Reporter: Janine Cohen

Date: 19/02/2007

Q. What are the fundamentals of Smart Recovery?

A. Smart recovery is based on a four point programme – building motivation so maintaining motivation, coping with urges, problem solving and getting a lifestyle balance back so getting the participants to re-acquaint themselves with their previous happy life The aim of the Smart Recovery Group is abstinence based but not everybody is abstinent that comes to the group. Some people are still drinking when they come along but their aim needs to be, their goal needs to be abstinence but they need to learn some skills to get there.

Q. What percentage of your clients can successfully control drink?

A. I’d say the majority can’t control their drinking if they’ve had a drinking problem in the past.

Q. How often do people have to attend Smart Recovery?

A. Smart Recovery, we recommend people come once a week is usually enough for people because it’s a very practical based group so we’re teaching people skills so they really need to go to live their skills, practice them, then they come back the following week, let us know how they’ve gone, if they’ve had a drink during the week we would go over what led up to their drinking, what tools could they have used and if the same situation happened again what they’d do next time around. So if they’re really following the programme, become abstinent, use all the tools available, after about eighteen months it really should be enough for them but part of their self management on the other hand is that if they leave the group a few months down the track feel very fragile again and part of the self management is to get themselves back to the group as soon as possible.

Q. And at the Smart Recovery Programme, do you actually label people alcoholics?

A. No it’s not part of the Smart Recovery philosophy. We don’t label people alcoholics or addicts because we’ve found that people can’t then move … and feel as though they’re stuck in that role … some people like to be called alcoholics. That’s fine… at the end of the day they still have to manage their drinking problem.

Q. How is the Smart Recovery programme difference from say Alcoholics Anonymous?

A. Well … we’re an interactive group so people are challenging each other all the time. We have a Smart Recovery manual that people can learn skills and tools on how to become and remain abstinent. Lots of exercises in the manual as well and we’re not a twelve step programme. We don’t have a higher being however is someone is religious or spiritual in Smart Recovery then we encourage that if that’s going to help them.

Q. When you mention ‘higher being’ what are you referring to? With Alcoholics Anonymous there’s a spiritual entity to the programme. Why don’t you encourage that at Smart?

A. Because Smart is self management, then we believe that people do have the power, they are powerful and they have the power to control their drinking. For many people they just don’t have the skills or the know how and our aim is to teach the participants the skills.

Q. What type of skills do you teach them?

A. Well one of the tools we use all the time is for example the cost benefit analysis so it’s teaching people to weigh up the pros and cons, not just of their drinking but every single thing that they do in their life that may lead to their drinking. For example they might have an argument with their partner, is it worth having the argument if they’re going to get so stressed by the end of the day they have to have a drink to calm themselves down? So they get into that way of thinking.

Q. Now Four Corners has spoken to Phil Meese who’s been recovering the Smart Recovery Programme now for about nine weeks.

A. Yes.

Q. What stage is Philip in his recovery?

A. Well I think first of all it’s fantastic that Phil has actually gone nine or ten weeks um sober because that’s probably the first time in ages that he’s ever had that length of sobriety and he’s learning the skills so if he continues to practice those skills on a daily basis, his outlook is very good.

Q. Phil Meese says Smart has given him strategies for coping with his addictions. What, what is he referring to?

A. It would be things around his coping mechanisms, his emotions and his beliefs. And his thinking basically so he’s starting to change the way he thinks about things, his irrational beliefs. Things like that if he goes to a party on Saturday night he doesn’t have to drink. It maybe be a bit awkward not drinking but he doesn’t have to so it’s quite a difference in his thinking.

Q. Does Smart encourage people like Phil while they’re trying to abstain from alcohol to sort of avoid their heavy drinking friends?

A. For some people they have to. It’s just too much of a trigger for them. It’s a very high risk situation for them to be surrounded by drinking people and it’s also very difficult for some people to actually say no, I don’t want to drink because they’ve always said yes I will have a drink so that for example is a skill that they need to learn how to say no and feel comfortable in saying no they don’t want to drink anymore.

Q. If Phil relapses, what does this mean in terms of his recovery?

A. In Smart Recovery if people relapse we use that, or not even relapse but lapse or slip up, we use that as a learning exercise. What happened? What led up to them having a lapse what could they do differently [interference] repeat the same mistake again but it’s certainly not, a lapse doesn’t have to go into a full on relapse.

Q. Do people have to hit rock bottom before they attend Smart?

A. No, no and you don’t want people to hit rock bottom and rock bottom is a different place for every person. There’s no two rock bottoms the same. For some people it might be that they lose their job. For some people it might be having a psychiatric break down. It’s different for different people.

Q. At what stage does Smart encourage people to come and attend their meetings?

A. Ideally I think a treatment programme wants people to come as early as possible – for some people that’s just not possible, it just doesn’t happen but we accept people in Smart at any level that they’re at.

Q. Some of the people I’ve spoken to just can’t bear the thought of never having another drink. They think life will be boring or be just the same. What do you say to those people?

A. Well it’s a true thought, it’s a true feeling. People do feel that way but you need to get them to look at what are the negative consequences of those things and what other things in life are there for them and for some people they need to rediscover what they enjoy doing because their whole lives have been, or certainly the last few years have been taken up with drinking and have either lost a lot of friends, lost their pleasurable activities so they need to re find those things.

Q. Does Smart regard alcohol abuse as a disease?

A. Well it’s more that we look at it, we don’t use the disease model, more that it’s maladaptive behaviour.