A team of substance abuse experts at DePaul University has received a grant of more than $2.5 million from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism for a five-year study of the Oxford House substance abuse treatment program, deemed one of the most successful in the country.

          Oxford Houses - there are 700 nationwide - are residential homes that were established for alcoholics to help them develop long-term sobriety skills. The DePaul Evaluation of Oxford House project will be the first in the country to formally measure the effectiveness of the residential homes, and will seek to determine what makes this program more successful than standard care.

          Leonard A. Jason, a community psychologist and psychology professor at DePaul, is the principal investigator for the research. He has 18 years of experience in researching addiction-related behaviors and chronic illnesses. Joseph R. Ferrari, the other member of the research team, is an associate professor of psychology at DePaul who has published extensively in the area of social-community research.

          Preliminary evaluations indicate that the recidivism, or relapse, rate among Oxford House residents may be as low as 20 percent. According to Jason, an 80 percent recovery rate is remarkable for any kind of substance abuse treatment program. "If with 700 residences, Oxford House assists about 6,000 people, and the majority are able to stabilize their lives once they are in there; that's very important," said Jason.

          Several features distinguish Oxford House from other recovery facilities, and, according to Jason, this uniqueness, coupled with the high rate of alcohol recovery, is what prompted him to take a closer look. One of the most unique characteristics of the homes is that they are managed totally by recovering-alcoholic residents, and no health professionals are on site.

          The homes offer a family-like setting, where residents can live without the involvement of professional treatment staff, and where there are no restrictions on length of stay. Houses seldom have more than 12 residents who all pitch in to pay the rent, decide in a democratic fashion what the house rules will be and promptly evict those that violate them. Unlike residential drug and alcohol treatment centers, there is no set course for recovery that all members must follow. Residents of Oxford House are free to decide individually whether to seek psychological or alcohol treatment by professionals or Alcoholics Anonymous.

          "Each house becomes a home because residents become like family members," said Ferrari. "It's dealing with a functional family for people who don't have families that will nurture them toward recovery. That's a powerful model."

          Jason and Ferrari actually have been studying successful models for treating substance abuse for a number of years. However, at a time of seemingly greater need for self-help forms of treatment, there is not a strong interest among other psychology professionals in such models.

          "This whole model may threaten some people in the profession," explained Jason. "There is a tendency sometimes to minimize what people can do on their own."

          According to Jason, the Evaluation of the Oxford House project may help to revolutionize the way social problems are handled in society. "What makes this kind of care different in the long run, and what we policy people and psychologists haven't quite caught on to, is that Oxford House is offering the same thing that the youth clubs, churches and volunteer centers offer - a system of care that is directly connected to the mental and physical health of people in the community," Jason said.

          The spirit of community at Oxford House is demonstrated through long-term interactions with others. Residents can live in the homes as long as they like, which, according to Jason, creates a favorable network of support that includes people who have a successful track record at staying sober, and can offer experience and encouragement to those new to recovery.

          Jason and Ferrari's evaluation project will focus on Oxford Houses in Illinois. For two years, they will monitor the progress of 150 participants who are in the process of completing care at alcohol and drug abuse facilities. Seventy-five participants will be assigned to Oxford Houses, and 75 will experience more traditional after-care. Treatment programs around the state have agreed to participate in the study by making referrals to the Oxford House program. The study also involves tracking former Oxford House residents to determine the recovery patterns of former substance abusers who now are living outside of the group home environment.

          What happens if and when the five-year study yields positive conclusions?

          "Then we would hope there would be many more Oxford Houses," said Jason. "Once we document that this model works, we'll have the ammunition to convince policy people to support it in multiple ways. There are so many ways the state can get behind a program like this - through referrals, staffing recruiters and invested resources."