Understanding length of stay in recovery homes

ABSTRACT

The current study was based on a longitudinal study of 602 Oxford House residents of which this study focused on 155 who at their first assessment, or baseline, had been in residence for 2 months or less, and we tracked them over time to see how long they remained in the recovery homes. By the time a resident had 6 weeks of residence in the recovery homes, the hazard for leaving the homes had dropped to about 25%. In addition, having an important person from the recovery home in one’s social network predicted lower hazard rates, given accumulated time in residence. The study indicates that the first few weeks in recovery homes are particularly vulnerable times for residents to leave prematurely, so more efforts are needed to better understand why some residents are able to maintain residency during these critical first weeks in these settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Length of stay
• recovery homes
• social networks
• substance use disorders
• Oxford Houses

Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate the financial support from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (grant number AA022763). We also acknowledge the help of several members of the Oxford House organization, and in particular Paul Molloy, Alex Snowden, Casey Longan, and Howard Wilkins.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).