Health & Medicine
Sober Bar Opens in Midwest to Help Stop Addiction
Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Apr 15, 2013 12:13 PM EDT
At the end of April, the first sober bar will opens its door in a suburb of Chicago, known as The Other Side. It will have pool tables, televisions, music and DJs, but absolutely no alcohol of any kind. In fact, reports indicate that an energy drink will be the closest thing you can get resembling this sort of thing.
This bar opening in the Midwest is the idea of a group of friends, many of whom struggled with addiction in the past. They congregated in the wake of a death of a friend at 21, who had died of a heroin addiction. Between all the members on the Board of Directors, they know about 100 people who died of overdoses over the past few years. They say that it can be particularly difficult to maintain recovery in the suburbs, where there are few options for sober fun other than the movie theaters and the bowling alleys. Bars are not an option, because the mechanisms for alcoholism and drug addiction are so similar.
We're still young, and we want to hang out," Chris Reed, 22, and the President of the non-profit group behind the sober bar, the New Directions Addiction Recovery Center said, according to the Arlington Heights Daily Herald. "You can't hang out with 40 people at your house."
The group is not a for-profit enterprise and everyone in the project still keeps their day job. The location for the bar was rehabilitated with the help of various friends and volunteers, and will be open from Thursday to Sunday, according to Counsel & Heal News.
All proceeds from the bar will go toward the funding of drug education and treatment initatives in the community.
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First Posted: Apr 15, 2013 12:13 PM EDT
At the end of April, the first sober bar will opens its door in a suburb of Chicago, known as The Other Side. It will have pool tables, televisions, music and DJs, but absolutely no alcohol of any kind. In fact, reports indicate that an energy drink will be the closest thing you can get resembling this sort of thing.
This bar opening in the Midwest is the idea of a group of friends, many of whom struggled with addiction in the past. They congregated in the wake of a death of a friend at 21, who had died of a heroin addiction. Between all the members on the Board of Directors, they know about 100 people who died of overdoses over the past few years. They say that it can be particularly difficult to maintain recovery in the suburbs, where there are few options for sober fun other than the movie theaters and the bowling alleys. Bars are not an option, because the mechanisms for alcoholism and drug addiction are so similar.
We're still young, and we want to hang out," Chris Reed, 22, and the President of the non-profit group behind the sober bar, the New Directions Addiction Recovery Center said, according to the Arlington Heights Daily Herald. "You can't hang out with 40 people at your house."
The group is not a for-profit enterprise and everyone in the project still keeps their day job. The location for the bar was rehabilitated with the help of various friends and volunteers, and will be open from Thursday to Sunday, according to Counsel & Heal News.
All proceeds from the bar will go toward the funding of drug education and treatment initatives in the community.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone