Sober Living For Woman Phoenix
When I first moved into sober living in recovery I wasn’t sure why we had so many rules. Curfew seemed too early, sharing rooms seems like I would get no privacy, the meeting requirements seemed excessive and having a weekly house meeting to “check-in” seemed overwhelming and repetitive. The drug testing I could understand because we were needing to stay clean, but the rest personally appeared unrelated to our real problems. As time went on I realized that I had more issues than a Vogue magazine and because of these rules I was learning how to live without realizing I was learning anything at all. While sharing a room with another girl I learned her boundaries and I learned to set my own. I couldn’t always ask the person who had a car for rides and I didn’t have to give out my cigarettes to anyone who asked. Proper boundaries were something sobriety blessed me with. Having a meeting requirement meant I heard more stories in the rooms that inspired me to keep going. I also met people at these meetings who really cared about me before I learned to love myself. The house meeting we had where we talked about feelings eventually had girls confessing about real things going on. I couldn’t believe when someone told on themselves for relapsing or someone openly talked about their depression and feelings!
I look back and realize that I am lucky to have had those first examples of how to get honest even when the outcome could have consequences. Confessions like that also taught me to reach out to other people in recovery because you never know how someone else is feeling. Curfew taught me time management and chores taught me how to be a part of a group effort as now to do my laundry on my own without my mom struggling behind me when I left things in the dryer (funny but true). Overall I think sober living is such an integral part of recovery because it’s a stepping stone between treatment and the real world. It is a gentle way to start to integrate your recovery into regular life and learning skills that that improve your quality of life as a person in recovery living in a non-recovery world. Today I’m grateful to be on the other end of sober living and be able to help women learn these valuable skills that could help them throughout their lives.
