What’s the difference?!?! Recovery Residence or Oxford House

The National Alliance or Recovery Residence has issued a set of standards for recovery residences. It also gives operators and owners the ability to have some oversight and accountability to the community and consumer. In 2015 NARR released a metric that determines 4 levels of Recovery Residences.

• Click here and search through our list of houses to see which ones have vacancies.
• Unfortunately, there have not been any outcome studies comparing TCs with Oxford Houses, although the first author currently has a NIDA funded study that is exploring this issue.
• The national non-profit organization created an independent Board of Directors and World Council by electing residents and alumni from around the United States.
• Jason LA, Olson BD, Ferrari JR, Lo Sasso AT. Communal housing settings enhance substance abuse recovery.
• Beginning with one single rented residence in the mid 1970s, Oxford Houses now number over 1,300.
• They must also be willing to accept the house rules and expectations, and be able to pay their share of the expenses.

The public health significance of these findings are further enhanced by data from a related study by the same research team, who evaluated cost-effectiveness of Oxford Houses in the same sample of individuals. Sober living in Oxford style housing is often necessary for long-term recovery. It not only provides accountability during treatment, but allows the individual to slowly reintegrate back into normal life. At South Jersey Recovery Residences Oxford homes in NJ, residents live under the management and guidance of House Managers, Our House Managers help maintain the safety and drug-free environment of the house. For example, house managers will regularly administer and monitor drug tests for residents.

Oxford House

Finally, latent growth curve analyses indicated that less support for substance use by significant others and time in Oxford House predicted change in cumulative abstinence over the course of the study. As of 2008, there were 321 women’s Oxford Houses with 2,337 women, and 982 men’s Oxford Houses with 7,487 men, for a total of 1,303 houses serving 9,824 people . Of the residents, 18% were veterans, what is an oxford house and 91% were working with average monthly earnings of $1,480. Most residents had been addicted to drugs or drugs and alcohol (73%) whereas 27% had been addicted to only alcohol. Regarding marital status, 45% had been never married, 18% were separated, 33% were divorced, and only 4% were married. Fifty-three percent of residents reported prior homelessness for an average time of 6 months.

The least structured is “level one,” which is similar to the peer run model. Level four is the most structured model and this includes having clinical services at the home that are required for the resident to participate in. Once the resident gains a solid foundation, they will transition to less structured or basic sober living. At the Sober Living, they may have a later curfew or no curfew and the other rules will be less intensive.

A History of the Oxford House organization

Unfortunately, these TC programs often create a financial burden on society, and are not available to all that need them. Also, therapeutic community residents may stay only for a limited time before many return to former high-risk environments or stressful family situations . A study published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment found sober living home residents experienced improvements in arrest rates, alcohol and drug use rates, and employment rates. The authors found evidence that 12-step program attendance and social support systems were key components of recovery for residents. The transition back to life outside of rehab is fraught with the potential for relapse. Aftercare resources such as 12-step groups, sober living homes and support for family and friends promote a life rich with rewarding relationships and meaning.

We collected data at the individual, house, and state levels, and at times compared data over these different levels of analysis. We believe that selecting multi-level, multi-methods approaches allowed us to better clarify complex phenomena that we were studying. Limited research, however, is available regarding how Oxford House settings compare to other treatments. Using cross sectional data, Ferrari, Jason, Davis, Olson, and Alvarez compared the operational policies of 55 Oxford Houses to those of 14 Therapeutic Communities .

The Oxford Housing Style Structure

It has been suggested that for a substantial portion of addicted persons, detoxification does not lead to sustained recovery. Instead, these individuals cycle repetitively through service delivery systems (Richman & Neuman, 1984; Vaillant, 2003). Recidivism rates within one year following treatment are high for men and women, and 52–75% of all alcoholics drop out during treatment (Montgomery et al., 1993). These kinds of programs are also expensive (Schneider & Googins, 1989).