Nobody finds sisu alone.

What we do

Ordinary homes for people rebuilding a life in recovery

Getting sober is hard. Building a life that makes staying sober possible can be harder, and it is nearly impossible without somewhere stable to live while you do it.

Sisu Recovery Residences opens and stands behind recovery residences: houses that are free of alcohol and non-prescribed drugs, where the people who live there govern the household, share its costs equally, and hold one another to account. Each house is run to NARR Level I standards for peer-run residences, with an operator behind it from off site.

A Sisu house is a home first. Not a clinic, not an institution, and not a program with an end date. It provides the conditions for recovery. The work is still each member’s own.

How a Sisu house works

An ordinary home, run by the people living in it

Every Sisu house runs the same way.

• Your own bedroom. Every member has a private room with a door that closes. Bedrooms have no cameras and are nobody’s business but yours.
• The members run the house. They elect their own officers, hold a house meeting every week, split the chores, and vote on who moves in.
• Nobody is employed on site. No live-in manager, nobody on shift. An operator stands behind the house from off site and is on call around the clock.
• No alcohol, no non-prescribed drugs. Testing is random and after time away. Prescribed medication, including medication-assisted treatment, is welcome on the same terms as anything else a doctor prescribes.
• Recovery work happens outside the house too. Members keep up meetings, a sponsor, treatment, or a mix, and the house checks in on it monthly.
• Everyone pays an equal share of what the house costs. The figures are open to members. Nobody profits from the share.
• Stay as long as it is working. There is no program to finish and no move-out date. Some members stay months. Others stay years.

This is housing, not treatment. If you need medical care, therapy, counselling, or detox, you arrange that with your own providers, and the house expects you to keep it up.

When something goes wrong

Who helps, and how fast

Nobody is employed at the house, so it is fair to ask what happens when something goes wrong. Here is the actual arrangement.

• Emergencies go to 911 first. Then to the operator. Naloxone and first aid supplies are kept in the house.
• An operator responder is on call 24 hours a day, every day. The number is posted in the house and in every member’s intake packet. For a safety incident or a threat, the call is returned within 30 minutes. For a suspected overdose, within the hour, with a visit to the house within a day. For a suspected return to use that needs a house vote, within two hours.
• The house is visited every month and in touch every week. A designated house liaison talks with the officers weekly, visits the house monthly at minimum, and reviews the incident log at each contact.
• Conflict between members goes to the house first. Officers handle it under the house rules, with the liaison consulted on anything they should not carry alone. Discrimination or harassment complaints go straight to the operator.
• Every incident is reviewed afterwards. Within 72 hours, in writing, and the house hears what changed.

What this is not: custodial care, clinical care, or someone watching. Members manage their own medications, appointments, and days. The operator oversees the house, not the people in it.

Getting in touch

You do not have to have everything figured out before you call

You may be looking for yourself. You may be trying to help your son, brother, partner, or friend. You may be a treatment provider or probation officer helping someone plan what comes next.

Tell us where things stand and what you are looking for. We will tell you what Sisu is, what it is not, and whether we think a Sisu house could be a good fit. If you send an inquiry instead, someone from Sisu calls you back, usually within one business day.

Call Sisu Recovery Residences

(724) 251-8453