SMART Recovery and This Helpline

You searched one name and landed on the other, and that is maddening when you only wanted a meeting, or only wanted help finding treatment. SMART Recovery is a mutual-support program for people who want to change addictive behavior. Its own site says SMART means Self-Management and Recovery Training, and that SMART Recovery USA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. SmarterRecovery is a referral helpline. It is not SMART Recovery. It does not host SMART meetings, train SMART facilitators, or speak for that organization. If you searched for a peer meeting and landed here, the next useful step is their meeting finder, not a treatment referral you did not ask for. If you searched for help finding a treatment program, you are in the right place, and a SMART meeting is a different service.

If someone is in immediate danger, call 911. For a mental health crisis, call or text 988.

What SMART Recovery says it is

SMART Recovery describes its mission as helping people gain independence from problematic addictive behavior, with a self-empowering and science-informed approach. It says participants should be informed about the range of options and free to choose among them. Meetings, online and in person, are mutual support. Participants design and implement their own recovery plan. The organization says it also offers specialized meetings, including a Family and Friends program.

The framework it publishes is the 4-Point Program. SMART Recovery's program page lists the four points as:

1. Building and maintaining motivation
2. Coping with urges and cravings
3. Managing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
4. Living a balanced life

The about page words the third point as managing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and the fourth as living a balanced life. The organization says meetings focus on applying cognitive-behavioral methods and non-confrontational motivational methods, guided by those four points, and that the methods change as scientific knowledge changes. That is their description of a peer curriculum. It is not a claim that a meeting is psychotherapy, and it is not a promise of an outcome. Slogans about what "works" stay on their site, in their words.

SMART Recovery says meetings and online services are free of charge. Donations are requested. Funding, it says, comes primarily from training fees, literature sales, and personal contributions. Its home page describes free recovery support groups led by trained facilitators, in person and online, with no long-term commitment required. The meeting page says meetings are free and guided by trained facilitators, and that they focus on addictive behaviors rather than on one substance, including alcohol, drugs, gambling, tobacco, and other problem behaviors. It says meetings often run about 90 minutes and that the meeting finder shows the length of a given meeting. Those details are SMART Recovery's. They can change. Check the meeting finder rather than an old printout.

A facilitator is not, in their wording, your therapist for that hour. SMART Recovery says treatment professionals may volunteer to facilitate, and that when they do, they switch from "therapist" to "facilitator." It also says the organization is operated almost entirely by volunteers. Facilitators may be people who had addictive problems, or people who did not and who trained to lead meetings as a community service. That is SMART Recovery's account of its own volunteers. It is not a description of the people who answer a referral line, and it is not a credential you can assume.

On verification, SMART Recovery says it is an independent organization and is not affiliated with any governmental agency, court, corrections facility, or treatment program. Facilitators may, at their discretion, provide attendance verification. The organization says it keeps no permanent record of participant names or meeting attendance. A slip from a meeting is their process. A referral line does not write one.

How it sits next to other care

SAMHSA's guide on medications for alcohol use disorder lists Self-Management and Recovery Training, at smartrecovery.org, among mutual-help resources, next to Alcoholics Anonymous and Women for Sobriety. The pathway comparison gives the high-level view of that choice. It does not rank the programs. SMART Recovery's own position is that each person finds a path, that the path for some people includes AA or NA, and that SMART does not exclude those meetings. Some participants attend both.

SMART Recovery also says it supports the scientifically informed use of psychological treatment and of legally prescribed psychiatric and addiction medication. Stopping a medicine to fit a meeting is not their stated position. The prescriber is still the person who starts or stops it. The medication guide covers methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone, without doses.

Religion, in their position statement, is a personal choice and not part of the program. They say the power to change, in their view, resides in the individual and does not depend on a spiritual viewpoint. That is their program rule. It is not an insult to people who use a spiritual fellowship. The pathway page is where that comparison stays respectful and short.

Family members have a separate SMART program. The family guide covers support for relatives during treatment. It is not a SMART Family and Friends meeting. If that specific peer program is what you want, use SMART Recovery's own pages to find it.

A meeting does not manage withdrawal. If stopping alcohol or a benzodiazepine could be dangerous, the clinical pages are the withdrawal guide and the detox comparison. Peer support can sit beside that care. It does not replace it. NIDA's point that self-help complements professional treatment, discussed on the pathway page, applies here too.

What the helpline is for

SmarterRecovery answers a different request. The referral service can help you look for a licensed treatment program. It is not a SMART Recovery meeting, not a facilitator training, and not an attendance slip. SmarterRecovery does not claim to represent SMART Recovery, and SMART Recovery's pages do not describe this helpline.

Use their site, smartrecovery.org, to find a meeting or to read the four points from the organization that runs them. Use FindTreatment.gov to search licensed treatment facilities. SAMHSA's National Helpline, 1-800-662-HELP (4357), is the federal information line. Call or text (800) 653-9376 if the thing you need is help finding treatment. Say so plainly, especially if you meant the peer program and reached the helpline by the similar name. The useful move is the door you actually wanted.

Additional Resources

Sources cited on this page:

• SMART Recovery: About us
• SMART Recovery: Programs, including the 4-Point Program
• SMART Recovery: Meetings
• SMART Recovery: Home page
• SAMHSA: Medication for the Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder: A Brief Guide (lists SMART Recovery as mutual help)
• SAMHSA National Helpline
• SAMHSA FindTreatment.gov
• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline

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