SMART Recovery continues to gain momentum around the United States as we wrap up 2025. We added three more opioid settlement-funded projects – one in Wake County, NC, and one each in the Dallas and Midland regions of Texas. With the renewal of projects in Mecklenburg County, NC, and Ohio, it’s clear that communities across the country are prioritizing SMART as part of their responses to the opioid overdose crisis.
In April, we hosted our annual conference in Charlotte, with attendance growing from 145 to 225 people in just one year. The conference highlighted SMART’s strength in building communities of empowerment in North Carolina and beyond, with powerful keynotes from Dr. David Best, Sarah Laurel, and Mark Sanders; a panel discussion of SMART champions from Fayetteville/Cumberland County, NC; and twenty high-quality breakout sessions over the course of two days.
We also published our two newest handbooks – the 4th edition of our 4-Point Program handbook and the 2nd edition of our Family & Friends handbook. Both were updated to use more accessible language that is also more affirming of our self-empowering approach. The 4-Point handbook saw the introduction of key interpersonal communication skills from the Family & Friends program, while the Family & Friends handbook saw the introduction of several new tools from the Invitation to Change approach. 
Finally, under the direction of our new Senior Director of Training & Program Development, we revamped our self-paced online training courses to align them with the new handbooks and best practices in adult learning and development. The updated courses, which have considerably reduced the burden of becoming a SMART facilitator, have received rave reviews.
Now that we’ve gotten everything up to date, it’s time to scale what we know works for the masses! You’ve likely seen some of the system changes that we’ve been making to improve our scalability. You’ll continue to see us refine our systems and processes to improve our efficiency in the new year.
At the same time we execute on strategies to scale our core 4-Point and Family & Friends programs nationwide, we’ll pivot our program development work to our programs for incarcerated individuals and returning citizens, ensuring that our two Inside Out programs and the Successful Life Skills handbook are also refreshed with current science and trauma-informed language.
Finally, we’ll come back together again for our national conference April 9-10, 2026 in Orlando, Florida. This year’s speaker lineup is as exciting as ever. And there’s even a remote participation option for volunteers this year!
All of us on the SMART Recovery team thank you for an incredible 2025 and wish you all the best for a peaceful end of the year. We can’t wait to continue growing with you in 2026!
