What Is SMART Recovery?
SMART Recovery (Self-Management and Recovery Training) is a treatment method based on the principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT). At its core, SMART Recovery is defined by four goals for people with substance use problems:
- To maintain motivation for recovery.
- To cope with urges and cravings.
- To manage thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
- To lead a more balanced life.
SMART Recovery encourages a holistic approach to changing detrimental behaviors. This means that it encompasses lifestyle changes, talk therapy methods, and community support groups to help people achieve long-term, lasting recovery.
The SMART Recovery process is one of the evidence-based treatment and support methods we recommend here at the AtoN Center in San Diego.
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SMART Recovery’s 4-Point Program
No matter the circumstances, long-term substance abuse is debilitating. We help our clients rebuild and reshape themselves through the SMART Recovery 4-point program.
Our California substance abuse treatment center focuses on individualized care and robust alternatives to the usual 12-Step approach to substance abuse treatment.
The SMART Recovery 4-point program succinctly embodies the principles of evidence-based addiction recovery treatment by incorporating modalities that improve physical and mental health, while tackling the social challenges of recovery.
Let’s take a closer look:
Building and Maintaining Motivation
Motivation plays a key role in the treatment of drug and alcohol abuse, but not in ways most people might expect.
The changes in the brain that result from abusive drug use center around the brain structures we call the Limbic system. These affect many things, from long-term memory and behavior to emotional control, and even motivation.
Long-term drug abuse can significantly impair a person’s judgment and capacity to recall old patterns of approach or avoidance. In other words, the ways you’ve learned to motivate yourself over time can become lost or warped through addiction. What used to be satisfying and fun tends to lose its luster. Your senses of risk and self-preservation are often negatively impacted.
Rebuilding motivation takes time. There’s the physical aspect of recovering from the neurological damage of drug use, but there’s also the role that therapy plays in helping a person reconstruct their self-esteem, and their self-respect; learning, the hard way, that you deserve peace, and a good life.
The SMART Recovery tools we promote at AToN Center utilize tried-and-true talk therapy methods to help foster a positive self-image, and nurture self empowerment and motivation for long-term recovery.
Coping with Urges
Even after the initial stages of detox and recovery, addictive behaviors and urges to use and abuse drugs can linger for years.
Like any other stressor, those urges can be managed. Coping with these often powerful urges can be difficult at first, but one can develop effective ways to dismiss or rob an urge of its power, distract one’s self positively, or redirect that energy towards something adaptive and positive.
SMART Recovery meetings help individuals identify these thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in an effort to sustain healthier coping mechanisms.
Self Management: Managing Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors
SMART Recovery primarily pulls from the principles of CBT and REBT.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy essentially helps people harness the positive feedback loop between thoughts and behaviors. Managing one’s thinking – by highlighting positive thoughts, and utilizing affirmations, as well as identifying and dismantling negative thought patterns, such as catastrophizing, overgeneralization, and rumination – can improve one’s behavior. Tackling behavior – through emotional control, journaling, relaxation techniques, and exposure-response prevention – can help improve one’s mood and state of mind.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, on the other hand, is focused on tackling irrational beliefs and replacing them with healthier, realistic perspectives. REBT also focuses on the connection between our thoughts, feelings, and actions, but distinguishes itself from CBT via a few key markers, such as the focus on unconditional self-acceptance, and highlighting that sources of stress can sometimes be productive (eustress).
Recovery Training: Living a Balanced Life
The SMART Recovery approach helps people embrace the concept that recovery is as much about seeking to lead a better life amidst experiencing addictive behaviors as it is about sobriety.
Addiction treatment should not be seen as a punishment or the harsh consequence of a person’s decision-making. It should never be construed as punitive.
Rather, it is a multimodal method for helping people affected by substance use disorders, to achieve mental and physical wellbeing.
HOW SMART RECOVERY HELPS FAMILY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS
The SMART Recovery process also provides a framework for “SMART Recovery Family & Friends” meetings.
These meetings provide a dedicated arena for friends and family to share their experiences involving loved ones who struggle(d) with addiction.
Addiction can ravage relationships and often leaves people feeling isolated and alone. The SMART Recovery process recognizes the importance of fostering and nurturing a supportive home environment and keeping that crucial support system alive. It also recognizes the burden many friends and family members take on and helps them to sustain support groups with each other, through online or in-person meetings.
WHAT MAKES SMART RECOVERY DIFFERENT FROM THE 12-STEP MODEL?
The 12 Step Program is one of the most common treatment frameworks for addiction in the United States. It focuses on the idea that people are powerless over their drug of choice and that they must give themselves over to a Higher Power for strength beyond their own.
In turn, the 12 Steps also encourage members to tackle addiction recovery with the support of an experienced member (a “sponsor”) and to do the same for others down the road.
The SMART Recovery process was first developed as an alternative to the 12 Step Program and does away with the required belief in a Higher Power, the focus on helplessness, and the reliance on experienced members as proxies for professional medical treatment.
It also does not require lifelong attendance, nor are people who seek treatment through the SMART Recovery process required to be involved in the treatment of others – although they can continue to attend meetings for as long as they want.
SMART Recovery Provides Meetings Online and In-Person
We understand that clients who come to AToN Center will need ongoing support after they leave us. We encourage attendance at SMART Recovery meetings, held online or in-person, for as long as needed.
Meetings are 90 minutes long. They consist of a check-in, discussion, working on a relevant SMART Recovery tool, and a simple checkout.
Any SMART Recovery meeting is based on inclusivity, mutual respect, confidentiality, and non-judgmental behavior. People are encouraged to volunteer and discouraged from sharing or glorifying past behaviors that could trigger attendees (i.e., “war stories”).
SMART Recovery meetings help reinforce the fact that you’re not powerless. The focus of these community meetings is to identify problems in recovery and find solutions.
Online meetings are available to those who live in areas where face-to-face meetings are not available. Meetings are free, although the organization is grateful for donations.
Are You Ready To Get Sober With the Help of SMART Recovery?
Do you want to learn more about a typical SMART Recovery meeting, or the SMART Recovery process?
Do you have questions about the 4-Point Program?
If so, we welcome you to get in touch with AToN Center today.
Aside from the health risks of substance abuse, drug dependence wreaks havoc on the lives of everyone it touches. It robs you of joy, short-circuits your personal and professional goals, and harms your bond with your loved ones.
That ends today! Our specialized treatment programs offer an individualized approach to your addiction recovery journey today, allowing you to put your best foot forward against addiction.