Becoming sober involves many aspects and processes; including both addiction treatment and sober homes. But what is the difference between these two? Should you do both?
When it comes to confronting your addiction, you want the best chance for success possible, right? Far too often, we read stories of an addict – or know one personally – who will complete a rehab stay only to eventually end up high (or drunk) in a matter of months.
This is not how your recovery should go.
If you are truly ready to get sober – and stay sober – then you need to give yourself everything possible to do just that. A combination of treatment and sober living is just what you need.
What Is an Addiction Treatment Facility?
Making the decision to get sober is not easy. Choosing to go through the steps of walking away from addiction requires great strength and determination.
That is why doing it alone is not a good option for anyone.
Think about it – the pains from withdrawal alone are enough to send you using again in an instant.
That is why joining an addiction treatment facility is often the best first step in getting sober.
While there are many variations on approach, recovery involves a treatment facility that can be there for you as you withdraw and walk you through methods of treatment.
Some of these may be spiritual in nature others may be medicinal and clinical.
Treatment facilities are where you will find highly trained
- Doctors
- Therapists
- Nurses
- Other professionals who are there to guide and teach you as you enter sobriety
There are many tools and coping mechanisms that need to be discovered. And this is where you will learn them.
The Benefits of Rehab
Because its goal is to help you step into recovery, there are many benefits to rehab.
For example, you will be surrounded by professionals who can help you get to the root of your addiction.
Whether it is a behavioral pattern, an underlying mental illness, or something else.
Without addressing the underlying situation, the chances of a successful recovery are not very favorable. But this is not the only benefit.
Here are a few more:
- Treatment centers almost always offer peer-led support, which can allow you to feel that others truly know what you are experiencing. It opens the door to learn from each other.
- You will learn coping skills necessary to tackle things such as temptation and sticky situations.
- With the help of medical staff, you will ease your way through withdrawal, which will better help you focus on your mental state, rather than just your physical symptoms.
- Sobriety requires stability. You will find stability at treatment facilities.
What Is a Sober Home?
Typically, sober homes are what come after you finish your treatment at a rehab center. You can also live in a sober living house during your treatment at a facility.
Once you have undergone treatment for drug or alcohol addiction in a secured and stable environment, facing life in the real world can cause many struggles and obstacles – even a relapse.
This is where you will find a sober home helpful.
Sober homes are residential homes that provide a safe – and sober – place for those who are in recovery.
While a treatment facility is there to help you attain sobriety and teach you the tools you need, discover underlying causes, and provide you with therapy, a sober home is there to help you integrate back into society.
Life as you knew it before the rehab program is still the same. You, however, are not.
This is what makes getting back to life so difficult. Sober homes offer a stable, secure, and structured environment to learn all the basics of how to live again as a sober individual.
The Benefits of Sober Homes
The benefits of choosing to live in a sober living home after treatment are many.
For instance, you will have a home facilitator who is there is help guide you with anything you may face so you aren’t facing life alone.
- You will be surrounded by others who are in your same situation. This offers you a great chance to meet others and create lasting bonds. Conquering addiction requires support – and you can gain that here.
- Sober homes provide you with a structured environment where you can learn to live within boundaries as you face the outside world.
- Gain skills such as money management, cooking, and other necessary daily living skills that you will need to succeed in a responsible, sober world.
Chores, curfews, mandatory house meetings, drug testing, and the like are all things you will encounter in a sober living home.
Together, the setting will teach you responsibility, accountability, problem-solving skills, stress management, time management, and even how to live sober in a not-so-sober world.
The Perfect Pair: Why Do You Need Both?
Attending an addiction treatment facility and then entering sober homes can provide you with the greatest chance for a successful recovery.
Facilities get you sober and tackle the medical and psychiatric aspects of addiction, but once you complete them, you are thrown back into life as it was before your sobriety.
This can be dangerous.
However, choosing to move into a sober home can provide you with the opportunity to learn how to successfully live life sober.
- It is a way of easing the transition and ensuring a better chance for success.
- While they can work independently for some people, it is not necessarily the best approach to recovery.
As you likely already know, addiction doesn’t just access one aspect of your life.
It takes over your whole life.
So, only treating bits and pieces for addiction is not going to help.
Combining rehab and a sober home means you will get sober with the help of medical professionals and psychiatrists.
It also means that once you have become stable, you will have assistance in gaining employment and learning how to live and face daily challenges as a sober individual.
Conclusion
Facing real-life situations with only one aspect of your life addressed in recovery means that you may not be fully prepared for the stressors of life that may come your way. Don’t risk it.
Consider combining your rehab treatment with a sober living environment.
Together, they will tackle the whole you – and leave you with everything you need to succeed in recovery.
The Lakehouse provides addiction treatment, outpatient care, and sober homes for women. We can help you in your journey to recovery. Contact us today.
