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In Suffolk County they are taking action against the "rogue" sober living houses in a way that enables the good houses to continue operating. Other counties and cities should adopt a similar plan instead of trying to rid neighborhoods of all sober livings
I can only imagine what it would have been like to be black in a time like the 60′s when prejudice, discrimination and racism were rampant. As a black person, I would not have been the type of person that could have kept my rage about the situation “under my hat”, so to speak because I have now experienced prejudice and discrimination myself, firsthand.
When I was trying to open a sober living house about 5 years ago, I met a realtor in a house that would have been perfect for our needs. When she asked me about myself and I was honest and said I intended to open a sober living her exact words were “Sir you can just forget it. No. We do not want your kind in this neighborhood”. She said it emphatically, shaking her head with a look of disgust. Ironically, she was black.
The words stung me. Just like that I had been categorized and labeled and judged an unworthy person, not equal to others in the neighborhood. My resulting emotions were mostly filled with anger, but I held my tongue. I also quickly realized that if I wanted to start a sober living, I’d have to do so by lying about what I was going to use the house for.
I have a real problem when a type of organization such as a sober living or private halfway house that has a proven history of helping people overcome addiction and alcoholism is denied even the opportunity to continuing to help people. The fact is, most neighbors go berserk if they find out a sober living is planning to open or has opened near them. Their prejudice is born primarily out of both fear and an unspoken need to feel superior.
This article is not meant to just rant and rave about how ignorant people can be when it comes to understanding what sober livings are. I have a clear understanding that when it comes to sober livings, most people do not really know what they are or what goes on inside a house. Knowing only that the house holds a place for addicts and alcoholics, the person’s fear is generated by the stigma that those two words carry with them.
The word “addict” conjures up a generally negative if not evil feeling, where the words and thoughts surrounding illegal drugs, crime, prison, violence, needles, and unpredictability are quick to follow. “Alcoholic” conjures up the same types of feelings and words but to a slightly lesser degree. Both types of people are generally perceived as “bad apples”, however, and who wants a house full of bad apples near them? Nobody does. And when you believe that the descriptions above are accurate depictions of the what that house is going to bring with it, you are going to act to defend your turf, and you are going to act pretty aggressively about doing so.
The key to solving the problems above are in educating the public better about what addiction is, who it can attack, what kind of courage it takes to admit you have a drug or alcohol problem, and what kind of person is strong enough to make such an admission. If that kind of information could be conveyed, and it was better understood how people came to be alcoholics and addicts, much of the fear and negativity would fall away. That, combined with the actual statistics of harm that had ever come to anybody as a result of a sober living in the neighborhood would help dispel the high degree of fear that is creating the prejudice and discrimination.
The above educational actions are absolutely necessary, because until the fear can be dispelled, people will continue to try and close sober livings down. In preventing a bonafide, well-managed sober living from opening in a given area, those responsible for doing so succeed in denying good people who are fighting a disease as common as cancer the opportunity to continue fighting that disease in a place of their choosing.
The city councils that make the illegal decisions to prevent a sober living from opening are often responding to a handful of fearful, ignorant people who are voicing concerns that originate in the same area of their brains where the boogeyman resides. Ironically, it may be at the city council level that some of the education could actually begin. If city councils were better furnished with statistics about a) how futile fighting the federal government is and more importantly b) there is no need to fight the feds because these houses, when well run, do absolutely no harm to anybody or any neighborhood.
The question becomes how do you get rid of that 1 rogue house in 20 or 30 or more good houses out there without closing the good houses down at the same time. Anybody interested in an answer may look at Suffolk County, New York and what they are doing, because that makes sense. Nobody hates a bad house more than well-run sober livings because those bad houses give the whole industry a black eye. So policing should not be a problem, were it organized. One day in the not too distant future the STARR Sober Living Network will put forth some suggestions along these lines.
If no harm had ever come to anybody in the neighborhoods where such well-run houses existed, how does a house like this cause such a degree of fear and loathing amongst neighbors? It does so because the common label that encompasses all the above is “trouble”. Just like in the 60′s if a black person were to move into a white neighborhood it was “trouble”, so, too, are the feelings today about sober living houses.
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- Tom Rees’s Journey from High Living to Living High, Takes Him into Business World of Sober Living (prweb.com)
