SMART Way To Fight Addiction

We’ve received some excellent press coverage in Durham, North Carolina thanks to John Boren, who runs the SMART Recovery® group there. Congratulations and thanks to John! Here’s a snippet from the article:

John Boren started the SMART (Self-Management And Recovery Training) Recovery group in Durham. It’s part of a national organization that has about 650 groups across the United States, and some in Britain and Australia.

The self-help program has attracted some people who were dissatisfied with Alcoholics Anonymous, as well as those who are just starting to grapple with addiction and recovery.

The biggest difference in the two organizations, Boren said, is in their philosophy of what works. AA is based on a 12-step recovery program, but SMART Recovery is rooted in “cognitive behavior therapy,” he said. That means that “much of what you do is determined by what you think,” he said. “How you think about a situation determines significantly what you do in that situation.”