Analyzing Sober Living Data

I have been working at Pinnacle Recovery Services - a sober living transitional house in Lansing – for over a year. One of my job duties is performing intakes for everyone coming into the program, and in that time, I have tracked data to identify trends.

I believe much of the data is very useful, and some of it is relatively surprising. To summarize before I break down the numbers: the overwhelming majority of people entering transitional housing identified alcohol as their problem substance. Furthermore, more clients were coming to Pinnacle with methamphetamine use disorders than heroin use disorders.

Something else that sticks out to me is that most clients have been to rehab multiple times, backing up the notion that a lot of people struggling with addiction have to attempt rehab multiple times before obtaining long term recovery.

Let me break down the numbers and explain how I tracked the data.

Background & Questions

Pinnacle Recovery Services is based in Lansing, Michigan and houses men coming out of inpatient treatment or correctional facilities. We operate five houses, with each one housing five to six men. Clients coming to Pinnacle have to abide by a structured program routine, which includes curfew and drug testing, as well as mandatory outpatient counseling and daily support group attendance.

During the intake process, I compile background info and histories of addiction. I have been tracking that information for a year now. Overall, I compiled information from 88 individuals. The youngest client was 18 and the oldest 61. Some of them list more than one problem substance, so there were 104 total. I also ask them how many times they have been to inpatient rehab and the data is listed to show averages.

Inpatient Rehab Data

Inpatient rehab is any treatment program a client has been to that is considered long term treatment. What is not considered in this statistic are detox programs or outpatient therapy.

The average number of times a client had been to rehab is 4.4. The range was as low as zero and as high as 32. This means that, on average, a person entering transitional housing has been to rehab in the past four times. The truth is that it is rare to find a person who has long term recovery from addiction who stayed sober after their first attempt. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, because I do know many people who have not relapsed. But more often than not, it takes multiple attempts at treatment.

Problem Substance Data

A problem substance, also sometimes considered a person’s “drug of choice”, is defined as the substance that was problematic for them, oftentimes the thing that contributed to that person entering treatment.

There were 9 total drug of choice listings: alcohol, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine, fentanyl, inhalants, dextromethorphan (DXM), and Adderall.

The majority of people entering our housing program identified alcohol as their problem substance, for a total of 40. The next highest listing was methamphetamine with 22 listings, followed by heroin with 19. Cocaine was listed 12 times, while marijuana was listed 6 times.  

It is not shocking that alcohol was the most identified “drug of choice.” What is mildly surprising is that more clients came to us with methamphetamine disorders than heroin. I think it is safe to say that though opioids are talked about the most as being in epidemic proportions, methamphetamine addiction is rapidly rising in many communities.