Addiction is a Family Disease

Families may be as unique as the individuals that comprise them, yet when addiction enters the picture each is as vulnerable as the next -- and the last.   

The Family System

If families are unique (and they are), then it stands to good reason that each family's system is also unique. Members take on their own individual ways of interacting with those inside and outside the family unit. That, in turn, provides equilibrium to the family system; an equilibrium that's essential in handling any and all issues and/or responsibilities that arise.

Addiction, naturally, upends that equilibrium and throws the family into imbalance. A significant weight has been added to the family equation and the members must now try to shoulder the burden without completely collapsing. Unfortunately, with one family member already half broken and seemingly determined to shatter everything in their path, that burden takes on an almost Sisyphean dimension.

Thankfully there are measures a family can take to right itself from such a burdensome wrong. There also are measures that can prevent such upheaval from ever occurring in the first place. All that's required is to deliver those measures where they're most needed and then to put them to good use.

One of those measures is Sober Home Kit. 

What's in the Kit?

The Sober Home Kit is to addiction what the mongoose is to the cobra. A worthy adversary, yes, but one that has the capacity to take its opponent out of the equation forever. Some even say the Sober Home Kit is dangerous. We do. Because we designed it to be a danger -- a danger to addiction. After all, fighting fire with fire didn't get to be an age old adage by accident.

So the Sober Home Kit. An arsenal designed explicitly to take on addiction, one of the most prevalent and insidious dangers of our time.

Like traditional First Aid Kits, there is an actual boxed package of things one needs in an emergency. Instead of the usual array of band-aids and ointments and bandages however, this Kit contains an array of addiction prevention goods. There are standard sober home components (i.e. urinalysis cups, breathalyzer, etc). And there are educational and instructional materials (i.e. an AA Sobriety Sponsorship Package,  Progress Assessment Forms, Sober Home Do's & Don'ts, etc). The Kit even includes AA's famous Big Book, as well as the essential "How Al-Anon Works."

But those are just the Kit's take-home components. In addition to the box of packaged prevention goods, the SFF Kit includes our Live Family Educational Webinar, On Demand Family Courses, One-on-One Zoom Calls with Rabbi Mark, as well as a Three-Day Educational Retreat. In addition, there's another essential take-home component: a Sober Home Cash Card, which is crucial to monitoring expenditures during early stage recovery.

Some of the Kit's components come as part of a package; most come a la carte. All are proven to be effective at preventing and/or countering addiction.       

The Why of it All

Why do we do it? Well, the short story is the Kit was put into play by the Schnellenberger Family Foundation after we were twice afflicted with addiction. The long story is the family created the Kit in order to combat a disease that has had a lethal effect on far too many families to fathom, let alone to count, including our own. The long and the short of it all is the Schnellenberger Family has firsthand knowledge of the problem and we're determined to do everything in our power to solve it. That's why the family founded the Foundation. And that's why the Foundation launched the Sober Home Kit.

Mostly though -- and most simply -- we want to help as many addiction-fighting families as possible. And that means re-strengthening the bonds that so lovingly tie the family together. It also means arming the family with an arsenal of addiction-specific tools and weapons. And whether it's day-to-day recovery-adhering basics or full-scale prevention plans, we're determined to get just the right arms into just the right hands so that each and every family gets the opportunity to stand a fighting chance.