A new hot topic of the recovery community is centered around sober living homes. What are they, and why are they making a big impression? Sober living homes are post-medical rehabilitation living spaces for individuals recovering from a substance use disorder (SUD). Sober living homes help individuals in recovery by providing resources and strategies for maintaining long-term sobriety.
The recovery process requires individuals to make a lifestyle change that does not involve the use of substances. These types of facilities help prepare individuals for that change. Entering a sober living home program is often seen as a transition. By completing one of these recovery-based programs, you learn how to better manage your life for the future.
As a post-medical rehabilitation living space for individuals in recovery are sober living homes the same as halfway houses? Both are post-medical rehabilitation living spaces, but sober living homes are leaps and bounds above halfway houses due to better recovery program structure, accountability, leadership, and living space. Our founder’s and staff members’ personal experiences have seen individuals in recovery filter in and out of halfway houses without making any headway. They end up no better off than when they first entered. Unlike halfway houses, sober living homes establish clear goals with the how-to of getting there.
Want to know more about sober living homes? Here are seven benefits of sober living homes and how they help you fight addiction during early recovery.
#1. Recovery Can Be Fun: Become Part of a Safe and Stable Community
It is a common misconception that recovery can’t be fun. So many people enter with the expectation that recovery involves only hard work.
You may imagine the worst. You are stuck isolated for days on end while experiencing withdrawals, and you receive minimal contact from professional help. Nurses only visit to provide you with painkillers, check your blood pressure, and ask how you’re feeling. They quickly leave. Those in your close family are the only ones ever to see the recovery facility and where your living space is. They rarely visit. Dropping you off at the facility was their first and only visit. That and a mid-performance check-up make up their most extensive impressions of the operation.
You hope friends will visit, but they don’t. In fact, they are entirely unaware from the start that you are in rehab for addiction. Whether their ignorance stems from a lack of communication or something deeper, the rare experience of outside contact bothers you. Beyond all this, what look becomes your face when you take all of it in? Depression, anxiety, or apathy? In this instance, recovery is not fun. It never had the opportunity to be anything more than hard work. This image is one of suffering.
Recovery should not amount to suffering. Recovery is the process of ridding yourself of suffering. Addiction is the villain here. Its culminated effect has been one of disarray and disease. Near the beginning of your recovery, you find out that it imbalances you through your character. You are unable to manage any avenue of your life while under its influence, and if you succumb to its influence, you have no power to correct that imbalance. Addiction causes you to be powerless.
Recovery can be fun. In fact, fun is integral to the process of recovery in order for you to see success with long-term sobriety. For the longest time, you might have drunk or used substances as a way to cope with your emotions. Of these emotions, you dulled joy with intoxication. Never would you experience that emotion for what it actually is. We agree life requires hard work and discipline, but without being comfortable experiencing joy, life would be tedious and ugly. Because recovery is a lifestyle change, learning how to have fun is necessary. You retain friendships, and in turn, build up your support system. You learn to be stable and happy while better managing your life.
#2. Expect Accountability in the Form of Consistent Random Drug and Alcohol Tests
Random drug and alcohol tests can sound scary. That’s because drugs tests are scary if you currently struggle with substance abuse. Addiction makes you not want to give up using or drinking. When you first enter a sober living home, however, you must be in the right mindset — that you are on a path of recovery. Addiction will tug you on your shoulder, asking you to look back, but it is your duty to your future self to press onward.
Cravings are a genuine threat to your recovery process. Part of the fight is learning how to manage cravings. Learn how to sit uncomfortably with the feeling of cravings or how to deter them by rarely placing yourself in triggering situations.
Regular random drug and alcohol tests help keep you accountable for your recovery. Compare your early recovery while in a sober living home to doing it by yourself. Having others around you for the sole purpose of ensuring your success makes it much more straightforward and obtainable than battling cravings and lapses in judgment.
#3. A Standardized Approach to Recovery: Equality Without Exceptions Among Residents
Sober living homes offer a standardized approach to recovery. In other recovery communities, like halfway houses, you might see favoritism in play with program administrators playing judge, jury, and executioner. Your success in addiction recovery does not depend on how much your recovery support system likes or dislikes you.
At Real Recovery Sober Living, our rules and operations are consistent across properties and personnel. By following strict enforcement of guidelines to your recovery, we can best help ensure your success in long-term sobriety. Our goal is not to catch you sneaking in drugs or alcohol. Our goal is to administer the best recovery practices for you.
#4. Get the Best Help From Accredited Recovery Facilities
Most successful sober living homes owe their success to accreditations. For Real Recovery Sober Living Home, we are part of Florida’s Association of Recovery Residences (FARR) and are nationally recognized by leading sober living industry associations. These marks help us create our standardized approach to recovery and remain consistent across properties when creating rules, guidelines, structure, and operation.
Like other sober living homes, we look at who is currently performing the best in helping new residents find long-term sobriety. Sobriety does not need to be hit or miss, trial and error. With a uniform, proven-to-work approach, early recovery is simplified, and you soon see yourself living life with the minimal burden from the throes of addiction.
#5. A Comprehensive Approach to Recovery: Get in Tune With Your Mind, Body, and Spirit
Addiction and recovery are two very opposite walks of life. When using drugs and alcohol, you never quite see the positives to life. You are always chasing your next high. On the other hand, recovery lets you take a step back and get a better view of what you have been missing out on. You know how they say a weight loss journey is a lifestyle change, well so is recovery. You have to want it for you to be successful.
Sober living homes offer a comprehensive approach to recovery. With a focus on your mind, body, and spirit, you learn the importance of hard work, self-care, and healthy living habits. Improve all aspects of your life by regularly partaking in exciting activities and events.
#6. Live in Comfort While in Recovery: Modern Apartment-Style Sober Living
Sober living homes are physically larger entities than their lesser halfway house cousins. In a sober living home, you can experience recovery while living in comfort with a modernized approach. During one of the most volatile times in your life, why would you want to live any other way?
A modern apartment-style of sober living is necessary for your success during recovery. No one wants to exist in a cramped, unkempt living space while fighting addiction. That type of environment only spawns stress from discomfort, and by now, we all know that stress is one of the biggest proponents of cravings.
What does modern apartment-style sober living mean? Imagine renovated living spaces, modern appliances, high-speed internet, and furnishings. You deserve to live in a clean and stable environment with a community of others who are like-minded when it comes to the recovery process.
#7. Confront Addiction Head-on With Support Groups Led by Professionals and Alumni
Sober living homes expect discipline and dedication to want to get and stay sober; however, it is understandable that you experience cravings, triggers, and withdrawals during early recovery. That is why it is necessary to confront the disease of addiction head-on.
Sober living homes owe part of their success to establishing support groups led by recovery professionals and alumni. You can discuss in confidence with others the struggles of your addiction as well as one-on-one with recovery leadership. You can confide in your sponsor how difficult parts of recovery are in order for your concerns to be addressed. These strategies help to alleviate the burden of addiction. It should not control your life, and these established support groups by sober living homes help make that possible.
In a sober living home, you can learn how to rid yourself of old negative behaviors. Be open, honest, and willing to admit that addiction has been a problem in your life, and you will be on your way to succeeding.
Sober living homes like Real Recovery work with the 12-Step process due to its proven success as a recovery method. By following this program, you learn how multifaceted recovery is. You can learn to understand at a deeper level what it means to have gone through addiction and come out ahead on the other side.
Is a Sober Living Home Right for You?
Sober living homes are meant for individuals in recovery who have already gone through medical rehabilitation. With alcohol and other substances fully cleared from your system, you are ready to start your recovery lifestyle change.
Sober living homes are great for individuals still in early recovery who wish to achieve long-term sobriety. You learn the ins and outs of maintaining sobriety by managing cravings, triggers, and withdrawals. You address the elephant in the room – your past fueled by addiction. You come to terms with who you were and who you will soon become.
Real Recovery Sober Living Homes offers a safe and stable environment and community for you to undergo the addiction recovery process. We are Florida’s largest sober living bed provider with six Greater Tampa Bay area locations. We accommodate men of all backgrounds with our open and honest approach to sober living. Our team is led by recovery professionals who experienced firsthand the harms of addiction.
Work with us to build a recovery program right for you while following our three-stage process. Learn how to adapt to a new sober lifestyle while rebuilding your career, education, and support system. Prepare yourself for a successful future while in good health and without the consequence of relapse. The world beyond addiction awaits you. Regain control over your life with the help of our recovery resources. For more information about the next steps in your recovery process, call Real Recovery today at (727) 290-9156.
