Recovery Housing Suffering From “Cell Phone Tower Syndrome”

Recently, I was at an event where a recovery house advocate told a story about how local residents in a suburban Connecticut community banded together to prevent a recovery house from being sited in their neighborhood. 
This story is all too common for recovery supporters and advocates across the country – it makes me think of cell phone towers. Why? Because everyone wants cell service at their house, but nobody wants a cell tower in their neighborhood.
 
I get it: towers are ugly and may not be what you want to see out of your window every day. But sober and safe housing for young people is exactly the opposite.
 
I got to a recovery house just after my 18th birthday, and I believe to this day that it saved my life.

 
I spent 90 days with young guys talking, laughing, working, eating, and learning to live life a day at time without drugs or alcohol. The house offered peer support that helped me to feel human again. Socializing and connecting over solutions to drug and alcohol problems became healthy and productive. It sure beat the type of networking and dealing I’d been doing with my peers before I got there.
 
It became the foundation for my recovery, a foundation I still build on today, and I recommend sober housing to anybody who asks about a good way to get started early in recovery. But don’t just take my word for it. Read Joe Menna’s story about starting recovery as a homeless youth in New Haven, CT.
 
What most people don’t get about recovery housing is that supporting young people in early recovery makes their communities and neighborhoods safer, not more dangerous.
 
If I had a sober house next door, at least I would know the tenants were living in a safe environment that supported their recovery, versus being on the street in active addiction and possibly committing crimes to support their habits.
 
To be honest, the people who are most intolerant of drug use are other members in a sober living environment. They police and support each other, resulting in better success for long-term recovery for the youth living there.
 
So unlike cell towers, sober housing and recovery support actually makes your neighborhoods, communities, and towns safer -- and maybe even prettier.
 

Greg Williams is Co-Director of Connecticut Turning To Youth and Families (CTYF). He is a twenty-six year-old young person in long-term recovery from drugs and alcohol since the age of seventeen. He has a strong passion for carrying a message of hope and recovery supports to those suffering from alcohol and drug problems.
 
Photo of actual recovery house used by permission.