Smart Recovery Meeting Agenda & Toolset Overview

Welcome to the Smart Recovery Meeting Agenda and Toolset Overview My name is John Bella and I've been a Certified Smart recovery facilitator since 2017. Before we get into the content, a brief disclaimer. The thoughts, ideas and commentary expressed herein are my own and do not necessarily represent those of Smart Recovery. In addition, this presentation was developed as a teaching tool to be used as an overview presentation of the two SMART meetings I facilitate. As such, it does not necessarily reflect the content, process or structure of other Smart Recovery meetings. That said, other SMART facilitators are welcome to use this presentation for their own meetings or as they see fit. As for meeting structure, we start the meeting by asking if there is anyone who is at this meeting for the first time and if so, please introduce themselves. Next, we check in by going around the virtual room from the top left hand corner of Zoom In Gallery or Grid View until we work our way to the bottom right hand corner. Check in typically takes 30 to 60 seconds per participant where you tell us who you are, why you're here, provide any recent successes or challenges and and recommend a topic for discussion. In addition, the check in affords us all the opportunity to see where everyone is at right now, which will help us build group cohesion. Currently, we are going through an overview of the Smart Recovery agenda highlighted in yellow to provide a baseline understanding for the discussion, since it is likely that some in attendance will be SMART veterans, while others may be attending their first SMART meeting and everything in between. Next up is the discussion Immediately following this presentation I will be asking the group to recommend a topic for discussion. The topic is typically a problem or an issue someone is currently going through and is willing to entrust the group to collectively work on a solution. As the facilitator, my role will be to map the topic to one or more SMART tools to gain greater insight that can be applied to that end. As such, this is a working meeting whose aim is to create different solution strategies from which we can apply to our lives. Almost immediately. The only ground rules are we ask that everyone please refrain from giving advice or opinions that said questions are a key to learning and are strongly encouraged. Finally, the checkout, which is just like the check in except it's at the end of the meeting, affords everyone to the opportunity to express their key takeaways from the meeting and perhaps assign a goal for themselves for the following week to keep them motivated. Smart Background SMART is an acronym that stands for Self Management and Recovery Training with an emphasis on one Self management in that you are ultimately responsible for your decision making and two Training in that like any other achievement that requires effort and practice, SMART Recovery is no different. SMART is also the world's largest secular self help addiction recovery organization with over 3,500 meetings per week across 24 countries. The handbook at the time of this recording has been translated into 13 languages. Smart was established in 1993 and it came out of an organization known as Rational Recovery which began about 10 years prior. A lot of people ask what's the difference between AA and Smart? Okay, well, the two organizations are similar in that both are nonprofit 501c organizations that rely largely on volunteers and donations. In addition, both organizations can be said to be self help organizations whose mission is to help others recover from addictions. The organizations are quite different in that AA is a faith based organization promoting powerlessness by surrendering one's will and life over to a higher power or God, whereas SMART is a science based organization that promotes empowerment through greater self awareness and more rational decision making that aligns with personal goals, values and well being. Some additional key differentiators Anti Shaming SMART discourages shaming languages such as alcoholics, drug addicts or junkies. 2 as stated previously, SMART uses science based and evidence based approaches to addiction. This also means that SMART is anti dogmatic and anti ideological, relying on evidence and some humanist principles for guidance. Thirdly, many of our tools and strategies help you expand your conscious awareness through self reflection, meditation or similar protocols. The mantra here is that you can't solve a problem you're not aware of. As such, the more we are aware, the more self empowered we become. In addition, we do not use scare tactics such as your disease is doing push ups in the parking lot as you work on your recovery or a pickle will never become a cucumber. And lastly, the multidimensional concept of the power of choice. Here we leave it up to you to select your goal. For most it's abstinence, while for others it may be harm reduction. And for others still the mere domain of addiction can be transcended to include optimal well being of oneself, others and life generally. And while SMART is neither a dogma nor an ideology, as already stated, it does have a four legged stool framework beginning with creating and maintaining motivation because it's difficult to change a behavior if you are not motivated to do so. Coping with Urges and Cravings this is the only tenet that explicitly addresses one of the most common side effects of addictive behavior. 3. Managing thoughts, feelings and Behaviors the psychology and philosophy of SMART recovery or more colloquially, all the activity that takes place between our ears and for leading a balanced life to provide a more concrete and stable living foundation and worth reiterating, we leave it up to you to determine your goal. Some examples include abstinence, harm reduction, or well being. Now we will go through each of the four tenets with greater detail, beginning with one Creating and Maintaining Motivation As I already mentioned, it is most difficult to change your behavior if you are not motivated to do so. As such, this tenet is presented first for that very reason. Here are a few strategies for kickstarting motivation. Start with setting one realistic goal. I will now present two versions of myself to underscore the importance of adding structure to the goal. Both John A. And John B. Will have the same go, and that goal is to go regularly to Smart recovery meetings with consistency. Okay, so for John A, he says, I think it would be a good idea to set a goal for next week for going to meetings. I'm going to give some thought to that. And then John B. Says I'm going to follow that Smart goal acronym as illustrated on the slide. In so doing, I will quantify the goal as attending at least two meetings next week. In addition, I will choose the meetings based on my schedule to make it easier for me to attend. I will then add those two meetings to my iCalendar with two alerts to nudge me two hours before each meeting so that I let the structure and process do the heavy lifting. I just have to show up. So the question is, who is more likely to accomplish their goal, John A or John B. In fact, did John A ever really articulate a clear and measurable goal? He did not. Another way to kick start motivation is to return to your passions, hobbies, and interests that you somehow stop doing as your addiction continue to demand more and more of your time. Whether it's cooking or biking, reading or writing, playing a musical instrument, going for walks or good old volunteer work, doing things you enjoy is proof positive that you need not suffer in order to recover from addiction. In fact, depending on your general disposition and other life factors, you can use this formula to re architect your life one decision at a time. That's right. It's not too late to become that person you always dreamed of. With effort and practice, that dream can become a reality. Tenet Number two Coping with Urges and Cravings an important fact to keep in mind many urges and cravings last mere minutes, not hours. Keeping this fact in easily accessible memory can make all the difference between experiencing an inconvenient and short lived episode to a lapse or relapse that can last for days, weeks, months or even longer. Consider this analogy. A mailbox and what exists between your ears share a commonality. Neither controls the inbound content. For the mailbox, the sources are easily traceable, but for the mind, the situation is much more complex. None of us, for example, can predict what thought, feeling, emotion, impulse, or what have you will appear in your mind 47 seconds from now. Stuff just happens. That said, most of us have developed an intuitive system for sorting and prioritizing our mail, including rejecting the junk mail without needing to even open it. As such, our ability to manage the content that shows up in our mind can benefit from our mailbox experience. The big difference is that physical or digital mail is enters our consciousness as a banal and or routine experience for our mind. However, much of what lands between our ears is adjudicated quickly and automatically without us being aware or conscious of what's happening. More on this later in a separate video. In any case, I have found designating urges and cravings as analogous to junk mail as a reliable and relatively easy way of acknowledging the offer consciously and then rejecting it on the same rational grounds. The same rational grounds. We pitch the junk mail in the trash without even opening it. Here we just described one of the many contexts in which smart's power of choice can manifest. In this case, reflecting on past experiences that lead to relapse while also being aware that most urges and cravings only last a few minutes is often sufficient to experience the event as a choice that you can now process consciously and rationally rather than your actions be taken automatically without the self awareness that affords this condition. When this happens, the lack of choice only hits home once its negative consequences have occurred. So yes, the power of choice is a very big deal. Probably two of the most common used tools for coping with urges and cravings 1. Call a friend. 2. Go to a meeting. For more information on coping with urges and cravings, consult the Smart Recovery website, the Smart Recovery Handbook, and The Smart Recovery YouTube channel. The third tenet of managing Thoughts, Feelings and behaviors is probably the most comprehensive and exhaustive of the four pillars of smart Recovery. It is here where we get into the psychology and philosophy of Rational Emotive behavior therapy, or REBT, as developed by Dr. Ellis. I also like to refer to Managing Thoughts, Feelings and behaviors again as all that stuff taking place between your ears. Key components of REBT the Cost benefit analysis, the ABCs, the unconditionals and the Absolutes. So let's get into it as you probably know, there are many ways in which to construct a cba. This particular model I learned from one of the presenters at the Smart Recovery International Conference held in Chicago in 2019. As you can see, the matrix is broken into four short and long term benefits of addiction and short and long term consequences of addiction. So we start with the short term benefits. At this point you may ask, well, this sounds good. What's the problem? Well, the problem here's the the array of consequences which renders addictive behavior unsustainable. And to cap it off, there are no long term benefits for addictive behavior. We now return to our between your ears concept and introduce the belief behavior barrier. As you can see, we have added two circles to represent two different belief characteristics, S1 or System 1 beliefs, which can also be used interchangeably with attitudes or philosophy. S1 is where irrational beliefs, including those that lead to addictive behavior, tend to thrive. S1 Beliefs also tend to be fast, automatic, unconscious, fixed and rigid, and where heuristics and biases are also well represented. Conversely, System 2 beliefs are slow, conscious, analytical and lazy. Of course, if you read Daniel Kahneman's book Thinking fast and slow, these concepts will be very familiar to you. In any case, it is here where we do our conscious thinking and decision making. S2 Beliefs and attitudes are slow to process because they require effort, whereas System one requires little to no effort. In any case, the more System two we use, the less System one has control over our decision making. But as you can see right now, this stuff happening between your ears is a private matter. We have all had experiences where we had an idea or an offer or something or another, but decided after careful thought to say no thanks. When we do that, the entire event remains a private matter unless we decide to tell someone about it. What matters here is that it is when we take action that beliefs or attitudes now manifest in the public or social domain. It's no longer a private matter. And as we know too well, all behaviors have consequences. So what if we could intervene at the private domain so that we could preempt these irrational beliefs that would result in addictive behavior from ever leaving the confines of our private domain. That is what the next few slides are about. How we can actually preempt irrational beliefs so they do not become behaviors. This brings us to a few of the models underlying rebt. But before we get into the brass tacks, it's important to understand Albert Ellis's thesis about psychology and self disturbance. He asserts that it is we who disturb ourselves by holding irrational beliefs that are untrue and unhelpful, and I might add, often unconscious or automatic. Or as Henry Ford famously said, if you believe you can or you believe you cannot, either way you are right. In other words, we really believe what we believe even when we are completely wrong, which is why beliefs are so consequential and unforgiving. Here, Ellis aspires to get us right with our own beliefs so we can stop disturbing ourselves. It is here where we introduce the ABC Dibs model, or simply ABC for short. This is the model for self intervention, an intervention designed to uncover irrational beliefs and to reject them before they can become behaviors. As I will illustrate in the next slide, what is currently displayed is an illustration of the ABC model. As you can see, the A in red stands for Activating event or adversity. Many refer to this as the trigger that leads to problematic behavior. Next is the B, also in red, that stands for, you guessed it, the belief or attitude about the activating event. Skipping down to the bottom, we see that beliefs, as we already know by now, that are acted upon produce consequences. With the C letter in black, herein lies a snapshot of the ABC model. In its default condition. An activating event produces a belief about what happened. The default condition, somewhat simplified, is to act automatically or unconsciously on that belief or attitude which produces a consequence. However, we know from experience there are many times when we're not simply behaving on autopilot and use the best analytical abilities our System two has to offer to present the conditions of a choice between at least two options. Notice how in the default condition no such options are presented. In any case, once system two is involved, we can reject the default condition by taking no action at all based on the likely negative outcome of doing so would produce as such, no action produces no consequence. Next up is the dibs component that stands for disputing irrational beliefs. This is done by self intervening at the belief level to bring self awareness to the situation. This is done by asking three basic questions. One Is the belief or attitude logically true? Is it grounded in reality? Two Is there sufficient evidence to warrant the belief? And three Is the belief helpful to your goals, values and well being? If you get three nos, congratulations. You have just identified an irrational belief. If acted upon is likely to produce negative consequences with respect to your stated goals and values, you can simply stop there and take no action as depicted in the no action, no consequence option. Or you can replace the cognitive void you just created by replacing it with a philosophy that is consistent with both reality and your stated goals, this is where you can get really creative. Remember, this is your life and your canvas. The ABCs are here to help you make decisions that are internally consistent. By presenting the same three questions, once you get three yeses, you are justified in acting on this belief. Lastly, notice that with automatic behavior, the best consequence is that nothing bad happens and the worst consequence is that bad things do happen. But the inverse is true with the Dibbs model. The worst case is that nothing of any consequence happens, whereas the best case is that you produce consequences that help you reach your goals. So in summation, we are looking to reduce automatic judgment as depicted in the ABC model, default condition the left and increase our decision making of the other two, especially in the third values driven decision making model. Next up, the Unconditionals Unconditional Self Acceptance, Unconditional Other Acceptance and Unconditional Life Acceptance. Unconditional Self Acceptance or usa the concept accepting oneself without judgment, regardless of achievements, failures, or the opinions of others. This involves recognizing one's worth independently of external factors. For example, John fails an exam, but instead of berating himself, he acknowledges his effort and decides to study differently next time, accepting that his self worth is not dependent on a single outcome. In other words, we take a lemon and we make lemonade. Unconditional Other Acceptance Concept Accepting others as they are without requiring them to meet your expectations or standards. This means understanding that people are fallible and have their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, Sarah's co worker frequently makes mistakes at work. Instead of getting angry, Sarah accepts that her co worker is doing their best and offers support and assistance. In other words, take a lemon, make lemonade. Unconditional Life Acceptance Accepting life as it is, with its inherent difficulties and uncertainties, without demanding that it be different. This involves understanding that life is not always fair or predictable. For example, Mark encounters traffic on his way to an important meeting. Instead of getting frustrated and stressed, he accepts that traffic is a part of life and uses the time to listen to a podcast or practice mindfulness. In other words, take a lemon, make lemonade what are Absolutes? Examples of absolutes are words such as must, should, need, to, have, to, never, always, and etc. They are necessarily irrational and untrue in that they are at best distortions of reality and at worst, deceptions. They are commonly found in negative narratives, especially when you are disputing an irrational belief. You will find absolute language in your own belief, and you will not find absolutes anywhere in the unconditional world. They are also very commonly present in an ego fatigue context and a great way to get Start Practicing the absolutes. Just commit 15 minutes a day to consciously looking for absolutes while watching TV or surfing the web or having a conversation at the dinner table, what have you. And just notice how often you and other people are using those terms that are not even aware of it. Tenant number four Leading a Balanced Life Illustrated on the left hand side Here you will see a life balance wheel that you can find on the SMAART website, in the SMAART Handbook and on the smart YouTube channel. So basically what you do you'll see there's eight slices, like eight slices of pizza and you assigned a category to each one and then you rate each category by your level of satisfaction. You can see the yellow dots I filled in there for illustration purposes. And then next you connect the dots and you see what kind of shape you make. Ideally we're looking for a very round shape, but life doesn't usually act that way. So you'll get something probably that looks something like this. No worries. This is here to help you better understand where you're satisfied and not satisfied with your life and so you can come up with strategies to make improvements. So it's all good. Thank you for watching this overview presentation of Smart Recovery. If you found this content helpful, give me a like and subscribe and help me spread the word. Or leave comments in the comment section below. Alternatively, you can email me directly@jballatsn.com lastly, want me to create a specific video? Let me know. Thanks again and take care of.