Living Homes (SLHs), provide housing and support for individuals with Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) who are transitioning out of drug or alcohol rehab.
• Specifically, it helps residents resolve their mixed feelings (i.e., ambivalence) about living in the SLH and engaging in other community based services.
• While staying in an inpatient treatment center, the person is required to stay at the facility for the duration of their treatment.
• Most treatment facilities can help determine if your insurance is eligible for outpatient rehab.

Over time, these people will start to feel more like your family, or your community, with everyone supporting and understanding one another. These are the relationships you will have for life, the people you can call on sober house when things get tough, the people that will hold you accountable for your sobriety time and time again. The cost of rent at a sober living can vary depending on the location and amenities of the sober living residence.