About this Recovery House
Amanda Sober Living is a women's sober house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in Allegheny County. It is located on Amanda Avenue in Carrick, a short walk from Brownsville Road, and is operated by Pittsburgh Sober Living, whose seven recovery homes sit in the city's South Hills neighborhoods. The house takes women out of treatment who want a sober address with rules attached to it.
A Women's Sober Living Home on Amanda Avenue
Amanda Avenue is a residential street in Carrick, inside the Pittsburgh city limits. Brownsville Road is close enough to walk, and Pittsburgh Regional Transit buses run that corridor into downtown Pittsburgh throughout the day, which covers work, meetings, outpatient appointments and anything at the Allegheny County courts. The house has laundry on site, wireless internet throughout, television in the rooms and space of her own for each resident. It houses women only.
From Treatment to Independent Living in a Recovery Home
The operator uses the term three-quarter way house for its properties, and the definition it publishes is precise: an independent living setting for people who are transitioning to total independence. There are no clinical staff and no treatment program on site. What the house supplies is a sober household, on-site management and accountability to other women doing the same work. Residents stay from several weeks to well over a year, and the length is a decision between the resident and the management.
12-Step Involvement at This Carrick Sober House
Involvement in a 12-step program is required, and so is meeting attendance. The house holds a weekly meeting that begins with a text study from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and then works through house business. Residents also have to be employed, or volunteering at a charity management approves if a disability rules out work. Curfew is enforced, with allowances for a work shift and for step work with a sponsor. Abstinence is absolute and using ends a residency immediately, and random drug and alcohol testing enforces it.
Oversight of Recovery Housing in Pennsylvania
Two voluntary systems exist in this state. The Pennsylvania Alliance of Recovery Residences, the NARR affiliate here, certifies individual residences against a code of ethics, written disclosure of fees and rules, a written relapse and discharge policy, and outside complaint review. The Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs licenses recovery houses under Act 59 of 2017. Because both are optional, certified, licensed and unaffiliated houses appear next to each other in any Pittsburgh search, and the paperwork a house will show an applicant is the honest test.
What to Ask Before Moving Into This Women's Sober House
Applications go to Pittsburgh Sober Living directly, in writing and in confidence, and go onto a waiting list when the women's houses are full. Before signing, ask what the weekly fee includes and what it does not, what deposit is due, how bedrooms are assigned, who is on site overnight, what happens after a relapse, and how a complaint moves past the house manager. Ask the same questions of every address on the list. The answers, more than any amenity, tell a woman what living in a given Carrick recovery home would actually be like.
