Inspirations How SMART tools helped me cope...my daughter, my ex and my mother must be going through, it hit me that they hadn’t called me at work and told be as soon as they knew

“Dad, JJ was in an awful accident,” she said.

“Is he okay?”

“No dad,” she sobbed. “He’s dead.”

“Oh, my God! Do you know what happened?”

“He was driving home from a bar and he had an accident. That’s all we know right now.”

“Was anyone else hurt?”

“No, he was alone in the truck and hit a divider or something.”

“When did you find out?”

“This morning. Mom called me. She’s pretty broken up.”

“Does your grandma know?”

“Yeah, I called her as soon as I finished talking to mom.”

After I thought about the hell that my daughter, my ex and my mother must be going through, it hit me that they hadn’t called me at work and told be as soon as they knew. JJ was my son after all.

“Why didn’t you call me right away?”

Inspirations

How SMART tools helped me copeby Jim Williams, Facilitator Surrey/Newton BC Canada

I felt pleased with myself as I walked around our local supermarket. And why not? With eleven months clean behind me, money in the bank and a general sense of well-being, life was good. And all this on a bright sunny payday.

Then I got a text from a friend of my daughter.

“So sorry for your loss,” was all it said.

‘What the hell is going on?’ I asked myself and then texted my daughter Cindy.

My phone rang two minutes later. It was my daughter.

he SMART Recovery® (Self-Management And Recovery Training)

program helps individuals gain independence from addictive behavior.

Our efforts are based on scientific knowledge and evolve as scientific knowledge evolves.

The program offers specific tools and techniques for each of the program points:

Point #1: Building and Maintaining Motivation

Point #2: Coping with Urges

Point #3: Managing Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors

Point #4: Living a Balanced Life

T

The SMART Recovery 4-Point Program®

Inside:InspirationsHow SMART tools helped me cope . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14-Point Program® . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

People PowerApril is Volunteer Month. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Call for nominations: the Joseph Gerstein Special Award for Exemplary Service to SMART Recovery®. . . . 3SMART 2017: rising strong in Fort Lauderdale new research, inner-city meetings, SMART web app, MI workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Call for board candidates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Finding hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

SMART IdeasSMART Tools conference benefits professionals, facilitators and meeting attendee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Habits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7SMART Recovery® Tools & Techniques . . . . . . . . . .8SMART Recovery’s 12-step alternative meets at Betty Ford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

SMART ProgressNew Research Evidence Supports Choice in Recovery! 10Special events 2017. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10New SMART live! Online chat and meeting rooms . . .11Calling all facilitators:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11A peek at the 2016 SMART Recovery Survey . . . . .11

President’s LetterSMART issues statement on first meta-analysis of its Mutual-Support Recovery Model . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

International DevelopmentThe UK is buzzing with SMART activity . . . . . . . . .14SMART Recovery Alberta Update March 2017 . . .15SMART Recovery in Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16SMART Recovery has been tested in Denmark, with remarkably good results:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Bringing Science and Reason to Self-help with Addictive Behaviors Volume 23, Issue 2 • April 2017

Joe Gerstein, MD, President Christi Farmer, Assistant-Executive Director

“Grandma and I were worried about you and were waiting until you got home to call.”

I felt myself getting warm as the anger grew in me. “You didn’t trust me? This is my son and you had no right to keep it from me!”

“I’m sorry, we were worried about you. We wanted to be with you when we told you. We thought you might go back to drinking.”

“So I get to hear it from a stranger?”

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Published by the Alcohol & Drug Abuse Self-Help Network, Inc. dba SMART Recovery®

7304 Mentor Avenue, Suite F, Mentor, OH 44060 • Phone: 440/951-5357 • Fax: 440/951-5358 • E-mail: [email protected] • www.smartrecovery.org

SMART Recovery® News & Views Volume 23, Issue 2 • April 2017 Page 2

“I’m sorry about that, he shouldn’t have texted you.”

I took me a few months of soul searching to realize that indeed they had every right to think I might relapse. I’d only been clean for eleven months after more than two decades of alcohol abuse.

What they didn’t know and I was about to find out, was how differently I thought after eleven months of working the SMART tools.

“I didn’t even think about taking a drink until you mentioned it.” I retorted, my anger overcoming common sense in that instant.

“Are you going to be okay dad?” The concern was clear in her tone.

I took a deep audible breath. “Yeah, I’m gonna be fine. I’m worried about you, grandma and your girls. And it’s gotta be hard on your mom and her other kids.”

“Call me when you get home, okay dad?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll call. I’ll just finish my shopping and head home.”

“Okay, dad. Love you.”

“Love you too, sweetie.”

I knew that my son had been drinking heavily for a lot of years, but he was in Texas and I lived in Vancouver BC, Canada, more than 2400 miles away. We talked some but texted a lot. He always answered texts even when he wouldn’t answer the phone.

I remember that he thought it was sad that I’d stopped drinking. How the hell was I supposed to have fun?

Finishing my shopping was quick as I’d lost my appetite for most every-

thing that was on my list and only I bought essentials. When I got home, I checked in with my mom, to make sure she was okay. We shared a duplex and we cried on each other’s shoulders, then I called Cindy. She could tell right away that I was still sober and the relief was clear in her voice.

Yes, I passed a bar or two on the way home, but I was too dazed to even realize it at the time. I was in my own world. It was a new world that I’d created for myself. Through Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy, I now had new neural connections that allowed me to feel the horrendous grief and surf it, just as I had surfed the urges in early recovery.

I didn’t realize this at the time, I just knew there was pain and as all things do, good and bad, it would pass and I would live on, without a son, but with a mind filled with memories of him.

For me, it all began on Wednesday, August 13,th 2014. That was my first day without a drink in two decades. I had hit bottom. Bottom, as one SMART participant would say, is when you stop digging. It was to be a three-week wait to get into detox, but I felt unable to wait and suffered the withdrawal symptoms alone at home, with family checking in on me from time to time.

It was a week of violent shakes and urges so strong that all I could do was sit them out one at a time and groan. After one week clean, I went to Creekside Daytox, a government run program that was a six-weeks long and gave some basic tools for over-coming cravings and what was available locally in the way of recovery support groups. An agnostic

at heart, I saw nothing helpful in any of the faith-based groups, but SMART Recovery was one of the groups and I was impressed with the SMART tools they showed us. In particular, The Cost Benefit Analysis struck home with me and saved me from relapse many times.

When finished my course, I joined a SMART Recovery group a few minutes from my house. Thus continued my journey through the SMART toolbox and the crosstalk was always helpful. Some of the partici-pants had years clean and offered many solutions to immediate issues that I was having. I wasn’t alone and others had gone through the same thing I had and come out clean. It gave me hope.

When the local facilitator in Langley had to close the meeting as he was opening a new business, I moved to a meeting 15 minutes away in White Rock. The facilitator was a vivacious, energetic lady who was running two meetings a week on her own. The tools were done at the meet-ings over and again until I could do them in my sleep, it seemed. I also learned how the pathway I created during my years addicted to alcohol, would weaken but always be there and if I chose to pick up, that old pathway would light up. I was certain that if I lit up that neural path, I would succumb to my old addiction very soon and it was then I knew that my only real hope lay in permanent absti-nence. You see, I was never a “social drinker,” but drank for the buzz. I knew I’d be a goner if I drank again.

When my son, JJ died, I’d been passionately working the SMART

Inspirations Continued

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Tools and could do a CBA in under one minute while driving past a bar. The SMART tools and Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy were changing the way I thought. There were now new ways to find pleasure. I rode my bike, I wrote, and most of all, got closer to my daughter and three granddaughters. I became a real dad and grandpa and was both glad of it and proud to be one. Proud and happy. My mind was clearer and getting better every week, it seemed, and work was better than ever.

Then after 11 months clean and feeling like I owned the world, I got the call that would forever change my life. My son was dead.

At that moment, I didn’t think about CBA’s or ABC’s, I simply felt the anguish of loss. But all those CBA’s and other Behavioural tools had done exactly what they are meant to do. They had changed the way I thought, felt and behaved. There was no craving to have a drink or desire to escape the loss. There was just an understanding deep inside that as horrible as the loss was, as great as the pain I felt, I would live and life would go on and I needed to be there for my girls and grieving family.

Life can bring awesomeness and it can bring terrible pain. Life is often good with great moments and at times terrible. But I can go on and be content and even happy now that I’m not only free of my addiction, but think diametrically opposite to what I did in that past life. And I continue to use the SMART Recovery tools to grow as a person.

Dearest JJ, RIP.

People Power

April is Volunteer MonthMake a difference! Get involved! – Training Grants availableSMART Recovery celebrates

“Volunteer Month” to recognize the efforts of our many dedi-cated volunteers and to encourage others to volunteer. We rely on trained volunteers to help meet the growing demand to bring SMART Recovery to those in need.

Volunteer Training Grants will be made available for those who qualify for financial assistance to cover the cost of the SMART Recovery Facilitator and Support Team Distance Training (FAST).

The grants will be available for:

• local facilitators• online facilitators• message board volunteers• chat volunteers• other volunteers who may

benefit from FAST

Applications for Volunteer Training Grants will be accepted for the entire month of April. If you’ve been consid-ering volunteering at SMART Recovery, now may be your best time to get trained, get involved, and experience the rewards of helping others make a

difference in their own lives! We encourage you to apply as soon as possible via this link:

Face-to-Face Volunteering: Current face-to-face facilitators can distribute a flyer found here to meeting participants to encourage them to start additional SMART meetings in your community.

Online Volunteering: Individuals interested in volunteering for our online community can read the volunteer descriptions. (Note: Prior to applying for these positions, please make note of the requirements. Additional training may be required for some online volunteer positions.)

More Information on Volunteer Month: http://smartrecovery.org/volunteer_month/

Remember to thank a volunteer today!

Call for nominations: the Joseph Gerstein Special Award for Exemplary Service to SMART Recovery®

The Joseph Gerstein award selection committee is now calling for nomina-tions for the 2017 award. If you know someone who has shown significant extraordinary and exemplary service to

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the SMART program, please submit their name plus reasons for selection in the Survey Monkey link found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2017GersteinAward. Deadline for nominations is August 1, 2017. The award recipient will be announced in the October edition of the News & Views, and the award will be presented on September 23, 2017 at the SMART Annual Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

A candidate for this award will have remarkable attributes such as: long and continued service to SMART, signifi-cant contributions of time and talent; adding significantly to the science and evidence-base foundation that supports SMART’s concepts and tools; champi-oning significant new initiatives; working energetically and creatively to support SMART’s activities, etc. (Note: current members of the SMART Recovery Board of Directors are not eligible for this award.)

This very special significant award was first announced and awarded at the 2012 SMART Conference. The first presentation of the award gave tribute and recognition to an individual, who continuously, for over 22 years has given extraordinary and exemplary service towards the growth and dissemi-nation of the SMART program. The name of the award was that of the person who filled those criteria in every manner imaginable, SMART’s founding president, Joe Gerstein. A brief description of Joe Gerstein’s many contributions will serve as a framework for identifying a worthy candidate.

Joe is a retired physician who prac-ticed internal medicine in the Boston

area with a specialty in pain manage-ment. He was concerned with finding help for numerous patients with addic-tion problems, especially to opiate pain medicines; as, many of these patients were not getting help from 12 step programs. His interest in providing a science-based approach to recovery resulted in his being selected and serving as the founding President of SMART Recovery.

Over the past 22 years, Joe has worked tirelessly to further the growth and goals of SMART in both the US and internationally. He is responsible for tremendous growth of the program in New England, facilitating many meet-ings over time, now surpassing 3000 total, and continues this to date. He has served continuously on the SMART Recovery Board of Directors.

Joe introduced SMART to Vietnam. He was instrumental in getting SMART started in Australia and the UK and has served on both boards. There is much more, but I’m sure the reader gets a picture of a person who would personify thus qualify for this highly prestigious award.

This year’s award recipient will receive a cash award of $1,000, which is to be used at the discretion of the awardee to support activities related to SMART such as travel for education, research into SMART related matters,

etc. A brief report from the awardee on how the award was used, will be made at the SMART annual meeting the following year in 2018.

Nominate someone you know has provided exemplary service to SMART!

SMART 2017: rising strong in Fort Lauderdale new research, inner-city meetings, SMART web app, MI workshopby Bill Greer, SMART Recovery Board Member

Under the theme Rising Strong, the 2017 SMART Recovery Annual Conference will take place September 22-24 at the GALLERYone DoubleTree Suites hotel in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The program highlights include:• New research into how SMART is

used effectively compared with 12-step and other support-group models, based on the results of the NIH-funded Peer Alternatives (PAL) study, conducted over two years by a research team led by Sarah Zemore, PhD, of the Alcohol Research Group, who will present the findings.

• A pioneering initiative to launch inner-city meetings in Baltimore, BMore SMART, led by Hugh Delaney, a former Regional Coordinator and long-time SMART advocate.

• William Campbell, PhD, will present ongoing work on the web app that he and Dr. Hester have developed to help people overcome addictions using the SMART 4-Point Program®. The new program,

Articles are welcome!If you have a story or information you would like to see published in News & Views, please submit it

to Christi Farmer,[email protected]

Unsolicited material is most welcome!

People Power Continued



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smartrecovery.checkupandchoices.com is also being used in a new grant project to understand how it can be implemented in treatment programs as well as to help therapists track how well patients are responding to treatment. Dr. Campbell has collab-orated with Dr. Hester on numerous research grants and publications.

Attendees can hone their Motivational Interviewing skills at an optional workshop on the last day led by Dr. Lori Eickleberry, PhD, ABPP, Board Certified in Behavioral and Cognitive Psychology, and Founder of three clinics including the Motivational Institute for Behavioral Health, LLC. “Dr. Lori” has conducted numerous presentations, workshops and professional trainings in Motivational Interviewing for govern-ment and private institutions and is part of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT). Six hours of CEUs will be awarded upon comple-tion of the workshop, which apply to the four categories of licensed Florida mental health providers.

Come Early to Enjoy the Beaches, Opening Night Dinner

People should consider coming early to enjoy the beautiful beaches, playing volleyball and tossing Frisbees on the sand, and tour the Hugh Taylor Birch State Park with extensive trails and a lagoon. Water taxis are available to transport people around the area. The first evening will feature a casual dinner.

For more information on how to register, check the SMART Recovery website later this spring at www.smartrecovery.org.

Call for board candidates SMART Recovery®, a non-profit organi-zation founded in 1994, is dedicated to helping individuals overcome addictive behaviors – www.smartrecovery.org. The Board is comprised of professionals and individuals who have achieved recovery using the program. The organi-zation is seeking new members for the Board of Directors who have proven expertise in the following areas:

• Information Technology• Fundraising/Grant Writing • Social Media • Strategic Planning

If your employment history includes successful experience in one of these areas, we invite you to apply to serve our rapidly growing, life-changing organization.

Requirements: 1. Participation in monthly Board

Meetings (via GoToMeeting) and participation in the Annual Fall Board Meeting (in person). Costs associated with travel to and from the fall Board meeting are paid by the member. Attendance is requested at all meetings, but required at the Quarterly Meetings in January, April, July, and fall meeting.

2. Board Members are called upon to review, discuss and make decisions relevant to organization-wide SMART Recovery policies and issues. For example, Board meetings are not intended to provide a forum for discussion of local outreach efforts, but to determine how the national organization and Central Office can better support the efforts of

the organization as a whole. “Big picture” thinking.

3. Members are expected to volunteer for committee activities, and to spend time outside of the Board meetings to help to increase the visi-bility and awareness of SMART Recovery, as well as to assist with fundraising efforts.

4. Members of the Board are expected to offer their skills for free.

5. Members of the Board of Directors are requested to “Give or Get” $1,000 annually to help meet the financial needs of the organization. (A structure is in place to ensure that this does not create a finan-cial burden on the individual Board Member.)

Application Process: 1. An Application Form needs to be

completed by August 1st.

2. Three letters of support/recommen-dation are to accompany the Application Form.

3. Executive Committee members will review all applications and make recommendations for approval at the Fall Board of Directors Meeting.

4. The Board of Directors will consider and approve selected candidates at the Fall Meeting.

5. Following the Fall Board Meeting, applicants will be advised of the outcome of their application.

Term of Office: 1. New Directors will be elected to the

Board of Directors each year and will hold office for a term of two years.

2. The term of office for each member of the Board will begin on the 31st of




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December of the year elected, and will end on the 30th of December two years following.

3. Members may be considered for re-election.

Please complete the application form found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2017BoardofDirectorsApp and forward three letters of recommendation to [email protected]. Thank you!

Finding hopeby dawnrenae

In a few weeks, my son will turn 18. Last week he received an acceptance letter from his first choice in colleges, and in May, he will graduate high school. A year ago, these things seemed a distant and possibly lost dream. A year ago, there seemed to be no solution other than waiting for my son to “hit rock bottom” and decide to change.

Having a child with an addiction has been one of the most isolating, lonely experiences of my life. As my friends talked about the college their child would go to, prom, homecoming, and National Honor Society inductions, I was visiting my son at juvenile deten-tion, taking him to see his probation officer, or running to the ER to see if he would survive the latest reaction to synthetic drugs. I was just happy each day that he woke up. Who else could relate to this reality?

I believed there was nothing I could do to help him, and believing in him and being kind to him was considered

“enabling. Every professional I spoke to said 12 step programs were the only way out, but my son had been trying that, unsuccessfully, for three years. Then professionals told me that he needed 90 days in a treatment center, but insurance

would only pay for 30. Then, he needed to go to a sober living home across the country for at least three months, which would take more money than I had to offer. If I couldn’t do that then I needed to set the boundary that he stop or he moves out—onto the street or into a locked, state-run mental health and drug treatment program. But how could I do that? This was my baby; how could I just let him go and let his addiction destroy him? It was an impossible situation; no one could help me and there was no one to talk to.

In desperation, I did a Google search for alternative programs, and that is when I discovered SMART. I immedi-ately ordered the Family & Friends (F&F) handbook, “Beyond Addiction,” and “Get Your Loved One Sober.” Then, I went to a Family & Friends meeting. As soon as the meeting started, I could feel my burden lighten. Here was a place where I didn’t feel alone….other people were in my position and understood my life.

For the first time in three years, someone told me it was okay to love and care for my son, that showing him kind-ness wasn’t enabling him. They helped me see the importance of caring for myself and suggested ways to support my child and encouraged me to live and work towards happiness even while my son struggled. And, for the first time, they gave me hope.

For the past year, I have been very involved in the Family& Friends program. I’ve met friends, people who support me each week. When everyone was dragging me down the meetings built me up and gave me the strength to keep going.

As I got stronger and began to culti-vate peace in my heart, my son was able

to reach out to SMART and help himself. After fighting addiction for three years, my son is now nine months into recovery thanks to the SMART Recovery on-line program. Just as SMART Recovery gave me the lifeline I needed, it helped save my son.

Now my son is sober and building a life, my family is no longer being torn apart, my husband and I are communi-cating; I am laughing. I have peace and hope. I have people I can talk to, people who understand me and are happy for me. I know there may be challenges ahead, but thanks to SMART Recovery and the Family & Friends program, I am confident my son, my family, and I can get through whatever comes our way.

SMART Ideas

(This article was inadvertently left out of the winter edition but is definitely worth the read!)

SMART Tools conference benefits professionals, facilitators and meeting attendeeby Bill Greer, SMART Recovery board member

More than 50 addiction recovery profes-sionals, SMART facilitators and meeting attendees gathered together at the first regional conference devoted completely to program tools on Saturday, October 22, in Laurel, MD. This SMART Tools




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to Overcome Addiction conference was hosted by the SMART Recovery Capital Region, covering DC, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

The program featured interactive demonstrations of the main exercises and strategies associated with each of the SMART program’s four points. It closed with a 90-minute session for profes-sionals and facilitators to discuss how SMART complements treatment. Professionals earned five CEUs, and all participants received a comprehensive handout of the tools and strategies used in SMART Recovery.

ABCs Illustrated With Live Therapy Session

“All in all, it was a fantastic confer-ence, well planned and well put together,” said Jonathan von Breton, MA, CCMHC, ICADC, a long-time SMART trainer, who gave a one-hour presentation on the ABC tool associated

with Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy. To illustrate this tool, he conducted a live therapy session with a willing and courageous attendee.

Annapolis, MD, Facilitator John Harris started the event with a detailed presentation of the Cost-Benefit Analysis used for the motivation Point 1. This demonstration included how people use the tool to sustain motiva-tion later in recover to avoid relapses when tempted, for example, by thoughts of moderation.

SMART’s arsenal of tools to help people cope with urges was presented by Donny Phillips, MSW, and Michele Blair, two long-time Maryland facilita-tors. They covered DEADS, DISARM and the many thinking errors that chal-lenge people trying to abstain.

Former Regional Coordinator Hugh Delaney closed out the tools portion of the program with a detailed demonstra-tion of the Lifestyle Balance Pie.

Professionals Compare SMART and 12 Steps

The session for professionals reviewed the main philosophical differences between the SMART and 12-step programs, led by Facilitator Brooke Shetgen, LCPC, Clinical Supervisor of the Baltimore Washington Counseling Center, and Grace Caulfield, LCPC, CAC-AD, Clinical Director of the Kolmac Outpatient Recovery Center in Silver Spring, MD.

The event was planned over a period of three months by a committee of six people, who divided the work of program development, marketing, professional outreach and CEUs, refresh-ments (including water, coffee, bagels, pastries and boxed lunches), securing space at the St. Philips Episcopal Church, which hosts weekly SMART meetings, and developing meeting mate-rials, including flipcharts, markers and conference folders for the tools handout, SMART background materials, paper for notes and pens.

The success of the conference is prompting plans of making this an annual event and possibly holding half-day meetings focusing on tools.

Habitsby Hank Robb, PhD, ABPP

I was reading the SMARTcal list serve and noticed a posting about habits. I thought I would call attention to a News & Views article I had written on this subject but, when searching my records, I found I’d never published one! So here’s that article that up to now, I’ve failed to write for News & Views.

Habits are behaviors we do quickly and easily and without much awareness. Acting out of habit is simply part of life.

SMART Ideas Continued

Jonathan von Breton sharing his skills with a conference participant







There is nothing particularly “wrong” with habitual action. However, some-times we find that our habitual actions don’t fit very well with the life we actu-ally want to be living. This is not all that surprising since we can easily develop a habit without much noticing that we are doing so. As people some-times explain, “I just sort of fell into it.”

Because habits are done quickly and easily and without much awareness, changing a habit first requires that we become more aware. It requires

“consciousness raising,” or “noticing.” Said slightly differently, it requires mindful, rather than mindless, action and mindful action is best done from

“that place from which” that was covered in the last issue of News & Views.

At the outset of habit change, our noticing almost always comes “too late.” What we notice is “that didn’t work!” In other words, the opportunity to act differently has already passed. Life has moved on. We might recognize, “that didn’t work,” three months, thee weeks, three days, three hours or three minutes

after doing our habit and in each of these cases, the opportunity for different action has come and gone. In such moments we commonly promise ourselves, “Next time!”

It would be nice if we could move directly from noticing “too late” to noticing “just before” so that we could do a “new thing” rather than the “old thing.” Unfortunately, it commonly doesn’t work that way. Instead, of going directly from “the time for the new behavior is past” to “the time for the new behavior is about to be present,” we instead find ourselves “in between.” We notice that, though we have already begun our habit, the situation is not yet over. The drink, so to speak, has been poured but we haven’t yet drunk it. That

“in-the-moment-awareness” provides our first real opportunity to switch to a new behavior rather than continuing the old.

Habits are said to “fit like a glove” which is to say they “feel right” even if they work out poorly. Thus, whatever new behavior we do, it will not have that quality of “fitting like a glove.”

Instead, it will most likely feel odd, weird, strange and “not like me.” Nothing’s wrong! That is just what happens when anyone acts differently than a way that has been done “quickly and easily and without much awareness.” Those feelings of “strangeness” are just part of the “price of admission” paid in the habit change process. Making that payment allows us to enter the life we are more interested in living.

Additionally, when we begin acting differently, our performance will not be nearly as good as it might eventually become. Quite often we begin awkwardly and clumsily even if later we might perform well and with ease. Once again – nothing’s wrong! That, also, is simply part of the process of changing from an old, well-practiced habit, to a different behavior.

The key thing to note is this: if we refuse to experience either: 1) the “this is odd, weird, strange and not like me” feeling or 2) performing poorly and awkwardly, at least in the beginning, then it will be impossible to change our

old habit and adopt new behavior. Why? Because these are exactly the experi-ences that come when we try to change from an old, well-established, way of acting to a new and different one. We might describe these two experiences as additional parts of the overall “price of admission” to acting differently than we have quickly and easily acted up to now,


These

tools

include:

SMART Recovery® Tools & Techniques

SMART’s 4-Point Program® uses many tools and tech-niques that may help you gain independence from addictive behavior.

• Change Plan Worksheet• Cost-Benefit Analysis• ABCs of REBT for urge coping• ABCs of REBT for emotional upsets• DISARM (Destructive Images Self-talk

Awareness and Refusal Method)• Brainstorming• Role-playing and Rehearsing• Hierarchy of Values

We encourage you to

learn how to use

each tool and to

practice the tools

and techniques

to help you

progress toward Point

4: Living

a Balanced Life.







a price that began with raising our awareness.

Habit change often raises the ques-tion of “will power.” Many folks think of

“will power” as what allows us to change when, in fact, it is what we get by changing. When we are doing our old behavior, we have lots of “will power” to act in that way. The more we do the new behavior the more “will power” we generate to act in that new way. Thus,

“will power” is not what we have that lets us change. It is what we get by changing.

Consider an exercise like pushups. If you’ve been spending your time on the couch rather than doing pushups, you have lots of “couch-siting-power.” However, if, day after day, you get down on the floor and push yourself up as many times as you can, your “get-on-the-floor-and-push-yourself-up-power” increases even though you didn’t have that much when you began. Your get-on-the-floor-and-push-yourself-up-power isn’t what allowed you to begin pushing yourself up or continue to keep at it. That happened because you chose to push yourself up and continue doing so. You made that choice in the beginning even though you didn’t feel much like doing so and could only push yourself up a few times, and maybe not even once! However, the more you kept at it, the easier you found it to persist. That is the story of “will power.” The more you do something the more “will power” you have to do it. The more you give in to an urge, the more will power you have to give in. The more you don’t give in to an urge, the more will power you have to resist. And, once you are aware of what you are doing in the moment you are doing it, you get to choose to continue or change. Continue making a

choice and your sense of power to make that choice grows. That’s SMART Recovery – The Power of Choice, the source of growing your will power.

The longer we practice the new way of responding, the more we lose the sense that, “this is not like me,” and instead build, “this is like me.” Additionally, with practice, we tend to lose our awkwardness and our actions are performed more smoothly. In other words, the new behavior becomes more habitual. Even so, we never really lose our ability to perform old habits or the urge to do so. Once we learn to do something, we still know how to do it and the temptation to act in that old way is always around even if its strength lessens with the growing strength of the new way of acting. Another way to make this point is to say that while we can continue adding to our life history, we can’t just “throw away” the life history we already have.

Habit change has a “price of admis-sion.” We can choose to pay that price by first becoming more aware and then accepting the discomforts that come with change for long enough that the change becomes a new habit. The more you exert your Power of Choice, the better you become at doing so!

SMART Recovery’s 12-step alternative meets at Betty Fordby David Weidman, Chair, Regional Coordinator Committee SMART Recovery

About a year ago I asked a friend to make, what I felt to be, an audacious call to my counterpart at the nonprofit Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, Outreach Manager Joelle Jacobson. She set up a meeting between Dr. Matthew

“Matt” Polacheck, Director of Westwood,

Los Angeles IOP, and me. Matt told me that he met Tom Horvath, SMART board member, a few years back and was inspired by his message. Matt was also extremely receptive to the Family &Friends (F&F) program, especially since he had come from the world of teenagers and substance use.

Matt provided SMART a room free-of-charge in their beautiful, new facility and allowed me free reign to decide the schedule that would work best for SMART Recovery. I scheduled a Wednesday afternoon SMART meeting and a Friday evening SMART F&F meeting. During the first six months or so of last year, I spent many days and nights alone in the room or sometimes with one or two others. I wondered what I was doing wrong. I asked Matt if I could make presentations to his outpa-tient group, and he has been receptive to each request. These presentations have been received very well but still to this day only a small percentage of the people in their program take advantage of our SMART support groups.

Having said that, I am excited to report that we have seen some solid growth in both of these meetings (Friday F&F was switched to Thursday recently), as well as some real cohesion among the participants. Inspired by stories of Regional Coordinators in other parts of the country who facilitate weekend groups I have added a Saturday after-noon SMART meeting to the repertoire there, and even this group has some regular adherents already. Last week, Wednesday’s group had eight attendees, the week before we had a F&F group with 13 attendees, many coming with their loved ones, and this past Saturday we had five folks, two of whom are in the outpatient program at Betty Ford!








One of them hugged me after the meeting. The Saturday meeting has been especially gratifying because Matt’s clinic is closed on the weekends, and he has been extremely kind and trusting in providing me a key to the office, so we can have our weekend meetings there.

As Chair of SMART’s Regional Coordinator Committee, I am especially heartened at the recent interest being reported across the country and world, as well as, my own, more myopic view of solid and steady growth here in Los Angeles. The mere fact that our meet-ings take place at the Betty Ford IOP here in Los Angeles is a testament to SMART’s growing influence and the obvious need for rationality and reason in the coming years. Sitting amongst the ubiquitous 12-Step plaques in every room is a sobering reminder that we still have lots of work ahead.

SMART Progress

New Research Evidence Supports Choice in Recovery!Reprinted from the SMART Recovery Blog on January 17, 2017

Many SMART Recovery attendees participated in a national study over the past two years which compared 12-step groups to mutual help alternatives. (You may recall it as the PAL Study.) The overall goal of the study was to deter-mine differences in membership, group

participation, cohesion and satisfaction. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Study results have now been published in the “Journal of Substance

Abuse Treatment”, and the study

found that people in recovery who attended

alternative support groups

experienced more cohesion and greater satisfac-

tion when compared with members of traditional 12-step

programs. (SMART Recovery, LifeRing and Women for Sobriety meeting participants were included in the study, as well as 12-step participants.)

Importantly, the study also revealed that SMART, LifeRing and WFS should be referred to by professionals – particu-larly to their clients who are less religious or may be unsure of their commitment to abstinence when first

contemplating a mutual support program. To quote verbatim: “Results suggest differences across 12-step groups and their alternatives that may be relevant when advising clients on a choice of mutual help group. Meanwhile, findings for high levels of participation, satisfaction, and cohesion among members of the mutual help alter-natives suggest promise for these groups in addressing addiction problems.” This is extremely helpful, and we hope the results of this study will continue the trend for treatment professionals to recommend SMART Recovery and

other non-12-step alternatives to their clients.

Those who have benefited from SMART Recovery won’t find the study results surprising, but

having additional research to support our mission and purpose (which includes:


SPECIAL EVENTS 2017







New SMART live! Online chat and meeting roomsby Jonathan von Breton (JvB)

It was a dark and stormy night. … Wait a minute. That’s not the right opening.

On January 1, 2017, the new on-line Chat and Meeting Rooms went LIVE. In fact, the new system was called SMART Live. This was the result of months of hard work behind the scenes by Chris, our Chief Technical Person, and micky2010, our Assistant Chief Tech Person. Along with them was a small army of software developers.

Micky2010 also wrote the technical manual and provided training for the facilitators. One great thing about Micky is that she can translate tech-nical terms into clear, easy to understand instructions.

So, what’s new?

I’m glad you asked.

SMART Live has a host of new features.

• Whiteboard functionality

This gives Facilitators several new abilities.1. Ability to share eight of the

most commonly used tools like the CBA and ABC Worksheets from SROL Tool Chest. These are preloaded so all a Facilitator has to do is select what they want to display from a drop-down menu.

2. Ability to load one-time use documents for your specific meetings. I use this to display my re-meeting greeting, the Meeting opening, my overview for newcomers about what is available to them at SROL, and some of my personal writ-ings on REBT.

3. There is also the option to use just the whiteboard. To do that, I have to select ‘Whiteboard’ and open a text box.

Anything on the White Board is displayed in the center panel. This way, it stays put and doesn’t scroll off the screen. Attendees can also choose to download the material.

• Meeting room polling of participants

I used this for the first time 2/27/17. I listed 6 SMART Tools and asked partici-pants which one they used most frequently. The top two were the CBA and the ABC Tools.

Other new features include:

• Addition of a link at the bottom of every meeting for technical help/report inappropriate behavior

• Streamlined meeting password management

• Updated Facilitator Training and Participant User Guide

I’m very pleased with myself that I have only accidently shut down the new room three times. Each time, I hit a wrong button.

Overall, I really like the new system.

Calling all facilitators:Please click

below to share some info on the Courts

in your community:

Court Outreach

Questionnaire

A peek at the 2016 SMART Recovery Surveyby Timothy J. Eddy, PhD SMART Recovery Board of Directors and Salem State University Department of Psychology

It’s that time of year again! After the SMART Recovery Annual Survey was made available for the period of November 28th, 2016 – January 30th, 2017, we’ve gathered data on some of

SMART Progress Continued

“to support the availability of choices in recovery”) is a huge achievement for SMART Recovery and our colleagues at other non-12 step organizations.

A summary of the study may be found here. Dr. Sarah Zemore and her team at Alcohol Research Group plan to publish further analyses examining how involve-ment in each group under the study (SMART, LifeRing, WFS and 12-step groups) relates to substance use outcomes at their 6- and 12-month follow-ups, which will provide additional information on the efficacy of each group. Stay tuned!

SMART Recovery would like to thank and acknowledge Dr. Zemore and her team for this important and supportive research!



https://goo.gl/O4URX2



http://www.journalofsubstanceabusetreatment.com/article/S0740-5472%2816%2930277-X/abstract





the folks involved in SMART Recovery, their characteristics, and their thoughts on the program. Below you will find just a few of the facts we learned from our recent perusal of the data from 853 people who took the time to take our online survey—some of whom were participants, some who were volunteers, and some who func-tioned in both capacities. For those of you who participated, Thank you for your time and attention!!

First, and consistent with previous survey results, SMART Recovery participants and facilitators come from across a wide spectrum of ages, from under age 20 (less than 1% of respon-dents) to 70 years of age or older (about 4%). The largest majority of those involved with SMART fall in the age range of 50-69 years old (48%), but are closely followed by those between the ages of 20-49 (47%). Additionally, 50% of the respondents were Female, 49% were Male, and around1% indicated that they were transgendered or preferred not to answer.

Considering education, there has been some speculation that the majority of participants and facilitators in SMART Recovery have advanced degrees, or somehow represent higher-than-average education levels. In fact, in this survey, 44% reported having less than a Bachelor’s degree, and 46% reported having either a Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree. Only about 10% reported education levels higher than a Master’s Degree. SMART Recovery really is a program that helpful to people of a variety of education back-grounds, and those backgrounds are represented by those who volunteered to complete our survey.

One notable set of results focussed on the SMART Recovery tools and their use. For example, facilitators responded to the question “How often do you use these tools in meetings?”, where one of the options was “Very Often”. The following rank order was obtained for this response: Cost-Benefit Analysis(81%), ABC’s/REBT (70%), Hierarchy of Values (69%), Unconditional Self-Acceptance (59%), Brainstorming (38%), Stages of Change and DISARM (37% each), Change Plan Worksheet (34%), Urge Log (30%), and Role-Play/Rehearsal (3%). The tools most frequently not used by those participants who responded to this question were Role-Play/Rehearsal (30%), Urge Log (15%), and DISARM (14%).

Another interesting question addressed by these data concerns the importance of SMART Recovery as a resource to draw on. Seventy-one percent rated the program as an Excellent resource, and 21 percent rated it as Very Good. Five percent rated it as Good. Less than 3 percent of the respon-dents viewed the program as a Fair or Poor resource.

Concerning the importance of various aspects of the SMART Recovery Program, those factors most often rated as “Extremely Important” included the SMART Recovery tools (61%), the Four-Point Program (46%), the website-www.smartrecovery.org—(45%), and the SMART Recovery face-to-face meetings (43%).

Many of our respondents indicated that they frequently made use of other activities or supports in their addic-tion-related work. Of those who responded to these questions, Hobbies/

VACI’s, Books/other published/recorded materials, and meditation/mindfulness topped the list (33%, 28%, and 22%, respectively). Topping the list of “Never” being engaged with were LifeRing and Inpatient treatment (91% each), Women for Sobriety (89%) Secular Organization for Sobriety (SOS—88%), and Al-Anon/Nar-Anon (86% reported never using the resource).

One interesting aspect of the data reveals that a surprising number of our respondents attend SMART Recovery to fulfill a court requirement. Eighty-seven percent of our respondents indicated that their attendance at meet-ings was unrelated to legal issues, but 13% indicated that attending SMART Recovery meetings was due to a court requirement. Interestingly, of those whose initial attendance was for court purposes, fully 94% indicated that they still attended meetings even though they had met their course requirements. This is a notable finding that deserves further analysis.

Many people, both facilitators and participants, are interested to learn about how the public learns about SMART Recovery. The majority (48%) learn through online searches. Treatment programs and Counselor/Therapists follow a close second (22 and 19%, respectively). Friends or family members accounted for 11% of our referrals, and mention in non-SMART Recovery websites or online articles or blogs accounted for 4% of referrals (Note that these do not add up to 100% because respondents were asked to “check all that apply,” which may have acknowl-edged more than one source).









To exhaustively present all the data would pose a formidable task, but hope-fully this small snapshot will allow you to get a feel for who we serve and the portions of the program that are valued by those involved with the program. Above all else, one thing emerges from this data that is undeniable: SMART Recovery continues to provide service to a large segment of the population, and that the vast majority of those who utilize the service view it as an excel-lent resource. Thanks to all of the SMART Recovery volunteers who continue to help SMART Recovery realize its mission.

President’s Letter

SMART issues statement on first meta-analysis of its Mutual-Support Recovery Model SMART issued a statement on the publication of a “Systematic Review of SMART Recovery: Outcomes, Process Variables and Implications for Research” in this February’s edition of the Psychology of Addictive Behaviors. In this statement, President Joe Gerstein, MD, FACP, stated:

We welcome the first review of research on SMART Recovery by an international team of addiction scien-tists, published in one of the world’s leading addiction journals. This review of scientific literature covered 12

studies published from 2000 to 2016. This growing body of research, espe-cially in the most recent years, reflects the increased interest in the scientific community about the important role SMART could play in addiction recovery, alleviating one of the most serious global healthcare crises.

This study follows the publication in January, 2017 of the first “SMART Recovery Bibliography” – listing 109 research studies, articles, doctoral theses and other materials – by Rita Chaney, MS, and William White, MA. The first comprehensive review of SMART was conducted by Tom Horvath, PhD, FACP, and Julie Yeterian, PhD, “SMART Recovery: Self-Empowering, Science-Based Addiction Recovery Support,” published in 2012 in the Journal of Groups in Addiction & Recovery.

SMART Recovery hosts 2,200 free weekly mutual support group meetings in 19 countries, from Australia to the UK to Uzbekistan, including 1,200 meetings in the U.S. People anywhere in the world can participate in 30 weekly online meetings. Due to SMART’s accessibility, we strongly support the study’s recommendation to clinicians:

Given the positive effects of SMART Recovery and SMART Recovery-informed interventions to enhance client-centered, collabora-tive care … tailored to the needs and preferences of the individuals, clinicians need to be aware of the range of mutual aid support options available, including SMART Recovery, and discuss these options with their clients. (p. 19)

All of this research underscores the potential for SMART to make an even greater contribution in the future to reducing addictive problems worldwide.

SMART leaders and our network of some 4,000 volunteers, including profes-sionals and trained meeting facilitators, stand ready to collaborate with scientific investigators in every way possible to advance and accelerate research into our recovery support model.

This new review using the most stringent and detailed guidelines avail-able represents a milestone in research of SMART, coming just 23 years after its founding. By contrast, the research of Alcoholics Anonymous was first rigorously reviewed in 1993 (Emrick, et al.), 58 years after it was founded in 1935; and Narcotics Anonymous research has not yet been systemati-cally studied.

The shorter timeframe may be attributed to the growing awareness that mutual support groups are integral for many people trying to recover from serious addictions. In addition, the clinical community has recognized the need for multiple pathways to recovery

– and especially for self-empowering models that SMART has helped pioneer. For these and other reasons, more funding is available for the growing number of scientists focusing on the role of mutual support groups in addiction recovery.

Regardless of the scientific evidence about the efficacy of a particular mutual support group, the ultimate test of a group is whether people attend it. AA was well attended long before there was significant scientific evidence of its efficacy, because partici-pants found these meetings helpful. Similarly, attendance in SMART meetings continues to grow because its self-empowering approach has been an option generally lacking in the mutual support group setting, and an option highly valued by many individuals.







International Development

The UK is buzzing with SMART activityScotland: We borrowed Frank Brodde from SMART Recovery in Denmark for three months to help Trish Allan. Undoubtedly the highlight of the last two months for both Frank and Trish has been the opportunity to train prisoners in HMP Inverness in Getting SMART and SMART Facilitator.

As Trish comments

“For me, being part of the training inside the prison was once again a truly remarkable event, not only due to the fact that HMP Inverness is the ONLY prison who is inviting people IN to the prison from communities across the Highlands, who is in recovery and wishing to facilitate SMART Recovery meetings, to train alongside the prisoners and the prisoners are now going on to facilitate meetings inside the prison”.

Frank remarked

“I have had meetings with different people at prisons and SMART commu-nity meetings, and last week co-delivered face to face training along-side the work of Trish. I have been especially privileged to take part in the training at HMP Inverness – where SMART in the UK all started with the help of Joe Gerstein – some still remem-bered his visit. Last week 22 participants (9 prisoners and 13 from outside)

attended and completed the Getting SMART and SMART Facilitator training to be involved and begin their own meetings in the prison and the community. My humble goal is to bring the fantastic prison program to Denmark and Scandinavia through my connections in Norway and Iceland and Sweden”

This is only part of the work going on in prisons. Out of fifteen prisons across Scotland, thirteen are now signed up to deliver SMART Recovery meetings to inmates.

Trish and Frank received the following feedback after the event

“On behalf of Highlands Alcohol & Drug Partnership, I want to say a massive thank you for all your hard work over the last few days, and Frank too, for supporting the peer mentor training this week with GET SMART. It was with great pride and emotion that I witnessed the interactions between those who took part and heard the feedback of participant’s experience of the training. Again a great achieve-ment for all partners involved.”

Sharon Holloway Development Officer Highlands Alcohol & Drug Partnership

England: Dave Hasney has been developing a relationship with the mili-tary in North Yorkshire with the aim of seeing SMART Recovery as a choice for both veterans and serving personnel. He has been busy in HMP Northumberland delivering training to prisoners who are keen to become Peer Meeting Facilitators, which has led to

enquiries from other prisons. Dave has also had very posi-tive feedback from his prison work. He is busy developing links with Northern Ireland, where the first part-nership agreement has

just been signed. Dave now has a fellow National Coordinator to help with the work in England.

Carl Zuccaro is our newest colleague on the staff team.

Carl’s professional background is in treatment services, where he has worked for a number of UK SMART Recovery® partner organisations in the Lincoln area, where he is based. He is an experienced meeting facilitator. He has also set up his own organisation C.O.P.E Recovery which is a not for profit community group run solely by volunteers. Coming together and connecting as a community, based on the 5 ways to wellbeing and using an asset based community develop-ment approach. It runs various projects







including sports, creative writing, open mic, drop in sessions and peer mentoring.

Speaking of his appointment to the post:

“It is a privilege to be appointed as National Coordinator for England and I am looking forward to joining the UK SMART Recovery team already doing fantastic work to develop the programme nationally. SMART Recovery has been the cornerstone of my personal recovery journey from the moment I was welcomed at my first meeting as an indi-vidual disconnected from society and burdened with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. From those daunting early days of sobriety to facilitating local meet-ings, reconnecting with my community and eventually into employment with various traditional treatment and recovery oriented services in my region, SMART recovery has truly given me the ‘power of choice’ and enabled me to be the best version of me possible.”

Wales: Leigh Proctor has been simi-larly active. She has attracted funding to pilot a Peer Support Worker in North Wales for three months from January to March 2017. Graham Rowson’s work in developing peer-led meetings has been so successful that North Wales APB has agreed to fund a one-year part-time post to build on Graham’s work. She has also successfully negotiated with Cwm Taf Health Board to pilot the SMART Teen programme within their Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) for one year. The Consultant Psychologist will then write an evalua-tion of this innovative project with the aim of sharing it as an example of good practice across CAMHS service across Wales. If that wasn’t enough she is also active in the rollout of the Family &

Friends programme. Having co-facili-tated and facilitated the online meeting for a number of years she has now devel-oped a face-to-face training package. We are working in partnership with Adfam, an umbrella organisation addressing the needs of families where addiction is an issue, to evidence the need for Family & Friends so we can fundraise to roll it out across England.

Central Office: Therese Davall, Business Manager and Matt Frost, Admin continue to provide a very high standard of support to their colleagues, partner organisations and most impor-tantly our volunteers. The online team led by Hans Zebrowski and Deirdre Walsh, Volunteer Online Coordinators, are getting to grips with the new BBB software as well as supporting the Community and providing very well attended online meetings.

Our online training is supported by Dan Murphy, Volunteer Training Coordinator, whom we could not do without. We have also recruited some new Volunteer Regional Coordinators, who we will introduce to you next time.

Angie King

E.D.

SMART Recovery Alberta Update March 2017Hello to the SMART World from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

SMART Recovery Alberta (SRA) is starting off the 2017 year with many positive events to report.

On February 7th, our inaugural Family & Friends (F&F) meeting was held. The meeting was a huge success, and I am

happy to report we had 14 people in attendance of the meeting. SRA plans to hold our F&F meetings on the first and third Tuesdays of each month as we build awareness of the meeting and generate demand for extra meetings each month. Having 14 people at our first meeting was a positive surprise, and it looks like we will have enough interest in our F&F meetings to support addi-tional meetings.

With the addition of our 7th weekly meeting on the first and third weeks of the month, a dream of mine was achieved. In 2005 when I first entered recovery, I thought it would be wonderful to have a meeting available seven days a week, an increase from the three weekly meetings that were currently being held. For two weeks, each month, that dream has been realized, and SRA hopes to hold meetings every day of every month in the near future.

Alberta now has 16 weekly meetings helping individuals abstain from addic-tive substances/activities, and we are always looking to bring new meetings to new cities as we move forward. Currently we are serving in excess of 150 clients weekly.

A second dream is currently being realized by SRA. Our initial application for Charitable Status has been submitted to the Canada Revenue Agency, and we hope to hear back from them within six months from now, and have our Charitable Status granted within one year from now.

Currently five dedicated facilitators are responsible for facilitating SRA’s weekly meetings. By the end of April, we are looking forward to having an

International Development Continued







additional four facilitators added to our roster. The addition of four facilitators will dramatically decrease the workload that our five current facilitators are being asked to carry. Having nine facili-tators will help ensure that facilitator burnout does not happen, and facili-tating continues to be enjoyable instead of hard work. With the additional facil-itators, SRA will also be able to accommodate a F&F meeting every Tuesday of the month.

SRA looks forward to providing timely updates from Albert in our next quarterly update in June 2017.

Sincerely on behalf of SRA and their Board Members,

Curtis BoudreauExecutive Director SMART Recovery Alberta

SMART Recovery in Irelandby Deirdre Fitzpatrick

Hi All,

We have completed the pilot phase of introducing and rolling out SMART Recovery in Ireland. The purpose of this phase was to train front line workers to establish meet-ings in their areas and continue to support them in establishing meet-ings. We are aiming that meetings will be peer led within the next 2-3 years. This phase was evaluated and we are in the process of finalizing the report and it all looks tremendous!

There are currently 40 SMART Recovery meetings in Ireland, across the following areas: Dublin, Wicklow, Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny, Tipperary,

Carlow, Cavan and Louth. We have a number of diverse groups including: two women’s only meetings, one male only group, a male only traveller group and one teen group.

We continue to roll out online training to both professionals and volunteers in the addiction field. We also hope to have SMART Recovery meetings spread across the country this year. So far, we have County Galway and Donegal on board to roll out meetings this year.

We are in the process of completing the Irish version of the SMART Recovery online training with the assistance of drugs.ie. We recorded our Irish meeting in February, under the direction of Andy from drugs.ie and it is all coming together brilliantly.

Our aim at this point is to develop SMART Recovery Ireland as a national organization with its own governance structure this summer! Busy and massively exciting times ahead!

SMART Recovery has been tested in Denmark, with remarkably good results:by Bendt Skjold Hansen, SMART Recovery in Denmark

Social Agency has initiated a project where the SMART concept has been tested in Denmark. The trial took place from 2013 to 2016 and has been managed by voluntary organizations and individuals. There was in the period, created a total of 25 SMART groups, and overall had 906 citizens participated in one or more SMART meetings by August 2016.

The target group were citizens who after completing substance abuse treat-ment wanted support and networking in order to maintain the results of their drug addiction treatment.

The evaluation focuses on the imple-mentation and results of the testing of SMART Recovery in Denmark. Data has been collected through question-naires to citizens who have participated in self-help groups, for group facilitators and project managers. Additionally, there was performed focus group inter-views with the participating citizens and facilitators.

The evaluation shows that it is possible to implement the concept with a high degree of method fidelity. This means that the method has been implemented in accordance with the method manual. The participating citizens also believe that the results they have achieved via SMART groups, is linked exactly to the use of the SMART concept.

The results, the participating citizens have experienced, can be divided into three categories:

1. Citizens feel that SMART concept strengthens them to master their own situation and that they via participation in the SMART groups, get some concrete tools that make them able to make better choices now and in the future. This applies both to addictive behavior and generally in life.

2. Citizens indicate that SMART groups are helping to strengthen their social skills, networks and self-esteem. They feel that they are accepted in the group, as they are and that they thereby also learn to






©2017 ADASHN, Inc., 7304 Mentor Avenue, Suite F, Mentor, OH 44060, all rights reserved. All statements regarding self-help in this newsletter are the views of the author and are not an official endorsement

of the Alcohol & Drug Abuse Self-Help Network, Inc.

SMART Recovery® relies on volunteer labor and donations. Please be generous with your time and money!

accept others. At the same time the participants tell that it gives them an experience of having value for others when they can contribute to solving both their own and others experi-enced problems.

3. Finally the citizens point to the use of peer-to-peer (that citizens support other citizens) as a positive result of these efforts, partly because the participants solve their problems in interaction with the other partici-pants, and partly because many of the participants during the testing have chosen to take the program as a facil-itator with a desire to start their own SMART Recovery groups.


“ Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”— Theodore Roosevelt


Documents

Inspirations How SMART tools helped me cope...my daughter, my ex and my mother must be going through, it hit me that they hadn’t called me at work and told be as soon as they knew