Sober Living Communities Offer Guidance For Living Healthier And Happier

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Once you have completed treatment for your addiction in an inpatient situation, it’s time to think about rejoining the outside world. In most cases, returning to your old neighborhood isn’t an option. That choice can lead you back to those same triggers that caused your addiction. Instead, you might want to think about a facility that offers sober living Columbus Ohio. This type of community offers many benefits to recovering addicts, while giving them the opportunity to find a new path for their lives.

There are Many Choices for Sober Living

The concept behind a sober living facility is just what one might think, offering recovering addicts a clean and safe place to live. This is an opportunity to build a new life, focusing on living clean, so alcohol and drug use is prohibited in these types of facilities. A sober living community provides a transition that helps people who have just completed an inpatient treatment program.

While this may sound like another institution, sober living facilities vary in a few ways. For instance, many of them aren’t institutional buildings, as one might expect. They’re usually privately run homes or apartment buildings, where everyone lives together and pitches in with the household chores.

Additionally, there’s far less supervision than that found in inpatient rehabilitation centers. Since residents have already graduated from a treatment facility, it’s believed that they have the tools to continue with their recovery without as much structured guidance.

Methods of payment also differ. Since many of these communities are privately owned, the patient is usually billed directly and would pay in much the same way that rent at any apartment complex would be paid. Depending on the facility, some insurance companies will cover these costs. Also, Medicaid may cover residency in some sober living facilities.

Making a Better Life for Yourself

Many people might wonder why choose a halfway house over living in one’s own private apartment. The answer to that does depend on each individual’s preferences, but, in most cases, there are benefits to be derived from community living. Primarily, by joining a community of other recovering addicts, you’ll be stepping into a ready-made support structure.

The others living in the halfway house are recovering from their own addictions. Some may only recently have left a treatment facility, while others may have been living in the halfway house for many months. This offers residents the kind of support and perspective that will help them succeed in their own journeys.

Since recovering addicts will have to avoid those friends and family members who encouraged their substance use in the past, it will be especially helpful to build a new network of friends. Those sharing the halfway house have been through the same challenges, which helps them bond and create positive, nurturing friendships. Additionally, it helps residents to continue attending recovery meetings, if they’re in a community that supports those activities.

Joining a sober living community involves more than just continuing recovery, though there is a focus on clean living. Additionally, each resident is expected to pursue a life of his or her own, seeking employment and activities outside of the community. The idea is to get yourself prepared to live on your own and to stand on your own two feet, so you can eventually leave the halfway house.

One aspect of building a life for yourself will be in getting full-time work. For that reason, many sober living facilities provide time specifically designated for job searching, including interviews and drug test appointments. Once the resident is employed, it will be easier for him or her to perceive a life outside of the halfway house, yet still adhering to the recovery program’s guidelines. The support system in a halfway house helps residents become productive members of society.

Finally, living in a halfway house may sometimes be necessary. After having spent so much time in a treatment facility, recovering addicts may have lost their apartments or may have even been homeless, prior to seeking treatment. Spending time in a halfway house provides an opportunity for residents to arrange for housing of their own, so, when they are ready to live on their own, they will have someplace to go. It will help them avoid old neighborhoods and situations that served to trigger their substance abuse, if they can find housing in a new location.

Adjusting to society can be a difficult transition, after the highly structured and supervised situation found in a treatment facility. That’s why joining the community in a halfway house is so important. It teaches the recovering addict how to interact with others and how to become productive members of their community. All of this is important, if the recovering addict is to successfully build a clean and sober lifestyle.