Finished your time in rehab, but not sure you’re ready to challenge sobriety while taking on all the burdens of your life before you cleaned up? It might be time to consider a sober home, to give you a smoother, more successful transition back into independent living. Here are just four benefits you’ll see from time in one:
1) A gradual increase of independence
Jumping from the controlled environment of a rehab program to full freedom can make it incredibly easy to slide back out of sobriety, so if you’re worried about the mental shock of returning to your life, a sober home is a great compromise. It will allow you to better integrate your ‘sober self’ and the rest of your life, instead of having to immediately cope with the sharp divide that often arises between the two after rehab.
2) Rules you can adopt after leaving
The structure of a sober home will be far more in tune with what you might expect to be able to maintain in your own daily life; the rules make sense for an independent individual. By learning how to live sober without the stricter limitations of rehab, you’ll have a much easier time moving forward with sober living.
3) Distance from non-sober family, friends, and acquaintances
One of the hardest things to cope with after rehab is the realization that while you’ve changed, the others in your life have not. If you have people who still use or abuse alcohol or other substances in your life, they can make it quite difficult to stay on the straight and narrow. Even if they want you to succeed, they may not understand all of your difficulties or be willing to control or cull their own actions to make things easier. A little time and distance can help you get a better handle on yourself, and resist your environment moving forward.
4) Professional assistance
Many who face addiction also face other medical health problems: pain, mental and behavioral illnesses, trauma – the list goes on. In these cases where addiction was as much a symptom as the disease, you’ll benefit greatly from professional assistance in figuring out the best path for your future.