Subject: News & Views: December 2021

Celebrating and Managing the Holidays

A Message of Hope

Happy Holidays, SMART Family

This holiday season the challenges affecting those in recovery are significant. Feelings of isolation and stress are growing, and the ongoing pandemic only makes it more difficult. Below you will find several examples of how SMART Recovery has helped those in need—during both the holidays and the rest of the year. We are proud of the work we have done and hope you will support us as we move into a new year.

Will you please consider sending a year-end gift by midnight, December 31 to help someone’s mother, brother, child, relative, neighbor, or friend? Your generous contribution will ensure that SMART Recovery’s self-empowering meetings and resources continue to be abundantly available for those in need. Because everyone deserves to live Life Beyond Addiction.

Happy Holidays and thank you for your support.

Support SMART

Ring in the New Year

New Year's Eve Around the World

Looking for something fun to do on New Year's Eve? Then join the SMART Recovery Online community for New Year's Eve Around the World! This 24-hour long event rings in 2022 in every time zone.

Some of the special guest facilitators will be:

Dr. Joe Gerstein - Motivation, Motivation, Motivation!
Dr. Tom Horvath - Most Helpful Ideas We Have Learned From Our Connection With SMART
Mike Hooper - What Does Lifestyle Balance Look Like to You?
Ted Perkins - SMART en Español

You don't want to miss out on this fun day of community, celebration, and cheer.

Register on SROL, www.smartrecovery.org/community/join.php, to get access to the New Year's Eve Around the World schedule and meeting link(s).

Join the Celebration

Tips & Tools for Recovery That Works

Tools to Help You Through the Holidays

In this episode we’ll review some of our most useful tools to quickly and effectively overcome some of the typical challenges the holidays may throw at you, avoid or confront resulting urges, and keep your recovery on track.

Watch Now

Supporting Teens & Young Adults

Tools for the Game of Life

When teens face trouble, especially with substance or self-abuse, the barriers to help can be especially significant. There might be a natural reluctance to reach out to the “adult world,” or avoidance of issues that seem unsolvable, perhaps because of teen tendencies for thinking in extremes. Many teens get stuck in negative downward spirals, leading to damaging consequences and emotional despair.

Supporting Returning Citizens

Call Them Returning Citizens

When a person goes to prison, they are given derogatory labels, considered dysfunctional, and somehow seen as “less than” others in society. Often, they are ignored by the outside world and basically put out of mind. And even though the vast majority of these individuals return to society, little is done to prepare them for the challenges they will face. If they are struggling with a substance-use disorder, this lack of preparation can contribute to negative behaviors continuing.

Give the Gift of SMART

From the Bookshop

The SMART Thoughts & Inspirations Journal and Tips & Tools DVD Collection make a great gift for anyone on your shopping list.

SMART Recovery’s Thoughts and Inspiration Journal is filled with inspiring quotes and is available as a tool to encourage self-reflection and personal growth. Its simple design and easy to use format, create space to respond to both the external world and our interior lives not only possible but enjoyable. Some days thoughts will flow more easily than others, but that’s to be expected. What this journal provides is structure and, hopefully, some good inspiration.

Order Journal

All of our helpful Tips & Tools episodes are now available on DVD! Perfect for anyone who has slow broadband speed, doesn’t use YouTube, or prefers to watch videos on the big screen. A handy resource for face-to-face meeting facilitators, or for anyone to give as a helpful gift to a friend or loved one. Includes the ABC, HOV, DISARM Tools as well as dozens of Handbook exercises on video that can help anyone at any stage of their recovery. Playable on any DVD/Blu-Ray player. Not playable on a laptop data disc drive.

Order DVD

Shop and Support SMART

Amazon Smile

As you're shopping online, don't forget SMART when ordering on Amazon. Select SMART Recovery USA, Inc. as your charity, and AmazonSmile will donate a portion of your eligible purchases to SMART. This also works in the app!

Start Shopping with AmazonSmile

NAADAC Webinar

Mindfulness in Recovery

SMART strives to bring timely, content rich articles and information to our community from a variety of sources.

The techniques taught in mindfulness play a critical role in relapse prevention. The core mindfulness skills, taken from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), enhance a person's ability to increase awareness of the present moment, increase the time spent in the present, and be in control of his or her mind. This then decreases the amount of mood dependent behaviors, such as using drugs and alcohol and their addictive behaviors. This presentation will offer education of mindfulness skills found in DBT and give exercises to implement in treatment and recovery to assist clients with understanding how these skills can help them with continued sobriety.

The webinar is free to watch.

Watch Webinar

In Other SMART News

Podcast

Caring About the Ones No One Else Does

Dave Johnson is the Chief Executive Officer of the Fletcher Group, based in London, Kentucky. His background in social work, healthcare, and academia led him to starting Fletcher Group with the help of Ernie Fletcher, the former Governor of Kentucky. A recent grant connected them to SMART Recovery with the Rural Centers of Excellence Initiative.

In this podcast, Dave talks about receiving the HRSA grant for the RCOE project, gauging the success of the program, and much more.

Listen Now

New from SMART

Local Meeting Finder

We’re excited to announce that our new Local Meeting Finder is live!

Some of you may have already seen it in fact, as it began as a volunteer-led site called SMARTfinder. We saw it ourselves, heard about how much people preferred using it, and so we have worked with the developer to make it our official Local Meeting finder.

A few things to know and try (on both desktop and mobile):

It starts with a location search like the current finder. It defaults to searching meetings (both In-Person and Online) within 100 miles of that location.
A key difference: search results are sorted BY TIME, starting with the current and next upcoming meetings near that location at the top of the list. This is a huge benefit for those searching for meetings that fit their schedule and those that need a meeting urgently.
Meeting start times are automatically shown in your local time zone
Check out the Filters! Click that orange button and narrow your search results by:
1. Day of Week (only have free time on Mondays for a meeting?)
2. Online vs In-Person
3. Distance (between 10 and 250 miles from the location searched)
4. Tags (looking specifically for Family & Friends? Or an LGBTQ meeting?)
Click on any meeting to get details and helpful actions including:
1. Add to Calendar
2. Join on Zoom (for online meetings)
3. Map/Directions

Find a Local Meeting

Life Beyond Addiction

Markita Renee

Markita Renee had a drug addiction, battled homelessness, and legal problems, but triumphed over all thanks to perseverance and a commitment to her recovery. She made SMART part of that successful commitment. She took the facilitator training and now runs her own meetings.

Watch Now

Facilitator Spotlight

Sandy Dickson

Supporting a family member with an addiction can be challenging. Sandy Dickson knows these struggles all too well. Sandy found the SMART Family & Friends program comforting and resourceful in helping her cope with her family’s addiction. She became a facilitator several years ago and now has a group of long-time participants that share their experiences and help one another. This is something that Sandy values very much.

Watch Now

Guest Blog by Tom Horvath, Ph.D.

Book Review - Undoing Drugs

The harm reduction approach to addressing addictive problems has until recently been highly controversial, at least in the U.S. Treatment and other change efforts in the U.S. have been primarily guided by the views that addiction is a disease and that the 12-steps are the primary (or only) method for change. Harm reduction accepts and encourages small steps toward change. The U.S. approach has typically required an immediate and large change, often involving a completely new perspective: “I’m an addict, I have a disease, I will abstain from everything forever.” The small steps approach of harm reduction, even though it describes how most human change occurs, has often been considered unacceptable and dangerous.

However, opiate overdose deaths have skyrocketed in recent years. It has been increasingly clear that the U.S. approach to supporting change is far too ineffective. Alternatively, the most effective approach to treating opiate use disorders involves using medications that parallel, to a significant degree, the effects of opiates. From an abstinence-only perspective these medications are unacceptable. But the number of deaths has been even more unacceptable to the public and governments at all levels. Traditional U.S. treatment is increasingly being over-ruled. For the first time, a U.S. president’s drug policy specifically mentions harm reduction as a primary principle...

Year-in-Review Community Townhall

Video Recap

If you were not able to attend the Community Townhall, now you can watch the presentation and share in the excitement.

Watch Now

SMART Happenings

SMART Insiders+ Program

Get Inside the Solution

SMART offers you a simple way to show your continued dedication to SMART: the SMART Insiders+ Program.

For a recurring contribution, you’ll receive a special Insiders+ welcome package and be among the first to receive important news and engagement opportunities from SMART Recovery.

Join Today!

Stay Connected

Subscribe/Follow

SMART Recovery Blog & YouTube

Don't miss out! Subscribe and follow SMART Recovery on YouTube, our blog, and social media platforms to stay current with all that's new from SMART.

Subscribe to the SMART Recovery YouTube Channel

Subscribe to the SMART Recovery Blog

Donate to SMART

SMART Recovery is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.