A sober companion provides close recovery support
A companion may stay with a client, accompany travel, organize routines, and help connect daily choices with a recovery plan. Services can range from a few hours to continuous short-term support. The title is not a uniform healthcare license. Ask for an exact written scope instead of assuming the person provides therapy, nursing, security, or medical monitoring; the scope should specify waking hours, overnight availability, transport, travel, household tasks, and communication with supporters.
Nonclinical support has firm limits
A companion should not diagnose, prescribe, change medication, manage dangerous withdrawal, or replace emergency care. Clinical questions belong with licensed treatment and medical professionals. Overdose, seizure, severe confusion, suicidal behavior, or other immediate danger requires 911 or appropriate emergency services. The contract should explain how the companion contacts the clinical team and responds when needs exceed the role; a companion needs a clear handoff route when symptoms require nursing, medical withdrawal care, psychiatry, or emergency evaluation.
Check training, experience, and accountability
Request the person's legal name, training, certification, background-check process, supervision, references, and relevant client experience. Verify any credential with the issuing organization. Lived experience can add value but does not by itself establish competence for every situation. Ask which code of ethics applies and where a client can report boundary, privacy, financial, or safety concerns; supervision is especially important when the assignment involves complex mental health, family conflict, travel, or repeated crises.
Define privacy before daily access begins
Companions may see the home, relationships, travel, medication routines, finances, and other highly personal information. The agreement should name what is documented, where records are kept, and who receives updates. Obtain the adult client's informed consent before routine reports to family, employers, attorneys, or providers. Ask what privacy laws apply because a private companion may not have the same legal duties as a clinic; daily access makes strong boundaries around photographs, social media, location sharing, and personal relationships particularly important.
Set boundaries for money and control
Clarify whether the companion handles cash, cards, keys, phones, transport, drug testing, searches, visitors, or access to the home. Avoid open-ended authority and arrangements that rely on physical restraint, threats, or humiliation. The client needs a route to raise concerns and end services safely. Family preferences should not erase the informed choices and legal rights of a capable adult client; the agreement should prohibit borrowing, gifts, investments, business deals, and other financial relationships that create divided loyalties.
Get the full price in writing
Daily fees may be only part of the cost when travel time, lodging, meals, transport, overtime, testing, and retainers are added. Request billing intervals, cancellation terms, refunds, expense approval, and the handoff process. Confirm whether insurance covers any part before relying on reimbursement. Compare the price with clinical care, recovery housing, peer services, and other supports that may address the actual need; compare replacement, cancellation, travel disruption, illness, and early termination terms before paying a large retainer.
Use companionship inside a broader plan
Name the clinical providers, medication plan, recovery supports, housing, family contacts, and emergency thresholds before the assignment starts. Set specific goals and a review date rather than extending intensive monitoring automatically. Plan how support will step down and which routines will remain. A companion can support action, but cannot guarantee abstinence or carry responsibility for another person's recovery outcome; step-down planning tests whether skills and community supports are growing instead of making permanent dependence the service model.