The Right Way to Do Sober Living

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Sober Living Homes in New Hampshire are springing up everywhere.

This is truly needed and will help many. But what about oversight? Currently, in New Hampshire, there is no oversight committee in place. This is changing, but what is happening now to protect this vulnerable section of the population from homes that are not doing this for the right reasons? Well not much. Sober living homes can open without warning. They can be packed way past capacity. Drug use can become prevalent if there aren’t strong testing and rules in place.

Now, this doesn’t happen all the time. More often than not, the New Hampshire sober living homes are well-intentioned and care about the individuals that reside there.

Recently Ryan Gagne of Live Free Recovery and Sober Living had the opportunity to be interviewed by WMUR to speak on how on the difference between Live Free Structured Living homes and others. Our own Ryan Gagne was quick to point out that you should visit the sober home you are looking to move into before you do. While you are at that sober house ask the hard questions about drug use and what the program does to help the individual other than just provide a bed. Look at the cleanliness of the home and try to even talk to a client.

Manchester Fire Chief Dan Goonan mentioned the volume of homes popping up and most have questionable conditions, large monthly/weekly fees with little to no oversight. Sober living in New Hampshire means something, it means that the owner has an obligation to create an environment that DOES NOT resemble active addiction in any way. It should only be supportive of addiction recovery along with its practices and rules.

Our program at Live Free Structured Living in Keene, New Hampshire has six 2 bedroom units where 4 guys share a fully furnished apartment. These apartments are equipped with kitchen and bathroom. The sober living facility also has an on-site laundry room, group spaces, and staff offices. Live Free Recovery and Sober Living provides drug tests at least 2 times randomly per week with more when suspicions arise. The staff meets with guests of the program, help guests get employed right away, have in house recovery meetings, and have community dinners, even have activities that are done by local providers or go out into the community. It’s important to have an actual program of recovery in place that helps individuals move through stages of progression both in life and their recoveries from SUD. Not to mention our physical locations are top notch in quality. This is to show the guests that you can raise the bar for yourselves. Live Free Recovery and Sober Living has tried to create the best sober living program in New Hampshire. We feel that we have done that.

We look forward to when The New Hampshire Coalition of Recovery Residences or NHCORR begins its certification process. This will surely bring some stability to a much-needed area of SUD Treatment.

Sober living homes in New Hampshire should have standards and should have accountability to prevent some of the bad experiences that have taken place in the last few years in Manchester and around the state of New Hampshire.