Sober living for first responders in New Jersey
One NJ Sober Living home in Bergen County is set aside for police officers, firefighters, EMTs, paramedics and dispatchers in recovery. You live with other responders under house rules, in a Class F home licensed by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, with a live-in operator and an operator on site overnight.
Who lives in this house
- Police officers
- Firefighters
- EMTs
- Paramedics
- Dispatchers
- Bergen County, NJ
- Class F licensed by NJ DCA
- Overnight operator, 7 p.m.–7 a.m.
- Rides to evening treatment
- The house's town is never published
Why does a first responder need a separate sober house?
Because a first responder may know, or be known by, the people they would otherwise live with. A responder who has answered overdose calls in the same county carries a different set of things into a shared living room.
Living with other responders puts you among people who understand the job without it needing explaining.
Which of our homes it is stays off this website. You hear it on the call.
If you are still deciding where to start, our guide to addiction help for New Jersey first responders lists the lines police, fire and EMS can call first.
Your housemates understand the job.
What holds the first responder house together?
Every resident is a first responder. The house runs on the same structure as every NJ Sober Living home.
Questions about the rules? Call (201) 231-1066.
- Operators the state requires
- New Jersey's Class F rules require two qualified operators for each home: at least one lives in the residence, and one is on site from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. whenever residents are present.
- House management and technicians
- On top of what the state requires, house management and behavioral health technicians support the daily routine. Ask on the call what coverage looks like at this home.
- Curfew
- Evenings without treatment are spent in the house with your housemates.
- Drug testing
- Periodic testing is part of living here.
- House expectations
- All four homes share one set of written rules, gone over with you before move-in.
- Rides to evening treatment
- The house drives residents to evening treatment and back.
Is the first responder house the right next step?
Responders, their families and the people who refer them usually recognize one of these.
Stepping down from treatment
You are finishing residential or intensive outpatient care and moving toward living on your own.
Working, in school or in treatment
Residents work, go to school or attend treatment, or start one of those within 30 days of moving in.
Relapsed before
You want accountability around you this time, not just good intentions.
Housing or rides are in the way
A stable place to live and a ride to evening treatment are what is missing.
Anxiety, depression or MAT under outside care
You are managing co-occurring anxiety or depression, or taking MAT medication, with your own psychiatric provider.
How does a first responder get a bed?
One phone call starts it. Here is the order things happen in.
Call and talk it through. The clinical assessment happens with the outpatient provider.
Match to a home with an open bed. The first responder house, where that fits.
Move in and start evening treatment. The house drives you there and back.
Step toward living on your own. As stability holds, the next move is yours.
Questions first responders ask about sober living
It is one of our four Bergen County recovery homes, and we don't publish which. Ask on the call.
Yes. Days are yours within house expectations. If you are in outpatient treatment, you attend an outside licensed program on the schedule it sets, and the house van drives you to evening sessions and back.
No. It is recovery housing, a Class F licensed residence with no on-site clinical treatment. Treatment and clinical assessment happen at an outside licensed provider.
Bedroom arrangements differ by house and by what is open. Ask on the call.
The home runs on the same written house rules as every NJ Sober Living home, and the house manager goes through them with you before move-in: an 11:00 p.m. weeknight curfew, random drug testing and house expectations.
Not to get to evening treatment. The house provides the ride.
Talk to us about the first responder house
We'll tell you whether a bed is open and what the house expects of you.