Subject: SMART Recovery News & Views Digest

Birds, Rewards & The Power of Self

Podcast

Healing From the skies

Tammah Watts is a licensed therapist, certified outdoor guide, and SMART Recovery facilitator in San Diego. Her active lifestyle came to a screeching halt after an unexpected health condition left her homebound. Discouraged and in despair, one day she was surprised by a moving encounter with a small bird.

This encounter and subsequent experiences led to her writing, "Keep Looking Up, Your Guide to the Powerful Healing of Birdwatching," a book about much more than birds.

In this podcast she describes how paying attention to life in the skies can keep us firmly grounded in a positive life here on earth.

For more information about Tammah and her new book, visit HERE

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Podcast

Contingency Management Works!

Dr. Steven Proctor is the founder and principal consultant of PRO Health Group and a Senior Program Director for Thriving Mind South Florida. He is also a Licensed Clinical Psychologist who has studied and written about Contingency Management programs, most notably in his Annals of Medicine article, Rewarding recovery: the time is now for contingency management for opioid use disorder.

Contingency Management, simply put, is rewarding people, often with money, for achieving their recovery goals. While much research indicates that well-structured and adequately funded Contingency Management programs are successful, barriers persist to widespread adoption. These barriers include outdated attitudes, along with ethical and economic concerns.

In this podcast, Dr. Proctor illuminates the issues surrounding Contingency Management and advocates for increased utilization of this important treatment strategy.

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Guest Blog

Power vs. powerlessness in addiction recovery

By SMART Volunteer Rick Kuplinski

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ― Viktor Frankl*

SMART Recovery takes a strong position on power vs. powerlessness in addiction recovery. Are we doomed to a life of never-ending affliction, temptation, and struggle because we are powerless over uncurable addiction? Or do we have the power to change our behavior permanently if we choose to do so?

SMART Recovery says that we do have that power. We believe Frankl is correct. The space between stimulus and response does exist. Let’s look more closely at the Frankl quote . . .

If you have attended any SMART Recovery meetings then you are invited to join in the first international survey of participants. Completing this survey is a way to give back to the recovery community. Your responses will help to improve SMART Recovery for future participants.

This survey is being conducted by SMART Recovery International in collaboration with researchers at the University of Wollongong, Australia. The purpose of this survey is to help understand how SMART Recovery is used by participants throughout the world.

Go To Survey

Research study looking for participants

Research Study on Substance Use, Adverse Childhood

Experiences, and Attachment Styles

Kaitlyn Komar, Saint Elizabeth University.

The specific research question is “Does drug of choice and attachment style affect the length of sobriety before relapse?” This study is to learn about if there is a specific drug and attachment style that is correlated with more frequent relapses and less sobriety time. This study is also intended to investigate how adverse childhood experiences affect attachment style in adulthood and result in drug use in adulthood.

Understanding sobriety and relapse will be useful for this population to better predict and prevent relapse, understand which individuals may be more high-risk, and improve treatment interventions.

Take survey HERE

Research announcement HERE

More study information HERE