By Shamecca Brown-Granite State News Collaborative
For someone fighting addiction, 90 days can mean everything.
It can mean waking up sober. Making it through another day without using. Going to treatment when you don’t want to. Taking the drug test. Showing up for work. Making the phone calls. Sitting through the appointments. Trying to repair relationships that addiction damaged.
It should be a victory, and it is. But sobriety doesn’t automatically come with an apartment. It doesn’t come with a security deposit. It doesn’t fix your credit. It doesn’t put food in your refrigerator. It doesn’t give you a reliable car. It doesn’t guarantee a job that pays enough to survive. And it certainly doesn’t erase everything that happened before you got sober.
For someone coming out of treatment or sober living, the hardest part can be trying to build a completely different life while standing on a foundation that may already be cracked.
New Hampshire recognizes the importance of recovery housing, which provides substance-free environments for people building the stability and support necessary to maintain sobriety.
But what happens when the program says it’s time to move on? Or when someone has a job but can’t afford the security deposit? And what happens when they have nowhere to go or they’re a parent trying to prove they’re ready to have their children back?
People have to take responsibility for their choices. Addiction can hurt families, relationships, communities and, sometimes, innocent people. But if we tell someone that recovery is possible, we also have to be willing to talk about what makes long-term recovery possible. Because while telling someone to change their life is one thing, providing the tools to actually build that life is another.
New Hampshire has invested in recovery housing and supportive housing, including funding intended to expand housing options for people affected by opioid use disorder and co-occurring disorders. Those investments matter. But the need doesn’t disappear simply because programs exist.
The N.H. Coalition of Recovery Residences has made reducing barriers to recovery-supportive housing part of its mission, and its housing assistance efforts have provided significant financial support to people seeking safe recovery housing. But ask someone who is actually trying to find housing what happens when the application is approved and the money isn’t there. Ask what happens when the person has employment but doesn’t have the first month’s rent and security deposit. Or when sober living ends before permanent housing becomes available and the only available apartment costs more than the person can afford.
And for the newly sober parents involved with child welfare, reunification isn’t simply about saying, “I’m sober now.” They have to demonstrate stability, and stability requires resources – housing, transportation, mental health support, employment, childcare, a support system.
The bottom line is, we cannot punish people for succeeding at recovery. A person can be sober and still be homeless and unemployed. Or still have court involvement or carry trauma, Recovery requires more than telling somebody to stop using. It requires helping them build the conditions in which staying sober is possible.
Investing in the person
New Hampshire has made substantial investments in substance-use-disorder prevention, treatment and recovery. There is also opioid settlement funding being directed toward communities dealing with the consequences of the opioid crisis. The money matters, but so does where it goes, because if we’re serious about recovery, we need to think beyond detox, the treatment bed, the sober house.
We need to think about what happens later – six months, a year, two years later. That’s when somebody is trying to maintain a lease, keep a job, raise a child, pay bills and deal with all the ordinary stress that comes with being human. That’s when recovery becomes a lifestyle instead of a program.
If someone is doing the work, we need to make sure there is somewhere for that work to lead. Give them a chance to find a job, to find safe housing. Give them transportation. Give them treatment and recovery support that doesn’t disappear the moment a program ends. Give parents meaningful opportunities to rebuild relationships with their children. Give people the tools to become independent instead of keeping them permanently dependent on crisis services.
So, helping people stay sober for 90 days is one thing, but it shouldn’t be the moment when we stop asking what somebody needs. It should be the moment we ask: What’s next?
Shamecca Brown is a New Hampshire-based columnist who is family-oriented and passionate about serving underserved communities. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.