Sober Living: Making Treatment Stick

Residential treatment is rarely enough for a successful recovery; the relapse rate after leaving treatment is very high. It usually is hard to enter the “real world” after treatment. You are unlikely to be able to take the coping mechanisms, tools, and skills you learned in treatment and apply them perfectly from day one.

You might know that you should eat nutritious food, get plenty of exercise, manage stress, and stay away from places and people that can trigger cravings. It all makes sense in theory, and you might have felt that you mastered these skills in treatment.

However, you aren’t monitored continually outside of treatment, and your day isn’t scheduled for you. It’s entirely up to you to continue with the structure you learned in treatment. Unfortunately, that transition isn’t easy.

A Safer Transition to Your New Life

After you complete residential treatment, you’ll most likely be referred to many different aftercare programs such as meetings, continued therapy, and sober living. These aftercare programs are designed to help provide you with the support and resources needed to survive in the real world and thrive. Entering sober living allows you to achieve a smooth transition.

In early sobriety, it’s unrealistic to expect you to successfully stay sober entirely on your own. There isn’t a switch that’s flipped as soon as you graduate from treatment. You aren’t suddenly free from addiction and excellent on your own. There’s an entire adjustment process. You’re still learning how to exist without relying on substances. That takes practice.

You may not have a safe environment to practice sobriety. Your home might not be supportive or safe. You might still have connections to people who were a part of your substance use. You might not have your life together, such as a job, degree, or trade.

Even if your environment is stable, its entire structure might collapse because you aren’t used to handling everything on your own. That’s why sober living is highly recommended in early recovery.

How Long Should You Stay in Sober Living?

The length of time needed to stay in sober living varies depending on your situation. Most places require a minimum stay of three months. A more extended stay might be recommended depending on the severity of your addiction, whether or not you’ve relapsed before, and your living situation at home.

Another factor to consider is the current stability in your life. If you need to search for a job or go to school and want to stay in a safe environment while you get on your feet, your length of stay might be impacted. Sober living homes tend to be flexible about the length of stay because they understand that life creates change and challenges.

How Sober Living Reenforces Treatment

Sober living is designed to be a step down from residential treatment. Your schedule will be much less structured and your freedoms will increase. Monitoring will not be continual, but you will be required to pass drug and alcohol screenings.

Smoother Transition From Monitored to Independent

Leaving treatment can be very exciting. In treatment, you were monitored the entire time. Even though it was for your own good, it can feel good to finally have that independence and freedom to make your own choices.

You are not required to stay at the facility all day. You’re able to leave whenever you want and build your own schedule. While this is great, it can also be daunting to take on that level of personal responsibility almost overnight.

Sober living allows you to transition from months of relying on others to provide structure for you to become responsible for your own decisions. It allows you a safety net of support. You aren’t cast out into the world alone; you have a network of people who can have your back if things become challenging.

Provides Much Needed Structure and Stability

In early recovery, you may struggle to apply the structure you had in treatment to real life. It might be easy on paper to remember basic things like eating well, getting enough sleep, applying for jobs, and attending recovery meetings. However, in practice, it can be a lot to balance on your own.

Sober living homes tend to have plenty of rules to follow, including a curfew, drug tests, and rules about overnight guests. The rules aren’t meant to control or limit you in recovery but to set healthy boundaries that everyone in the house agrees to follow.

The rules are meant to protect a person in recovery from themselves. Once you feel stable enough, you can transition out of sober living into an even more independent living space.

A Safe, Substance-Free Environment

If you choose to return home after treatment, it can be risky, depending on your living situation. If you have friends or family who use substances or tend to enable your substance use, they may not be safe for you while you’re at such a vulnerable stage. Relapse is common, and many times it’s because a person returned to the same situation that fueled their addiction in the first place.

Sober living homes always require a substance-free environment and often require drug tests. Many also have a strict relapse policy. While it might sound severe, strict rules keep everyone living in the sober living home safe.

Relapse can be extremely dangerous, which is why it’s essential to be in a substance-free environment until you’ve mastered the coping mechanisms required to handle exposure to substance use.

Extra Time to Heal

You’ve most likely made major strides during treatment, but the healing has only just begun. Sober living can also give you the time and space needed to heal deep wounds brought on by addiction.

A sober living home can give you somewhere safe to live while you enter an outpatient program or attend group or one-on-one therapy. Healing can include getting help for mental health and recovery from your addiction. It’s easier to practice the skills learned in treatment when you’re able to deal with the parts of you that still need to heal.

Ability to Focus On Your Recovery

Spending time at home might become a significant distraction. At this stage, you are trying to rebuild your life from the ground up. Sober living puts you in an environment where everyone has the same goal to implement what they learned in treatment in their everyday lives. There aren’t any additional problems to tackle besides recovering from addiction. You can focus solely on putting the pieces back together.

Provides Access to Resources

At Real Recovery, access to 12-step meetings is offered. Sober living homes often provide residents with resources within the community. This includes sponsors that can work as a mentor for your sobriety, as well as support from people in the community who have been in your exact situation. These resources can allow you to reinforce what you learned in treatment. You won’t need to worry about feeling alone without any help while staying in a sober living home.

Allows Personal Accountability

While you have more independence in sober living, you aren’t completely on your own. People in your sober living community expect you to abide by rules, take care of yourself and work hard to rebuild your life.

There won’t be time for excuses or distractions. Being held accountable allows you to take the time to apply what you’ve learned in treatment to real life. You will be more likely to maintain healthy habits and stick to what you have learned in treatment if you are held accountable to someone.

In a sober living home, you’ll be required to complete chores, cook your own meals, and abide by curfew rules. Your housemates will hold you accountable for what is expected.

Motivation to Find Work

Most sober living homes require that you stay occupied while living there. This can include applying for jobs, searching for volunteer work, or pursuing a degree. People at the sober living house can offer you advice and guidance for transitioning into the workforce after treatment and may even have some leads for jobs that you can apply for.

Builds a Support Network

Having little to no support can contribute to forming an addiction or relapsing after treatment. It’s always recommended that you develop a strong support system in early recovery, often consisting of friends, family, mental health professionals, and sponsors.

In sober living, you have the support of your cohabitants who can offer you advice and help you work through problems that might come up. Real Recovery offers access to a 12-step community where you can find even more support through meeting attendees and sponsors.

It’s hard to deal with life on your own. Knowing that there are people you can confide in can make an enormous difference. You can feel safe asking for advice from people in your life who care about you. You most likely won’t have a solid support network the minute you leave treatment, but sober living can be the first step in developing one.

Staves Off Isolation

If you used to live alone, it might have contributed to your addiction. Isolation can often fuel addiction. Those who struggle with substance use tend to isolate themselves because of shame and stigma and might hesitate to ask for help. In sober living, you don’t need to worry about being alone. You are always around people you can trust who can be there for you when you need it.

Gives You Time to Rebuild Relationships

Addiction can destroy relationships. If your substance use negatively impacted your relationships with your friends and family, it may affect your living situation. Living with people who still resent you for your past actions isn’t healthy.

Sober living gives you the space and time to repair those relationships without feeling like you’re intruding on their space. If you live with a spouse, it can give them time to trust having you back in the home again. If you live with family, it can give you time to work through relationship issues before you enter that dynamic again.

Sober living is a great option for you if you aren’t sure what the next steps are for you after treatment. It’s better to have a plan than to not have one at all. Sober living ensures that you have somewhere safe to live in early recovery when you are most likely to experience a relapse and least likely to have practiced your coping mechanisms enough to keep you safe. If you are in early recovery, you should search for a sober living home. Real Recovery offers sober living homes across Florida. If you’re interested in a safe environment that will do everything it can to help you adjust to life in the real world and put everything you learned in treatment into practice, then Real Recovery might be exactly what you need. If you would like to know more about our sober living homes, call us today at (727) 290-9156.