A new website, MySoberRoommate.com, launched this summer to help people in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction find sober roommates.
For years, people in recovery, along with their families, therapists, and support group facilitators, have had nowhere to turn to quickly, easily, and privately find sober roommates. MySoberRoommate.com is changing that.
Co-created by UCLA alum and addiction therapist Jesse Sandler, LCSW, MySoberRoommate.com allows members to create profiles, search for sober roommates that match their selected criteria, and message with them. And, because of the importance of privacy and anonymity, MySoberRoommate.com puts members in control of what personal information they share and when they share it: members use screen names, and all communication between members goes through MySoberRoommate.com’s messaging system. And they can do it all for free.
“One of the most important components in maintaining sobriety is your living environment,” Sandler said. “When people in recovery move out of rehab or sober living facilities, the worst thing they can do is go back to the toxic living environments they were in before they got clean. The second worst thing is to live with people who are actively using. And the third is to live alone, which breeds isolation.”
Sandler got the idea for MySoberRoommate.com after years of seeing his clients, as well as several family members who are in recovery, struggle to find sober roommates. When he realized there was no place for them to easily and privately find likeminded roommates, he decided to create one. “I know I can’t fix everything,” Sandler said, “but when I realized people were struggling to find sober roommates, I thought, ‘this is something I can do.’ So I did.”
Although the site is new, the response has been overwhelming. In its first two months, the MySoberRoommate.com community grew to nearly 1,000 members, and already boasts multiple success stories. Addiction therapists and support group facilitators around the country have praised the site’s innovativeness and importance in filling a need for people in recovery. As the site’s membership continues to grow, it seems on track to become a much-needed staple in the addiction recovery toolkit.
About MySoberRoommate.com
MySoberRoommate.com was established in 2016 to help people in recovery easily and privately find sober roommates. On the website, members across the U.S. can create profiles, search for sober roommates that match their selected criteria, and message with them, all for free. MySoberRoommate.com was created by Los Angeles-based addiction therapist Jesse Sandler, LCSW and Emily Churg, JD, PhD.
