1

Meeting Assignment: A Report on SMART Recovery

Craig Salo

Social Service Worker, Algonquin College

22W_FAM1131_310: Addictions

Melissa D’Amora

March, 14 2022, 11:59PM

 2

Meeting Assignment: A Report on SMART Recovery

For this assignment, we were asked to attend a support group meeting and to write a

report on our experience. I am an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). I attend at

least two AA meetings every week and I chair one meeting every Saturday, therefore I have

chosen to attend a SMART Recovery meeting for this assignment in order to get a new

perspective. In this report, I am going to talk about the history of SMART Recovery, their

methodology and approach, as well as what my experience was like at the meeting I attended and

what I learned there. I am also going to weigh what I feel to be the positives and negatives of

their approach. I will also talk about who I feel SMART Recovery would be best suited for. By

the end of this report, my goal is to leave the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the

SMART Recovery approach, so that the reader will be equipped with enough knowledge of this

organization to feel comfortable in making their decision to recommend, or to not recommend,

this support group to a client. Choosing the right support group is a very important part of an

individual’s road to recovery, and all support groups offer something different. When it comes to

support groups, there is no one approach that fits all, as every individual is unique and has their

own values and needs.

SMART Recovery has a very interesting history. Officially, SMART Recovery was

founded in 1994, but there were many important milestones which led to its official inception.

As you will be shown in this report, SMART Recovery, and the milestones which led to its

inception, filled a very important role which was missing in the support group community in the
 3

world at that time. SMART Recovery didn’t start out as SMART Recovery, its original name

was Rational Recovery, and as it under went some changes, and became more well-known and

established, it finally officially adopted the name SMART Recovery and became the

organization we now know today, but I will come back to this later. In 1975, Jean Kirkpatrick,

PhD, founded Women for Sobriety, the first secular alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous. Up

until that time, there were no secular support groups in the United States, or in Canada for that

matter, and all of the support groups which people had to choose from were faith-based. Faith-

based support groups are not for everyone. Atheists, agnostics, and many rational minded

persons who struggles with alcoholism and addictions can be immediately turned off by the

approach of Alcoholics Anonymous, and other twelve-step programs. It is for this reason that

Women for Sobriety was a massive stepping stone in the evolution of support groups which

helped pave the way for the eventual realization of SMART Recovery. In 1985, Rational

Recovery (later to become SMART Recovery), was founded by a recovered alcoholic, and

licensed clinical social worker in California, by the name of Jack Trimpey. The Wikipedia page

for Rational Recovery (RR) states that, “Rational Recovery was designed as a direct counterpoint

to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and twelve-step programs.” (“Rational Recovery” 2021). By

1990, there were 14 RR meetings in the United States. The official SMART Recovery website

states that in 1994, “The non-profit board of Ration Recovery Self-Help, Inc. votes at its annual

meeting in San Diego to end its affiliation agreement with Rational Recovery and incorporate as

the Alcohol & Drug Abuse Self-Help Network, Inc., d.b.a. S.M.A.R.T. Recovery (formerly

Rational Recovery Self-Help Network). The name is changed to SMART Recovery in October;

at the time of this split, there are 42 functioning RR meetings.” (SMART Recovery, 2022).
 4

SMART stands for Self-Management and Recovery Training. Since its official inception in

1994, SMART Recovery has expanded to countries all over the world, and SMART Recovery

meetings can be found in almost every major city in Canada and the United Sates.

As one might imagine, the process employed by SMART Recovery to treat addiction is

much different than the one employed by Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step

programs. Twelve-step programs require that the addicted person, or the alcoholic make an

admission of powerlessness over their addictions, and require the acceptance of a “Higher-

Power” into their lives in order for recovery to be possible. The Big Book of Alcoholics

Anonymous has an entire chapter entitled “We Agnostics”, which can essentially be summed up

as a chapter dedicated to telling atheists and agnostics that if they do not come to accept a

“Higher-Power” into their lives and seek some form of spiritual experience, that they will have

no chance of survival. In contradistinction, “SMART Recovery does not focus on spiritual

growth as a key component of behavior modification and thus does not encourage individuals to

admit powerlessness over addictions, nor use the concept of a Higher-Power.” (SMART

Recovery, 2022). SMART Recovery currently uses a model based in Cognitive Behavioral

Therapy (CBT). Their methodology is, “based on scientific knowledge and is intended to evolve

as scientific knowledge evolves.” (SMART Recovery, 2022). Their program emphasizes four

areas; Building Motivation, Coping with Urges, Problem Solving, and Lifestyle Balance. They

call these four areas the 4-Point Program. They also provide what they call the SMART

Recovery Toolbox, which, “provides a variety of methods, worksheets, and exercises to help you

manage your addiction recovery and your life. This collection of sensible tools is based on
 5

developing cognitive thinking skills to support you through addiction recovery.” (SMART

Recovery, 2022). Another major distinction between SMART Recovery, and twelve-step

programs is that in twelve-step groups, meeting facilitators do not require any sort of training,

whereas if you wish to facilitate a SMART Recovery meeting, you must complete their training

course in-order to become a registered volunteer. SMART Recovery also differs from twelve-

step programs, in that it is offered in the form of a graduate-style program, wherein the

program’s participants are offered a SMART Recovery diploma upon completion. SMART

Recovery is available to anyone struggling from any form of addiction, whether that be drugs,

alcohol, or activities such as over-eating and gambling.

On February, 27th, 2022 at 2:00PM EST, I attended the SMART Recovery UK General

Meeting via Zoom. Before the meeting I didn’t have any concerns. As someone who is in

recovery, and someone who attends AA meetings regularly, I was quite excited to join the

meeting and to get a different perspective. I found out that SMART Recovery offers meetings

specified to all different forms of addictions. They hold meetings for over-eaters, alcohol

addiction, drug addiction, and many other forms of addictions. They also offer general meetings

which are open to people struggling with any addictions. I chose this meeting, the UK General

Meeting, due to the fact that it was not specified to one specific addiction. I wanted to get an

overall feel of what their meetings were like, and I felt that a general meeting would be best

suited for that purpose. I also chose this meeting because it was at a convenient time of the day.

There were approximately 60 people in attendance at this meeting. This number included the

facilitator, and the co-facilitator. When I logged on to the call, I felt excited, I felt welcomed, and
 6

I felt like I was in a place where people genuinely cared about each other’s wellbeing. I also felt

that the facilitators were very well educated, and it seemed that the training they had was

extensive. The facilitators came off as very genuine and compassionate. They seemed to have a

very strong understanding of addiction, the solutions to addictions, and of Cognitive Behavioral

Therapy (CBT). The meeting was run in a very professional manner. During the meeting, I

learned a lot about SMART Recovery that I really liked. The meeting began with what they

called “check-ins”. During this time the participants were given the opportunity to raise their

hand, and take a few minutes to tell the room how they are doing, what tools they used this week

from the SMART Recovery tool box, and to mention anything else going on with their recovery.

They were encouraged to mention both the positives and the negatives of how their week went.

After each person checked in, the facilitator followed up with reflections back and affirmations

directed towards the participants. I really liked this. It was such a welcoming environment, and

the way the facilitators encouraged, motivated, and affirmed the participants strengths was really

moving. The facilitator would say things like “You sound like a person who is taking control.”

and “You really sound like you are applying your toolbox to the best of your ability.” After this

check-in period, which lasted until approximately 2:40PM, the meeting transitioned into a

portion discussing some of the tools which the participants mentioned during the check-ins. The

Hula Hoop tool was the main focus of the meeting. The Hula Hoop is a tool that explains what is

in our control and what is not. There was a diagram on the screen showing a hoop. Inside the

hoop were the things we can control, and outside of the hoop were the things we cannot. It was

broken down into 2 main sections; myself, and others. According to this model what we can

control is ourselves, and what we cannot control is anyone else (generally speaking). Inside the
 7

hoop was a list of things we can control. These included: my words, my choices, my actions, my

reactions, and my future. They very much focused on what we can control, which was a much

different approach to the AA meetings I attend. In AA, they have the Serenity Prayer which

states “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the

things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” In AA, the focus tends to be centered on

the things we cannot control, focusing on what we have no power over, and what only our

“higher-power” can change for us. Whereas in SMART Recovery, they focus primarily on

affirming the participants strengths, showing them the power they have to change, and how to go

about creating that change. I think it is a wonderful method, and I found it to be a breath of fresh

air. You will notice that one of the things that the Hula Hoop model says we have control over is

our future. This is a completely different message than the one contained in AA literature, which

states that it is the alcoholic who does the work, but only God (our if you like a Higher-Power)

has the power to give you the results. SMART Recovery acknowledges that when the

participants do the work, the participants themselves have created the results.

Overall, I really like the SMART Recovery approach. I cannot say that I found any

negatives in their methodology, or in their approach. I feel that the people who I would

recommend to try SMART Recovery are people who have a history of low self-esteem, people

who have felt like they have been constantly told they are not good enough, and people who are

seeking to be motivated instead of being told that they don’t have the power to recover within

themselves. Also, I would recommend SMART Recovery to any atheists or agnostics, or anyone

who is very scientifically minded; anyone who likes to know the science behind the process.
 8

The facilitators even took the time to explain some of the science behind their methodology

during the meeting, which I thought was fantastic. I would also recommend SMART Recovery

to any people who follow spiritual paths which focus on the empowerment of the individual,

such as Buddhism, Paganism, or Modern Satanism, because the twelve-step model directly

contradicts those spiritual systems. While there are now modified twelve-step support groups for

all of these forms of spirituality, such as Recovery Dharma, Pagans in Recovery, and Satanic

Recovery, they are still very small fellowships and they are not readily available to all people.

SMART Recovery’s approach is designed with an attempt to fit the needs of all people. It leaves

spirituality out of it, and it acknowledges that all people have different values and needs. In

conclusion, I think SMART Recovery is great and I really enjoyed learning about it.
 9

REFERENCES

Rational Recovery. (2021, August 11). In Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_Recovery/

SMART Recovery. (2022), History of SMART Recovery.

https://www.smartrecovery.org/about-us/history/

SMART Recovery. (2022), SMART Recovery Toolbox.

https://www.smartrecovery.org/smart-recovery-toolbox/