How Sober Living Help You Stay Clean and Sober

Anyone who’s entered drug treatment for the first time well knows the drastic change in lifestyle required to make it through the treatment process. Treatment programs function as highly structured living environments where addicts have the opportunity to focus solely on the recovery process.

Going from the confines of a drug treatment program back into the real world can be an equally jarring experience for the recovering addict. After all, there’s a huge different between staying clean and sober while living in a treatment facility versus living at home on one’s own.

Clean and sober living in the real world requires a set of skills that can only be acquired through real world experience. A sober living program offers the best of both worlds in terms of enabling a person to gain needed experience while providing the necessary supports along the way.

Sober living programs provide the type of living environment that helps recovering addicts develop clean and sober lifestyles while facing the daily challenges and temptations of daily life in the real world.

Training Ground

A sober living home operates according to a set of rules that program residents must follow for the length of their stay. These rules are really not that much different than any other household in terms of performing chores, maintaining employment and paying for rent and housing expenses. In effect, these conditions become a training ground for clean and sober living.

Other house rules may include –

• Attending 12-Step meetings on a regular basis
• Obtaining a sponsor
• Abiding by curfews

Stable Living Environment

Sober homes help people get settled in their sobriety with a support network of roommates.

Overcoming the daily urges and temptations to use drugs (or alcohol) is hard enough without having to deal with a chaotic home environment. More than anything else, a stable living environment becomes essential to maintaining a clean and sober lifestyle on a long-term basis.

The rules enforced by sober living programs create the type of structure that makes it possible to maintain stability within a home. Compared to the “anything goes” lifestyle of addiction, reestablishing a sense of pattern and routine in a person’s life can go a long way towards sustaining a clean and sober lifestyle.

Support Network

Having a support network made up of like-minded individuals becomes an essential component for long-term abstinence throughout the recovery process. One of the key benefits of sober living homes lies in the built-in network of support these programs provide.

Residents of sober living homes all share the same goal in terms of staying clean and sober. These programs also incorporate the 12-Step model in terms of how a person should treat him or herself as well as others.

Staying Engaged in the Recovery Process

People who complete drug treatment and reenter everyday life straightaway must figure out how to incorporate the tools and strategies learned in treatment within the hustle and bustle of daily life. Ultimately, the responsibility of staying engaged in the recovery process rests solely on the recovering addict’s shoulders.

Staying clean and sober under these conditions can be risky for some as “real life” can quickly become an overwhelming experience. According to the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, sober living programs enable a person to remain engaged in the recovery process on a day in, day out basis, which is habit that will prove invaluable once he or she is ready to reenter the world of everyday life.