Flynn, Alvarez, Jason, Olson, Ferrari, and Davis (2006) found that African Americans in Oxford House maintain ties what is a oxford house with family members yet develop supportive relationships by attending 12-step groups and living in Oxford House. These different social networks are able to provide support for abstinence to African Americans. In its simplest form, an Oxford House is a shared residence where people in recovery from substance use disorder can live together and support each other in a drug and alcohol-free environment. The average length of jail time is about one year, with a range of few days to more than ten years. This is understandable since as many as 80% of the current jail/prison population are alcoholics and drug addicts.
- There is considerable evidence for the effectiveness of TCs (DeLeon, & Rosenthal, 1989).
- The members follow house rules and are expected to contribute to maintaining a clean and safe living environment.
- Such social support is often acquired and utilized through participation in mutual-help groups (Humphreys, Mankowski, Moos, & Finney, 1999), where individuals are likely to develop peer networks consisting of abstainers and others in recovery.
- A house full of sober, recovering alcoholics and drug addicts invites informal AA or NA “meetings after the meeting” and each day finds many informal AA or NA meetings before individual members each go off to their regular AA or NA meeting.
- Sober living homes are realistic, cost-effective living environmentsr for people in recovery.
How do Oxford Houses operate, and what makes them unique in the sober living community?
Finally, the implications for how clinicians might work with these types of community support settings will be reviewed. There is no official minimum time limit for acceptance, but generally an individual comes into an Oxford House following a 14 to 28 day rehabilitation program, or at least a detoxification period. Each has a term limit of 6 months to further support a well functioning democratic environment. The Oxford House Model is the unique, time-tested system of operations; an evidence-based practice shown to Sobriety bring significant results currently unmatched in the recovery space. Learn what makes Oxford House stand out as a unique model for recovery housing.
Aspects of halfway house living
All aspects of Oxford House operations, from the acquisition of the house to the acceptance or dismissal of members, is carried out under democratic procedures. Each member has one vote and majority rule applies except that 80% of the members must agree in accepting new persons for membership. To learn more about different types of recovery housing and their accreditation, you can visit the National Association of Recovery Residences (NARR) website. Generally an individual comes into an Oxford House following a 28-day rehabilitation program or at least a 5 to10-day detoxification program. We’ll show you how Oxford Houses work together to form a self-supporting network of houses.
- Forty-four percent of the sample was involved in administering and running support groups.
- Generally an individual comes into an Oxford House following a 28-day rehabilitation program or at least a 5 to10-day detoxification program.
- Today Oxford House has more than 20,000 residents at more than 3,500 homes across 47 states and several foreign countries.
- Residents indicated that personal motivation for recovery was a necessary component of their success in Oxford House (Alvarez, Jason, Davis, Ferrari, & Olson, 2007).
How Much Does an Oxford House Cost?
Limited research, however, is available regarding how Oxford House settings compare to other treatments. Using cross sectional data, Ferrari, Jason, Davis, Olson, and Alvarez (2004) compared the operational policies of 55 Oxford Houses to those of 14 Therapeutic Communities (TCs). Neither type of facility permitted self-injurious behaviors (e.g., physical self-harm or misuse of medication) or destructive acts (e.g., destroying site property or others’ possessions). Oxford Houses, however, were significantly more liberal in permitting residents personal liberties compared to the TC facilities.
Q. Don’t zoning laws limit where a group of unrelated individuals can rent a house?
The general criteria to live in an Oxford House include the resident’s commitment to sobriety, their willingness to contribute to the house’s general upkeep, and their ability to pay their portion of the house’s expenses. Residents should also be prepared to participate in the democratic decision-making processes within the house. An Oxford House Chapter is an additional level of support for individual Oxford Houses.
Alternative approaches need to be explored, such as abstinence-specific social support settings (Vaillant, 2003). Self-governed settings may offer several benefits as they require minimal costs because residents pay for their own expenses (including housing and food). Recovering substance abusers living in these types of settings may develop a strong sense of bonding with similar others who share common abstinence goals. Receiving abstinence support, guidance, and information from recovery home members committed to the goal of long-term sobriety and abstinence may reduce the probability of a relapse (Jason, Ferrari, Davis & Olson, 2006). This experience might provide residents with peers who model effective coping skills, be resources for information on how to maintain abstinence, and act as advocates for sobriety. In 2007, the Oxford House organization received about $1.6 million in grants from state and local governments to pay outreach workers to develop and maintain networks of individual Oxford Houses in nine States and the District of Columbia.
- It doesn’t matter if they’ve been living in the house for one day or for multiple years.
- We were not only dependent upon alcohol and/or drugs, but were also dependent on many others for continuing our alcoholic and/or drug addicted ways.
- A Massachusetts man has pleaded guilty in federal court to threatening to kill members of the state’s Jewish community and bomb local synagogues.
- The council has supported more than 57 refugee families in Oxford since 2015.
- This line of research could be expanded to other levels or target groups, such as men and women with substance abuse returning from foreign wars in Iraqi and Afghanistan.
Q. What is needed to expand the number of Oxford Houses?
Our group has recently received a federal grant to explore this new type of culturally modified recovery home. Sober living homes are similar to Oxford Houses in the sense that they provide a supportive, substance-free living environment. However, Oxford Houses specifically use a peer-based model and are often more affordable because they operate without staff and are supported by residents’ pooled resources. Silver Pines and Steps to Recovery have provided addiction recovery programs in Pennsylvania for over a decade with detox, residential, outpatient, and sober living services.
