SMART is Self Management And Recovery Training

The central topic is to help people to abstain from any type of addictive behaviour such as alcohol or drug use or activities such as gambling. SMART Recovery views addictive behaviour as a complex, maladaptive behaviour, not a disease; those affected should see recovery as their own responsibility with appropriate support and guidance.

• SMART Recovery's four point programme can teach self empowering skills designed to help you to:
  1. Build and maintain motivation
  2. Cope with urges
  3. Identify and solve the other problems in your life
  4. Achieve lifestyle balance in order to prevent relapse

The SMART programme works through meetings which are entirely confidential; we expect all that is said in the meeting stays there. Attendees are welcome to mostly listen or join in conversation whichever is better for them. The structure of the meeting is outlined below for information; there are some other important aspects to the approach which we feel are important for all to understand:

• We downplay and discourage labels such as alcoholic, druggie, gamblaholic and the like. They are not constructive and do nothing for people's self esteem.
• We recognise that despite best intentions, sometimes relapse can occur. We encourage those affected to come, discuss and be patient.
• People are welcome to use the service for as long as it is useful to them.
• There is no subscription or minimum attendance; however contributions to help towards running costs are appreciated.
• We are very happy to discuss any aspect of the service, meetings or methodology in complete confidence.

Meetings

Each group meeting lasts for 90 minutes and will be run in an informal and relaxed manner as far as possible, however to provide practical support and guidance there is a structure as follows:

1. Welcome and introduction (approx. 5 mins)
2. Check in and agenda setting (approx. 25 mins)
   • Briefly identify the issues affecting recovery for everyone to be addressed during the session then agree and prioritise agenda
3. Working time (approx. 40-50 mins)
   • Active group generation of ideas and approaches to help work through issues on the agenda, led by experienced facilitators using SMART Recovery's four point programme
4. Check out and close (approx. 15 mins)
5. Optional review of the effectiveness of the session by all participants