Sometimes, home is not the best place to be, especially for those in recovery. Yet, needing a roof over your head isn’t the only reason to consider an Oxford House. These homes offer individuals a safe and secure place to live where they can learn responsibility, gain recovery support, and learn to live a sober life. In its simplest form, an Oxford House describes a democratically run, self-supporting and drug free home.

The house that you move into is supposed to be in a nice neighborhood and indistinguishable in quality from any other houses in the area. One of the more humorous descriptions I have read about the houses is that they are supposed to be “upscale.” I have yet to see one that fits this description. Every house must allow 20 Natural Alcohol Detox Supplements and Vitamins 6 residents at a bare minimum in order to apply for and to keep an Oxford House “charter,” which simply means that the house requires that all members adhere to the 3 Basic Rules of Oxford House.[2] There are also no co-ed houses. An Oxford house provides recovering addicts a safe, substance-free place to live.

The Oxford House Model

Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous provided a framework for us to change physically, mentally, and spiritually. The degree to which we were able to successfully change our lives had a direct relationship to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Many of us soon learned, however, that living alone or living among our old drinking companions made it more difficult to practice the principles necessary for continued sobriety. During 2010, approximately 24,000 individuals lived in an Oxford House for some or part of the year. Of that number 4,332 relapsed [19%] and were expelled, while 7,668 moved out clean and sober. At any given time there are about 2,000 Oxford House residents who have served in the military.

• The addresses of residential behavioral health facilities are public, but by law the addresses of sober living homes are not.
• One of the greatest threats to the sobriety of a recovering alcoholic or drug addict is loneliness.
• For those of us who had been in institutions or half-way houses, resentments against authority were common.
• The alcoholic or drug addict alone begins to compare himself to those members of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous who still have family and friends.

It can be very difficult to find funding for sober living home projects in any state, and Massachusetts is no different. However, in 2021, MassHousing awarded over $ to sober living homes, or “substance-free housing units.” MassHousing is a quasi-public affordable housing agency in Massachusetts so its https://trading-market.org/boston-sober-homes/ shift in focus to recovery housing is unusual. It’s worth keeping an eye on this agency to see if they’ll make a similar move in the future. You have a lot more freedom than you would have in a halfway house, but you do have a curfew and are required to get a job [1] and attend recovery meetings.

Oxford House

The authors found evidence that 12-step program attendance and social support systems were key components of recovery for residents. In general, individuals with a history of vagrancy, incarceration or inadequate social support are at high risk of relapse. But sober living homes can be beneficial for anyone in recovery who does not have a supportive, substance-free environment to go home to. The services, rent, rules and living conditions at sober living homes vary from place to place. Some homes are part of a behavioral health care system where residents live next to a rehab clinic, participate in outpatient therapy and have access to the clinic’s recreational activities. By the time many of us had stopped drinking, we had lost jobs; we had lost families, and some of us either had no place to live or no place to live which was not an invitation to start drinking again.