I am the son of an Oxford House resident, and for most of my life, addiction was a part of my family. I watched my mom struggle in ways that are hard to put into words. There were years when addiction changed the person I knew and changed our family along with her. I watched someone I loved lose pieces of herself.

After her sister passed away and my mom got out of jail in 2023. Something changed. She made the decision to take her life back. For the past three years, I have watched her stay sober and become the mom I remember—the person underneath the addiction who I knew was still there. That transformation has meant more than words can describe.

My mom deserves credit for her determination and the choices she has made, but I truly believe Oxford House has been a huge part of why she has been able to maintain her recovery. Oxford gave her something that is difficult to create anywhere else. a community of people who understand where she has been, who expect her to show up, who hold her accountable, and who are walking the same road with her. She isn’t simply living in a house. She is part of a community where the residents have responsibility for one another and for the home they share.

What makes that especially powerful is that the residents govern the house themselves. They have to make decisions, manage responsibilities, deal with conflict, handle money, and hold each other accountable. That self-government gives people like my mom a reason to take ownership of their lives again. It helps turn recovery from something being done for them into something they are actively doing for themselves.

As her son, I can tell you that I don’t believe my mom would be the person she is today without the way Oxford House operates. I have my mom back. I get to talk to her, spend time with her, hear her laugh and joke, go on trips to places she would’ve never thought she would see, and watch her live her life instead of watching addiction take it away. Three years of sobriety may sound like a number, but to our family, those three years represent holidays,  conversations, memories, advice, accomplishments, and time together that we might not have had otherwise.

I support reasonable oversight and safety. But I ask that the rules recognize what makes Oxford House different. Please don’t create requirements that undermine the self-governing model by unnecessarily requiring staff. Please recognize that the residents themselves are the people operating these homes, and please don’t treat every recovery home as though it were a commercial business especially not this one.

For my family, this isn’t just about regulations or terminology. It’s about my mom and anyone else looking for what she found. Oxford House helped give her a community and countless others the freedom and ability to re-write their story. where they can be responsible and be involved in their own recovery. I believe that community helped give me my mom back. I hope the rules protect the self-governing model that made that possible.