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tips for keeping a sober home in Boston Massachusetts

Keeping a Sober Home

Once you have completed a drug or alcohol rehabilitation program, the next steps in your recovery include developing new life skills. You will need to make some changes in your lifestyle in order to remain free from drugs or alcohol. Below, you will find four ways to help you keep a sober home.

Practice Self-Care

One of the main reasons for emotional relapse is failing to practice self-care. In your own home or in a sober living home, you will need to learn to take care of yourself by getting enough sleep, eating healthy foods, and learning and using coping strategies to overcome any negative thoughts and feelings.

Keeping a Clean Living Space

When you are living with other people, whether it is in a sober living home or with family or other roommates, you will face various obstacles as personalities differ. As you learn to keep your living environment clean, you will also learn the importance of being respectful of others around you and thinking about their wants and needs when you make decisions that affect your home.

Managing Your Finances

Another major life skill necessary for recovery is to manage your finances. During the time you suffered from addiction, you may have allocated a significant amount of your money toward fueling your addiction. Now that you are in recovery, you will need to make a new budget. Residing in a sober living home can give you the chance to practice saving and budgeting; Tharros offers an optional budgeting component where clients can develop important money management skills.

Cooking Healthy Meals

It is important to make healthy food choices. You will benefit from learning how to cook healthy meals and shop for groceries, as well as prepare your own meals.  At Tharros, we offer a variety of cooking instruction and community cooking nights, led by experienced and talented chefs.

The Tharros House is a sober living facility that provides its residents with recovery support, including helping residents learn to practice self-care. Residents can also learn to cook healthy meals, manage their finances, and keep their residence clean—all life skills that help with recovery.

Sober Living Home Fence in Boston Massachusetts

How a Sober Living Home Can Help You

Staying in a sober living home is a great option for people looking to stay clean once they become sober.

While rehab is great for getting clean and taking that much needed break to work on personal matters, many times it just isn’t enough to stay clean during everyday life.

Sober living homes are a great transition from rehab to give you the tools you need and help you live more independently without the use of narcotics.

What is a Sober Living Home?

A sober living home provides you with a safe, peaceful environment usually alongside other’s that are also recovering from addiction.

Although you may need to be home by a certain time or take random drug tests, the goal of a sober living home is to help you become responsible for yourself. Therefore, compared to rehab centers, there is much more freedom to come and go as you please.

Benefits of sober living homes may include:

  • Organized meetings
  • A safe, drug free environment
  • Help finding work if needed
  • Connections to outpatient recovery programs
  • Empowers and supports your journey to become free from substances
  • Provides the time and support needed to restructure your life, free from your old environment that may not have been as healthy
  • Coordinated in a thoughtful way to help you with recovery

Are sober living homes actually effective?

Yes, there is anecdotal and empirical evidence that sober living houses actually make a significant difference. People that reside in sober living homes generally have better results and are able to stay sober more consistently and for longer periods of time with a lower rate of relapse.

Tharros Sober Living House in Boston Massachusetts

Tharros offers a highly supportive version of sober living, which includes an extensive peer support model.  To learn what’s different about Tharros, view our Tharros Experience Page.

Living Sober in Massachusetts Sun Meditation

15 Tips for Living Sober in Massachusetts

Although there are a variety of programs available to help you on your journey to sobriety, living sober in Massachusetts can still be a daunting task if not prepared.

From specific addiction targeted sober living programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, to sober living homes, finding a strategy that works best for you is what matters most.

The following tips, while simple, may each make a huge impact on your path towards living a clean, sober life.

15 Tips for Living Sober in Massachusetts

  1. Get involved with the community.
  2. Dump the friends that bring you down and make friends with the people that lift you up.
  3. Take it one day at a time.
  4. Take responsibility for your life – no blaming others or making excuses.
  5. Be forgiving.
  6. Discover your passions and pursue them.
  7. Take on a hobby that allows self-expression.
  8. Spend more time around nature.
  9. When you wake up, close your eyes and picture 5 things in life that you are grateful for.
  10. Create goals for the type of person you would like to be and the things you would like to do.
  11. Use mindfulness to become more self-aware.
  12. Meditate.
  13. Never underestimate the control that your addiction may have.
  14. Learn more about living sober.
  15. Explore the sites and scenery in Massachusetts without drugs and alcohol.

Above all try not to be too hard on yourself; we all have weaknesses that can trigger a relapse. No matter what happens there is always help and various sober living programs to help you in living a clean, sober life.

Tharros Sober Living Home in Boston, Massachusetts

Tharros house brings together a sober community of like-minded individuals with aftercare, allowing you to learn new skills to overcome the challenges ahead in a fresh, fun, and encouraging way. Learn more about how Tharros House can help you.

sober living home backyard path to recovery

What Are Sober Living Homes?

Sober living homes are places where recovering addicts can live in a safe, drug-free environment to continue with their recovery.  These homes do not provide actual treatment, but they do provide a clean-living space for recovering addicts to work on discontinuing their destructive habits.  Sober living homes have rules for their residents, which provide structure.

Benefits of Sober Living Homes

Additionally, they have organized recovery meetings.  Sober living homes also help their residents find work or connections with school programs.  They also provide their residents with connections to outpatient recovery programs.  Sober living residences also require regular drug tests, and of course, drugs and alcohol are banned from the homes.  Sober living homes are less costly than staying in an inpatient rehab facility while providing someone in recovery the same type of safety net of being separated from their temptations and having the benefit of being surrounded by others who are also working towards recovery from addiction.

Who Lives in Sober Living Homes?

Many residents in a sober living home are in active treatment or attending a twelve-step program of some kind.  The homes only provide indirect support during the recovery process, but this indirect support can make a huge difference.

How Effective Are Sober Living Homes?

There is evidence, both anecdotal and empirical, that sober living homes do make a significantly positive difference in the process of recovery.  Generally, those who reside in sober living homes show better overall results over time on their path to recovery.  Typically, recovering addicts who live in sober living homes tend to stay sober longer and more consistently, avoid legal trouble, hold a consistent job, and have a lower rate of relapse.

Sober living homes can be hugely beneficial to those working towards recovery from addiction.  While everyone is different and there are a variety of different approaches to take in recovery, these homes are a good place to start the journey.

Tharros offers a highly supportive version of sober living, which includes an extensive peer support model.  To learn what’s different about Tharros, view our Tharros Experience Page