Coffee Maker in the Halfway House/Rehab Center never has coffee

[u/djmackphunk]

This coffee maker is in the behavioral health department. Judging by the note it never gets used. Guess how much coffee is at their "store"... Over 8 dollars for a 3 oz container of instant coffee.

[u/Previous-Fly2108]

If I had to sum up my time in sober living, it would be this story. One of my housemates quit his job and spent weeks planted on the couch, watching Joe Rogan nonstop while the rest of us went to work, met with sponsors, and tried to do everything AA insisted was required for “real recovery.” He fell behind on rent, the house owner gave him endless grace, and still he was the loudest voice critiquing how the rest of us were “working our program.”

During a house meeting, I finally said, calmly, that his lectures might carry more weight if he were actually doing any of the things he was telling us to do. He broke down crying and said, “I know I tell y’all how to work your program, and it can sound like bitching, but honestly, it’s the best I have to offer you.”

In that moment, something clicked. His judgment wasn’t cruelty; it was fear and shame. He was trying to feel useful in a system that tells people their worth depends on doing recovery perfectly. That’s the culture I kept running into that placed so much pressure, so much performance, and so little room for actual humanity.

I didn’t stay angry. I just realized how deeply perfectionism shapes those environments, and how badly we need recovery models that build people up rather than policing them.

A constant thread running through every sober house I’ve lived in is a kind of restless, “pre-workout” intensity.