As you may know, the James Club is a FARR (Florida Association of Recovery Residences) certified spiritually-based recovery residence. We wouldn’t be in this if we didn’t believe that structured sober living wasn’t a proven method to acquiring and maintaining sobriety. It is!
The James Club believes that the marriage between a 12 step program and surrendering yourself to a higher power (whatever that may be for you) is fundamental to entering and staying in recovery. While having an effective and time-tested program to adhere to can ensure the success of your treatment, there is also another factor that we believe to have great influence: structured sober living.
What is Structured Sober Living Anyways?
It’s a simple question, but we fail to ask ourselves simple questions all the time. We flit from circumstance to circumstance and seldom do we stop and ask, “what am I doing here?”
However, that is a very important question! We encourage anyone reading this and all of our residents to ask themselves that because the answer is always a great reminder of what your goals are. Many people will say, “I want to stay sober”, and that’s a fine goal indeed. We can and will assist you with that. However, if you dig deeper, you’ll find there are other reasons too.
You want to reenter society on your own terms. You want to adjust to a new sober lifestyle before you’re back on your own. Most importantly, you want to rediscover what it means to live on a day by day basis. These may be dramatic questions to ask, but they’re really at the core of our experiences as people.
If you’ve been beset by problems surrounding addiction, incarceration, and the social problems resulting from those, it can be difficult to remember what life was like without those difficulties.
Structured Sober Living is in part, a remedy for that. Our sober living, in particular, focuses on having a fellowship that is founded on accountability and service to your community. Few places in Broward County offer long-term structured sober living with no time constraints, but we do! This is because we recognize the value that long-term structured sober living can offer those who are entering recovery and wish to stay there. Here are some concrete benefits to sober living that we’ve observed through the success of our residents.
Structured Sober Living Helps You Adopt Good Habits
What are “good habits”, anyways? Good habits are things that ultimately benefit you as well as others. However, being unable to care for yourself properly will always strain those who care about you, so good habits come down to learning to care for yourself first and foremost.
Why do we call it structured sober living? The emphasis is placed on the structured because structure is what helps people organize their lives and make better choices. Many former addicts who have been in recovery for a lengthy period of time will tell you of their days using, being up at all hours, flitting from job to job or being unemployed. Some do manage to hang onto employment until the issues become so pronounced that even that becomes difficult. The results are the same; you have less awareness of how your days and weeks have gone by, mental clarity escapes you.
When you come to reside with us at James Club, you’ll have plenty of great activities on your plate that you can structure your weeks around.
You Will Build Healthy Relationships
Many people who have had a substance use disorder often also have had friends who were using as well. It’s much more difficult to quit something that is also socially reinforced. That’s why recovery communities are so big—and why graduates continue to support and be involved with us and other programs they’ve been a part of. When you begin your life at our sober living residences, you’ll be surrounded by people who are also turning their lives around.
Everyone encourages one another and are brought together by shared goals and mutual accountability. At The James Club, community service is a prominent aspect of our program as not only do we love to give back to our community but also understand that acts of compassion are good for all of those involved. Volunteer and service opportunities can help those in need, but it also helps uplift those who are performing charitable acts.
You Will Have Support for Finding and Maintaining Employment
James Club Recovery Sober Living Residences are here to help you get on your feet and find new, more meaningful ways to live your life. One of our goals is to help reduce the recidivism rate as well as lower homelessness in our community. This is one of the reasons why we do not have a limit on our long-term stays—we want our residents to leave when they feel they are ready.
One of the chief ways we tackle both of these issues is by offering employment placement services to our residents. In the beginning of this post, we discussed how structure is a vital component to mental clarity and quality of life. Many people receive a great deal of structure from their work, which typically dictates when they should rise and go to bed—the beginning and endpoints of your day. This is just one of many reasons why seeking, procuring, and maintaining employment is an important aspect of leading a stable life in recovery.
Let’s all also be honest with ourselves here: getting up in the morning because you should is a lot different than doing so because you must. It’s important to have something bigger than yourself to create stability in your life—something outside of your constantly changing whims. That is why we stress the importance of a faith; a belief in something higher than yourself—whatever that is to you.
You must go to your step-meetings, you must stay clean and sober, we would encourage you to follow the 7’s to Success. All of these things are duties, and duties can be stressful because you must fulfill them. However, you’re not alone. We are here for you, at The James Club, you will always have someone you can speak to about the difficulties you are experiencing. Someone who can give you guidance or just solidarity in your struggles.
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That is the true value of a sober living experience, benefiting from the warmth and compassion of others while also giving back in your own ways when you’re ready.
Contact The James Club today if you would like to learn more about our program!