How to choose a sober living house

Below are the ten, each with Severn Home’s answer. Where we have not published one, we say so, and you can ask us on the phone.

Every Severn Home house is for men or for women, never both. Ellicott City is the one house for women. Arnold, Crownsville, Gambrills, Pasadena, Silver Spring and Alexandria are for men, and a house for men in Fairfax, Virginia, is opening October 2026.

Ask what the room you would move into costs, not the lowest rate on the website. Where it is offered, a room shared by two is $1,200 a month, and a room of your own $1,500 to $1,800. Some houses also have rooms shared by three; ask which when you call.

Rents start at $1,200 at Crownsville, Ellicott City, Gambrills and Pasadena; at $1,300 at Alexandria and Fairfax; and at $1,500 at Arnold and Silver Spring. Not every rate is offered at every home.

Ask for the list, item by item, and ask what costs extra. At all seven open Severn Home houses the rent includes Wi-Fi, televisions, a full kitchen, a full gym and a hot tub, open all year. Pasadena and Silver Spring have two kitchens.

Arnold, Crownsville, Ellicott City, Gambrills and Pasadena also have an outdoor pool, open through spring and summer. A room of your own costs more.

At Severn Home, a mentor chosen for what you have in common. Your mentor checks in daily for your first month. Your mentor also introduces you to the other residents, answers questions, walks you through the house stages, talks through hardships and takes you to an outside meeting at least once a week.

Four recovery meetings a week, every house activity, and work toward a sponsor in the recovery fellowship you prefer. You sign in and out when you leave the house, there is a curfew, and there are no overnight passes yet.

Ask for dates. At Severn Home the rules lift on known days, as you show you take an active part in your recovery. From day 30, one overnight pass every other week, and a job search if you are not working. From day 90, a pass one day a week, a later curfew, and no more signing in and out.

From day 150, no curfew and no set wake-up time, and you work full time or study. After 365 days the rules are, for the most part, lifted. We recommend a minimum stay of one year, and after that, staying in the house as long as you can.

The exact curfew and wake-up times, and the rules on visitors, cars and phones, are house details we have not published. Ask when you call, and ask every other house too.

Every Severn Home house is substance-free. Our testing policy, and what follows a return to use, are not published here. Ask both on your first call, before you choose a house, and put the same two questions to every other house.

Severn Home is housing, not treatment. We encourage every resident to keep working with outside providers, whether that is a private therapist, an outside intensive outpatient program or another evidence-based option, and to stay connected to a recovery fellowship.

Ask for drive times from the places you go each week. We publish them from 17 Maryland towns for four houses: Arnold, Crownsville, Ellicott City and Gambrills. Arnold is 10 minutes by car from Severna Park. Crownsville and Gambrills are 10 minutes from Odenton and Severn. The Ellicott City house is 5 minutes from the town of Ellicott City and 10 from Columbia. For Pasadena, Silver Spring and Alexandria, ask us.

Four Severn Home houses have a film on their own page: Crownsville, Gambrills, Pasadena and Silver Spring. Alexandria, Arnold and Ellicott City have photographs. Every photo names the house it shows. Whether you can visit in person is not published; ask when you call.