Sober Roommates In Los Angeles Can Make Recovery Safe and Successful

You might not have given much thought to your roommate’s habits before you switched to a sober lifestyle. But now that you’ve begun to reexamine your old habits, you’ve started identifying some triggers for your addictive behavior.

And, very often, the people who closely surround us have an outsized influence on our behavior.

Finding a sober roommate should be a top priority for you now that you’re on the recovery trajectory away from addiction. If the sight or smell of your roommate taking drugs or drinking alcohol could be an obstacle to your recovery, then you need to find someone to live with who isn’t a dangerous addiction trigger for you.

Your roommate could be an asset rather than a hindrance to your recovery. They can provide you with much-needed accountability but also act as a constant reminder of why you started this journey in the first place.

Fortunately, there are many different contexts through which you can find and secure sober roommates in Los Angeles.

Find A Sober Roommate

Ocean Recovery Alumni Network

We are Ocean Recovery– an addiction treatment center serving the people of greater Los Angeles since 2002. We have a full slate of programs and therapies that can promote health, healing, and recovery in your life.

After you graduate from our programs, you’ll be placed in the Ocean Recovery alumni network. There are many graduates of ours in Los Angeles, so if you want to find a roommate, we can point you in the right direction to other graduates who are looking for someone as well.

Since you both graduated from our treatment program, you can be confident that your roommate will place a high value on maintaining sobriety. You’ve both put in hard work already and now you get to hold each other accountable.

You’ll be equipped with the same tools to pursue long-term sobriety, which means neither of you will thoughtlessly trigger the other person into relapse. And best yet, you’ll have a shared vocabulary to talk about your journey since you both attended our programs.

Sober Internet Networking

Social networking began in earnest with MySpace in early 2003 and then exploded with the surging popularity of Facebook in the late 2000s into the juggernaut that social networking is today. But, it took almost 20 years since the creation of MySpace for a social networking site to be created with the singular intent of connecting prospective sober roommates.

In 2016, licensed clinical social worker Jesse Sandler created MySoberRoommate.com, and it’s been growing in popularity ever since. Today, in 2023, it has over 10,000 users.

Here, you can use the benefit of the internet’s incredible ability to connect you to someone you’ve never met previously. There are advanced search criteria you can use to winnow down the vast number of users to only the pertinent ones who match your search criteria.

You can easily search for a sober roommate in Los Angeles and begin building your sober support network. You can differentiate yourself based on whether you have a room to rent out to someone else or want to rent a room for yourself. Next, you can specify the following criteria:

• Rent budget
• Desired location
• Age
• Length of current sobriety
• Whether or not you have a pet
• Gender
• Smoking or non-smoking

Sober Companions

A sober roommate is a sober companion, but not all sober companions are sober roommates. A sober companion is a transitional figure accompanying you during a period of relative instability in your life.

Maybe the instability is due to switching jobs, switching from inpatient to outpatient care, being unable to extend your treatment time, or something else entirely. Whatever the case, the first 90 days after initial treatment are a very difficult time for people recovering from addiction.

It’s essential to have someone nearby who has been continuously sober for many years to help you navigate the many tricky decisions that come along with a life of sobriety.

Sober Companions of Los Angeles is a service that seeks to connect people who need a sober companion with someone who has been demonstrably, reliably, and continuously sober for 10+ years. These people are hand-picked by the CEO and then are supervised the entire time they perform the role of companion.

Contact them if you need some help finding a sober roommate.

12-Step Groups

The 12-step group began in 1938 with the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). They are a peer-led, volunteer organization with no stipulations for joining other than you want to consume less alcohol.

The premise is that if a person should complete all 12 steps, they should experience a “spiritual awakening” and make it part of their life’s mission to carry the message of sobriety to other people who struggle with alcohol addiction. They do use vocabulary like “spiritual”, but they consider themselves organizationally non-religious and leave it up to the participants to define what spirituality means to them.

Narcotics Anonymous (NA) was founded in 1953 on virtually the same premise.

There are thousands of AA and NA groups that meet across the city of Los Angeles. They meet wherever space is available (churches, auxiliary rooms, etc.) to share, read group literature, and repeat affirmations. Sharing is entirely voluntary and not expected.

Since the people attending these groups want to drink less alcohol, you can fairly assume that they will likely be an asset rather than a hindrance to your recovery journey. Ask people before or after the meeting whether or not they are looking for a sober roommate.

Sober Living Homes

Sober living homes (aka halfway houses) are privately run group homes where people live in various stages of outpatient recovery.

Conceptually, sober living homes are situated in between traditional psychiatric care in hospitals, where you are considered “sick” all the time, and an unstructured home environment where there is no accountability or oversight for your actions.[1]

Once you move into a sober living home, you assume the title of house “resident.” You are expected to pay rent, do chores, attend house meetings and court dates, and participate in support groups outside the house. The repeated interactions among house residents form a transitional “family” model that provides ingrained support as you recover from addiction.

So, rather than looking hard for a sober roommate, you could look hard for a place to live that requires you to be sober to live there. By natural consequence, your roommates will be sober.

You might look at Bridges Sober Living Apartments (a private program) or even Share! Collaborative Housing (a public program by the Los Angeles County government).

Churches

If you are a spiritual person, a great resource to use is a local church community. According to one meta-analysis, 84% of scientific studies considered faith a positive factor in addiction prevention and recovery.[2]

Churches naturally have strong accountability and community support for their members, so it makes sense to look there for trustworthy people who can share your recovery journey.

One popular addiction recovery program hosted by local churches in Los Angeles is Celebrate Recovery (CR). Started by Los Angeles’ very own Saddleback Church in 1991, CR is the original and most successful Christian adaptation of the 12-step addiction recovery process. CR was created because its founder didn’t feel comfortable talking about his addiction in the church or talking about Jesus in AA.

It is an explicitly Christian program, and it uses direct Biblical justification for each of the 12 steps. It destigmatized addiction discussions within the church and uses the name of Jesus to claim power over addiction. It has been hosted by over 35,000 churches worldwide and successfully helped millions of people recover from their addictions.

You can use the group locator to find a participating church in Los Angeles, and once you do, you can start getting to know the group members. Either before or after a group meeting, you can ask around to see if someone is looking for a sober roommate.

Just Beginning Your Sober Journey? Drug and Alcohol Addiction Treatment

Abusing alcohol can shorten your life on average by 24-28 years, and abusing drugs can shorten it by 14-15 years.[3][4] These substances can rob you of some of the best times of your life.

At Ocean Recovery, we have over 20+ years of experience treating substance use addiction in Los Angeles. We combine gender-specific treatments with proven therapeutic modalities inside luxury accommodations on the beach. Our team of expert providers is compassionate, enthusiastic, and laser-focused all at the same time.

We want to address the causes of your addiction rather than just the symptoms. That’s why we use evidence-based treatment modalities combined with deep community support. Our approach utilizes cognitive behavioral therapy as a foundation for building diverse therapeutic techniques such as EMDR and somatic experiencing.

The result is a transformative and hopeful experience that will give you the tools to pursue long-term sobriety. The ocean is a perfect place to experience recovery: It’s at peace yet constantly active. We feel these same stirrings within our hearts as we strive for peace during addiction treatment, yet we know we must constantly strive for growth in our recovery journey.

Find Peace and Make Your Home A Safe Space

It’s never too late. The fact that you’re here, reading these words, means there is still reason to hope. No matter how bad today may be, you can hope for a better tomorrow.

If you are struggling with substance abuse, seek treatment immediately. There is a team of local, expert providers who can give you the assistance you need to heal from your addiction and pursue recovery. There might be dark days ahead, but it’s nothing like the light at the end of the tunnel.