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Halfway Houses / Sober Living

Tommyboy

Tommyboy

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Dec 10, 2009
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I was talking to a friend before who just got clean on his own, and when I asked where our other friend has been that went to detox recently he said he's living in a halfway house. We got to talking about the concept, and he shared in the sentiment that they are quite bizarre and that our friend will likely just find more connects there. As with anything recovery related you get what you put into it, but I think that these places are kind of setting you up for failure.

So what are your thoughts on halfway houses, and do you have any personal experience with them? I'm of the notion that when you are ready to quit you will stop, and it's probably best to get out of any atmosphere that reminds you too much of drugs, halfway houses being one of them (and BL for a lot of people as well). The only other person that I know that lived in one OD'd while living there because he ended up doing too much dope since he knew they would drug test him in a few days, and instead of stopping after getting really high since the dope was stronger than expected, he did more since he planned on it being his last high. It was his last high, but not in the sense that he had intended.

I've watched celebrity rehab a decent amount and they had a second half of the show which was 'Sober Living' in which some of the people that completed rehab decided to go into a halfway house as the next step of recovery. It was out of control most of the time, with people getting high still and doing crazy stuff. Here is one scene that I remembered quite well where Steven Adler gets high as fuck while living there, and even though they are celebrities living there this stuff must happen at regular halfway houses, and must make it hard for those trying to stay clean. Seth 'Shifty' Binzer used to do crazy stuff there too, which would make the rest of the housemates get involved and be forced to see him high and out of control.

The bottom line is that I don't think that throwing a bunch of people in early recovery into the same house is a good idea. At least with AA/NA there are some people with a lot of clean time there, and you aren't living together. I'm not a particular fan of AA/NA but it works for some and I would think that it's a lot more successful than halfway houses. They make you attend AA/NA while living in halfway houses anyway, so I don't see how living with a bunch of other addicts helps. Whenever I quit the last thing I would want is to move in with a bunch of other addicts that just quit, and I think the experience does more harm than good in most instances. I've just always felt that once you are really ready to quit you don't need the constant reminder of drugs and are better off removing yourself from the scene altogether.
 
I was in a halfway house, against my will, for three months. I wasnt rdy to quit, and I agree with you about aa and na. Not a fan of going at all, anf towards the end when I was allowed out more and to bring myself there, I would forge the slips and skip it twice a week. This was when k2 first came out, so I started (i know...) Smoking that outside around the corner at night. I basically kept to myself and just worked and would leave after that to hang with my gf, but from what I coukd tell, everyone was staying clean. But then again, no one knew I was using either. Over all I think its a better alternative to prison, I mean for some weed charges, and coukd definately be good for someone who is ready to quit, but in my case I just scammed my way through, just like the bullshit classes. Which I have the same opinion on. 'It works if you work it!'
 
i was in a halfway house once for about 4 days, it sucked. They had an in-house doctor that was prescribing me pills (klonopin & trazadone, way before suboxone was available) and on the weekends you would get your pills for Saturday and Sunday on Friday. So I took the extra trazadone (sleeping pill big whoop) to help me sleep and I fell asleep in the TV room on a couch. Well I had no energy and couldnt move to go into my room and the staff there started to freak and they called 911.

Finally I was able to shake off some of the grogginess from the trazadone and explain what happened. They thought i was trying to kill myself, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! I started to get pissed. Right than the ambulance arrived and loaded me in, took me to the hospital and pumped my stomach. Oh god did that suck. Soon as they finished pumping my stomach they gave me ativan to relax. I went home home that night.

Total bullshit experience.
 
I lived at a halfway house for 3 months back in the summer of 2010. I wasn't ready to quit shooting dope at the time, it was more to get my family off my back. I ended up getting kicked out for using. That being said, there were alot of good guys there really trying to stay clean. BUT there was a handful of people like myself that were there for the wrong reasons.

If you are truly ready to stop using a HH is a good place to start IMO. The people there can serve as a good support group and accountability that alot of people need while still early in recovery. It is what you make it. Like you said, you get out whatever you put into it.

Overall I thought it was a good experience. I probably wouldn't go back to one, but looking back I did make a few really good friends that I occasionally keep in touch with to this day. When you get a bunch of people with the same struggle, all striving to achieve the same goal, some cool bonds can be made. Getting clean is simple, it's staying clean that baffles people.
 
That's just it. It depends on why you're there/if you want to be clean. I have a couple drug buddies who's parents put them in a very expensive rehab which included a halfway house type of thing after the detox. Neither really wanted to be clean and both just ended up sharing connects with others. It probably didn't help that our mutual number one dealers house was only miles away.

Others that I've known to get into a sober living type of thing end up in relationships with other junkies. At first their families are so happy for them but eventually they find out that two junkies ex or not are never a good idea.

Another thing about these places, at least the ones i know of is that they're businesses. Now i know that there are plenty of people that really do just want to help and they no doubt do but, for some places it seems more important that they make a ton of money. I'm not hating on anyone s hustle but, it always seems like these places make it a point to tell parents that they have a ridiculously high success rate as if it explains the crazy cost of going to such a place.
 
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I went to a really nice, expensive halfway house in a rich suburb of Chicago and got high while I was there before they found out and kicked me out. I went to a half-way house 4 blocks from the dope tips I went to on the regular on the West Side of Chicago and stayed clean the entire 6 months I was there.

I was definitely slightly more willing to get sober at the second one (at the first one, it wasn't even really a thought), but the second one was also more strict and structured and that helped. I didn't really have opportunities to easily get high (though, if I had really, really wanted to, of course I would have found a way, so I guess I must have somewhat wanted to stay sober). I didn't stay sober after that one (though I am now), but there are several women from there I'm still friends with who have been sober since.

Also, being in AA, I've met a lot of people who have had both experiences. So, yeah, it definitely depends on your motivation. I've always said that if you want to get clean, you can do it anywhere. It doesn't have to be a 5 star resort rehab.
 
the thing about sober livings houses is that you are expected and demanded to remain sober. you have a choice going in, but once you are in you have no choice on getting high or not because if you do you are kicked out and screwed without getting your money back. the thing i like about AA is that it is a choice to be there and do the things that are suggested of you. if you want to do the work, you will get what you put in, but if you are lazy and just attend AA for good looks, then you will probably get high and not grow at all.

i hate that rehabs force you to be sober and force you to take the right steps to getting sober, when i was in rehab, i wanted to use even more because i had people asking me everyday if i was getting high and would pry the truth out of me. in AA, you can tell the truth or not tell the truth, sure people want to see you do good, but at the end of the day, if you go back out it is your loss and no one will convince you to come back; no one convince you to not get high, they aren't going to stop you like a rehab will. that's why rehabs do not work for me, because when someone tells me do something, i like to do the opposite, especially if i can get a great feeling out of it hahaha. if you want to get sober and you want to take the right steps foward in AA, all power towards yah, but no one will care if you dont. they've been there, done that... but in rehab, they do care, and will fuck you over no matter what you truely want to do.

i agree, if you want to get truely sober, you will quit. using drugs is a choice, a simple choice, to pick up or not pick up. sure it is wayyy more complicated, but when it's boiled down, it is just a choice. just like it is a choice to speed on the expressway, and to over-eat, and to exercise.

tl;dr rehabs/sober living does NOT work IMO.
 
halfway houses suck. wa to many piss tests and a ungodly amoun t of meetings. i rather go to a fucking inpatient then a shitty halfway house if i wanted to get clean
 
^ I know that most of the time people are referred to halfway houses after rehab or detox, and it's supposed to be the next step into getting you back into society. I think that something like suboxone maintenance would be a better option when trying to get your life straightened out after quitting dope, and I would definitely choose it over going to a halfway house since I don't think that living in a house with other addicts in early recovery is a good idea. At least in rehab if there are people there for the wrong reasons you don't have the option of going out and getting high, but in a halfway house that option is always there. IMO if you are ready to quit then you don't need to go to a halfway house, but that's just how I feel about it.
 
lived in 3 halfway houses.. 1 in upstate NY, two in Austin, TX..

I'll put it like this: the one in NY, i ended up getting into a dope conversation with a buddy who had a car at the house and impulsively driving to NYC to cop 3 bags.. we continued selling shit and driving to NYC on the regular until I called my mom crying one morning and she had me move back in with her in TX..

the 1st one in Austin - ended up in a dope conversation straight up obsessing about "bath salts" and went and spent $110 in one day, and they were completely bunk.. took straight shots of mouth wash with my roommate, and i even drank his aftershave when he was visiting his family in the Valley... from day one of using, we were out of there. i ended up eating Benzedrex and eventually smoking crack off foil in our shared room.. my buddy who i bought bath salts with was shooting tar under my nose.. he pissed dirty, and snitched me out for no apparent reason.. i got a UA and I got kicked out. moved in with my girlfriend at the time's parents and started ordering Butylone and JWH to her house.. went on a week long JWH binge where i could barely function, a month and a half in the Salvation Army, and another rehab stint was all that came of that.

the 2nd one in Austin - had no intentions of staying clean, ordered some Butylone to "sell" the very first day i was there.. got one of my roommates hooked on it and we'd constantly sniff lines all day long, we forged each others meeting sheets.. bad news. stayed there about 2 months, somehow passing several UAs when randomly one of my UAs popped dirty for MDMA... said fuck it, moved into a subletted room ($425 a month) i found on craigslist and fell deep into my addiction. this was also a halfway house which people would be openly walking around fucked up, smoking joints of spice outside in the open, etc.. i think the house manager was the only clean one of the whole bunch. the average scene at 4 AM in this house was 1 guy lazily cooking ramen noodles, one guy nodding balls jamming old school rap on the house computer (never got involved in his use but last i heard he got kicked out for using heroin..), and it just gets worse from there.

i'd skip the halfway house scene as honestly the great majority of them are not good environments to get sober in..
 
My friend that I was referring to in my original post ended up relapsing and had a non-fatal overdose. I guess he took a chance in terms of being drug tested or not, so he'll find out if his gamble payed off in the next few days. The overdose happened in my friends car and he came back to on the way to the hospital so nobody really knows about it.

It was the classic case of underestimating how much his tolerance dropped after taking a break, and even with doing 1/3 of his normal dose after a 3 week break it was still too much. He shot up 2 bags (I got them today and they weighed about 50mg each) which was just about a point, and he went stiff like tightening up his muscles, arching back while sticking his chest and neck out, and his head tilted back while he turned blue. They headed to the hospital and after a few minutes he just snapped out of it and noticed they were speeding so just asked what was going on when he came to. I wasn't there but my friend who I met with before was, so he told me the story.
 
Almost sounds like he had a bit of a seizure there. Shit, I'm glad he's okay, that's pretty intense. That's another thing that's fucked about IVing, makes it sooo much easier to OD if you've been away for a while
 
Yea man, it does seem like an odd OD. I'm kind of upset with my friend for supplying him with dope while living in a half-way house and being on his last straw with his family. He was given the ultimatum to live in a half-way house or live on the street. He could actually afford to get his own place, but he works for his family business so they would fire him if he were to screw up again, so if he gets kicked out of the half-way house he will have no job and no place to stay.

At this age I couldn't be the one to get someone drugs when they are in that situation and are supposed to be staying clean. When I was younger I probably would have done it, but now that I'm older and the stakes are higher I couldn't do it. In fact I actually did get a few bags for a friend who was living in a half-way house about 4 years ago, but he wasn't really trying to stay clean, and was trying to chip his whole time there so I didn't think much of it when he asked if I could get him some dope since he had been using just about each week anyway. I didn't even charge him extra for the dope, and only accepted gas money since the half-way houses here are about an hours drive from me.

My friend that got him the dope and the one that OD'd are both good friends who grew up with one another, but since they turned to the needle they have both gone downhill pretty quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if he got him the dope just so he could get a bag or two out of it which is pretty fucked up. I remember when the kid who supplied it turned to the needle and was talking about how he was able to do less to get a nod. Well, now he does 5-6 bag shots daily, whereas I get higher than him from sniffing that amount, and before he made the switch he could get high from sniffing that amount too. But once he started shooting he needed to use daily to keep the sick away whereas before that he was able to take some days off like me, and he had a pretty similar schedule as me in terms of frequency of use, but all that went out the window when he turned to the needle, and he's going through a lot more dope now than he was when he was a sniffer.
 
I hear ya Tommy but, dude might have manipulated your friend into copping for him. Alls he'd have to do is offer a few bags or something and there's few users that wouldn't at least think about that.
 
^ Oh I'm sure he did, but they have known each other long enough where a few free bags shouldn't have convinced one to get the other dope. They grew up together, same town, same school, chilled before drugs were ever in the picture, and have chilled while both were clean at times. So IMO it's even worse that he got him the bags, because that's his friend he is helping fuck up. The one kid in the half-way house is very convincing, but there's certain lines you gotta draw and not cross, and helping a friend relapse is one of them.
 
you get sick enough (physically or mentally) and all the lines tend to blur.
 
^^^^
Yeah heroin definitely encourages situational ethics.
 
I lived in a halfway house for like 6 months... well a halfway house progran for that long

The first house they sent me to i sniffed an opama and came home late my second day and basically begged my way into getting sent to another house instead of being kicked out and violating probation.

The next house i stayed clean for a while but used a few times and at one point ahen ibwas clean this dude that moved downstairs was gay and had sex ads on craigslisy and even paid me one time to ride him somesherre, wait while he went in dudes house and drive him home. Oh and i was his watch out man when he shot dope even ehen i wasmt getting high which made me sick to my stomach to whitness and not be a part of

That was a crooked ass run place though. If the owner liked you then you could get away with dirty urines, maybe having to move houses around. But she hated black people and kicked ghis one guy out for real shitty reasons (even though he was helping me get dope a few times but still she disnt know that)
 
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