J Psychoactive Drugs. 2010 December ; 42(4): 425–433.
Abstract:
Lack of a stable, alcohol and drug free living environment can be a serious obstacle to sustained
abstinence. Destructive living environments can derail recovery for even highly motivated
individuals. Sober living houses (SLHs) are alcohol and drug free living environments for
individuals attempting to abstain from alcohol and drugs. They are not licensed or funded by state
or local governments and the residents themselves pay for costs. The philosophy of recovery
emphasizes 12-step group attendance and peer support. We studied 300 individuals entering two
different types of SLHs over an 18 month period. This paper summarizes our published findings
documenting resident improvement on measures of alcohol and drug use, employment, arrests,
and psychiatric symptoms. Involvement in 12-step groups and characteristics of the social network
were strong predictors of outcome, reaffirming the importance of social and environmental factors
in recovery. The paper adds to our previous reports by providing a discussion of implications for
treatment and criminal justice systems. We also describe the next steps in our research on SLHs,
which will include: 1) an attempt to improve outcomes for residents referred from the criminal
justice system and 2) a depiction of how attitudes of stakeholder groups create a community
context that can facilitate and hinder the legitimacy of SLHs as a recovery modality.
