After treatment is over, people are faced with returning to their former environment or moving into Recovery Housing. If you’re on the fence about which direction to go, we’re here to share some of the benefits that sober living homes have to offer you after treatment.
Sober living homes are vital in maintaining sobriety and helping you to maintain your recovery journey. Get ready to re-build and take the next step forward in your life.
- Opportunity to Create Meaningful Relationships
When you were in active addiction, the only relationship that mattered was the one you had with your substance of choice. A sober living home can be a place where you begin to create meaningful relationships and add value to your life.
You’ll meet and interact with different kinds people in Recovery Housing, and they will have their own perspective on sobriety that you can apply to your life. These relationships are essential because they understand what you’ve been through.
They understand the struggles you’re facing and the stress you feel trying not to let family and friends down on your sobriety journey. Instead of being alone and dealing with these things, you have others around you to help remedy these feelings of loneliness.
You’ll quickly find that your sober living companions become more like family as time goes on.
- Provides Ongoing Support & Structure
Without structure, it can be easy to slip back into old habits that are destructive to your sobriety. One of the main sober living home benefits is that it provides you with the ongoing structure and support you need in your recovery.
Most sober living homes are run by managers that ensure all residents adhere to the rules and guidelines set in the house. Not only are they there to enforce rules, but they’re also there to help you with problems you might be having.
Recovery Housing staff are trained to provide ongoing care, such as running group therapy sessions inside the home, but they’re also there to hold all residents accountable for their actions. If you’re not held responsible, it’s easy to assume what you’re doing isn’t wrong.
For example, if you break curfew, the house manager might remove some privileges you earned throughout the time you’ve been living in the house. They will also let you know if you continue to break the rules, you will have to leave the home because it’s a sign you’re not taking your recovery seriously, and it can put others around you in jeopardy.
- Teach Life Skills
When you were active in your addiction, not only did the relationships you had suffer, keeping up with obligations and maintaining your health fell to the wayside. In sober living, you will learn vital life skills you need to support yourself once you move out.
These life skills are commonly taught through obligatory chores each resident much complete. Some life skills include:
- Doing laundry
- Going grocery shopping for the house
- Going to work every day
- Finding and keeping a job
- Exercising
- Maintaining your hygiene
Performing these life skills will help you establish a routine you’ll use in your daily life. Also, living with other sober living residents will teach you interpersonal skills and how to apply them.
For example, you’re not always going to get along with the people in the sober living home; therefore, you need to have the skills required to face the challenges and remedy the issues before they get out of hand.
- Makes the Transition Easier
It’s one thing to talk about transitioning back to daily life and another to do it. Many people finishing treatment are nervous and scared to make the transition back into the real world because they fear they’ll fail.
Recovery Housing acts as a buffer making the transition smoother because they understand that sober living is a path you’ll be on for the rest of your life. Sober living homes act as the bridge between treatment and the real world, almost like a protective covering for people leaving treatment.
It will also teach you to become more independent and rely on yourself rather than others or substances to achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself.
- Reduces the Risk of Relapse
When a person’s body and brain have been exposed to drugs and alcohol, there are long and short-term effects that you’ll live with for the rest of your life. Some of these issues include difficulty making the right decisions, which can lead to a relapse.
Recovery Housing reduces the chances of relapse because possible triggers don’t surround people the way they would if they’d returned home immediately following treatment. Because these triggers aren’t present, you can continue working your program and practicing the coping skills you learned while in treatment.
It’s essential to reduce these triggers because they can lead to cravings to use or can present the opportunity for you to use.
- Access to Connections
It can be hard to make connections and succeed at things like a job or continue your education. Sober living homes are equipped with several resources to help you find your way after treatment.
They aren’t going to hand you everything you need on a silver platter, but they can help point you in the right direction or provide you with a reference. After they’ve provided the reference, everything else is up to you.
Recovery Housing: Benefits You Need to Know
You stand to gain several benefits when moving into a sober living home. Benefits range from building interpersonal skills to reducing the chances of relapse.
All are important to the overall sobriety journey you’re on. Before you can think about aftercare, you’ve got to take the challenging first step of entering treatment.
Stop what you’re doing now and get help from Cenikor. Let us help you begin your recovery today. Everyone has to start somewhere.
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