As the final weeks of your inpatient addiction treatment program begin to wind down, preparation and planning for the next transitional phase of your recovery — re-entering society — will need to ramp up. Logistical decisions like where you are going to live after being discharged from rehab are of vital importance to maintaining long-term sobriety. The ideal re-entry scenario for any addiction recovery patient would involve a smooth, uninterrupted transition that allowed the structure and daily routine of an inpatient treatment regimen to continue to progress outside of rehab.
Leaving rehab and heading back to an independent, sober lifestyle is akin to successfully handing off a baton in a relay race. When timed just right, a successful transition involves the smooth and graceful continuation of a single motion between two diverging entities. The guidelines, structure, and routines that you began in rehab need to be successfully handed off and continued once you leave treatment. One of the best ways to ensure a successful handoff is to secure a plan for housing that actively promotes your sober lifestyle.
Housing presents unique financial and familiar dilemmas for addiction recovery patients being discharged from rehab facilities. Many would prefer to step back into their old lives and simply reside in their previous residence. Reconnecting with spouses and family members, in particular, is a misplaced source of motivation for moving back home while some financial constraints may demand that they simply move back home. This is similar to trying to push a square box through a round hole. The first problem to arise from moving back home is the reintroduction of several old triggers that are littered around your home life. Slipping back into the routines that promoted substance misuse is all too easy when moving back home right after leaving rehab. The second issue with moving home is that all of these separate motivations distract from the main goal of maintaining sobriety. These motivations, although valid and in need of being addressed eventually, are suffering from a serious case of wrong place and wrong time.
Addiction recovery is called a process for a reason, and individuals leaving rehab can not simply just re-insert themselves back into their old lives. Easing back into independent lifestyles through a residency at a sober living home is probably the best way addiction recovery patients can successfully hand off their new, healthier habits. This can be accomplished by either taking up residency at a sober living facility like the one Choice House offers or at any one of the non-profit sober living homes across the nation.
Choice House’s Sober Living Campus
We here at Choice House have the luxury of offering our inpatient clients the smoothest possible transition back into their independent lifestyles with our sober living campus. After the 90-day inpatient service ends, Choice House clients are offered the opportunity to take up residency at one of our 10 different homes for various lengths of stay with a minimum 120-day commitment required. Residents have access to the clubhouse for recreational activities — pool, ping pong, etc.—- as well as being able to attend the three 12-step meetings that are held each week on site.
Other benefits include maintaining relations with Choice House staff and therapists as they take their next step in the recovery process. Much of the leg work that addiction recovery patients would need to do on their own — finding meetings, therapists, and doctors — is all taken care of at our sober living campus. Residents can smoothly transition from rehab to find gainful employment and even maintain a social life while under the structure and supervision of Choice House guidelines and staff.
Sober Living Homes
This sober living housing model is not unique to Choice House’s campus and facilities alone. A variety of nonprofit organizations like Oxford Home provide sober living housing opportunities throughout the country. This option is a little more intimidating, but transitional liaisons at rehab facilities can help ease your worries when choosing the right sober living home.
The majority of sober living homes will begin with an interview between you and the housemates currently residing in the sober home. After the interview, the housemates will then vote on you moving in. Some may view this as a formality, but it allows both you and the housemates to gauge comfort levels and ensure that residing there is a good fit.
Once approved to move into the sober living home, initial guidelines and rules for newcomers will be discussed. This generally consists of a quota for meetings attended within the first 60 or 90 days of residency as well as stipulations that you will either be looking for employment or actively employed. These guidelines may seem strict at first, but they are important measures and motivators to keep recovery patients active and moving forward along the path to continued sobriety.
Once you have settled into your new sober living home, you will begin to take on more responsibility which entails payment of bills as well as taking on specific and rotating roles of responsibility in your sober living home such as treasury, secretary, chore keeper, etc. These roles are meant to help teach responsible habits for addiction recovery patients as they continue the transition process.
If you or someone you love is suffering from an addictive disorder with co-occurring mental health issues, then Choice House has the addiction treatment programs to help. We offer men dual-diagnosis treatment for addictive and mental health disorders through a 90-day inpatient service, an intensive outpatient program, and residency at our sober living campus. Our variety of therapeutic modalities help men create a new foundation of love and empathy as they learn the necessary preventative measures to support long term sobriety. Our facilities are ideally situated between the beautiful Rocky Mountain National Park and the bustling city of Louisville, and we take full advantage of having the Rocky Mountains literally in our backyard. Through a unique form of outdoor wilderness therapy, men are afforded the chance to create lasting bonds of friendship as they reconnect with themselves, nature, and fellow recovery patients through physical activities like hiking, rock climbing, and kayaking. We strongly feel that the friendships made in recovery at Choice House will last a lifetime and prove virtual to your recovery efforts long after you have left our facilities. Our proximity to the city of Louisville also makes our facilities location perfect for clients of our outpatient services and those residing at our sober living campus. Clients can receive the structure and guidance that is so needed in early recovery as they transition back into their independent, sober lifestyles. For more information about Choice House facilities and programs of treatment, please give us a call at (720) 577-4422.