SMART Recovery® Podcast

Bill Greer came up through the ranks of SMART Recovery. He started as a participant in 2012, then became a facilitator, then Regional Coordinator, and joined the Board of Directors in 2017. He is currently the President of the Board. As SMART releases its 2021-2022 Strategic Plan to the community, he knows the importance of implementing goals that will shape SMART’s future.   

In this podcast, Bill talks about:

• The 2021-2022 Strategic Plan
• Coming up through the ranks of SMART
• The lived experience of SMART
• What the Strategic Plan means
• How the Strategic Plan achieves the SMART mission
• How the Strategic Plan is aimed towards supporting our volunteers
• A decade of incredible growth and why the Strategic Plan is necessary for continued growth
• Addressing uncomfortable and challenging questions
• Why it’s critical to shift to a fund development culture
• Making SMART a household name
• His meaning of Life Beyond Addiction
• What the Strategic Plan means to you and how to take action

Eboni Jewel Sears’s life has been full of unique and interesting experiences and opportunities.  Growing up, her military family moved throughout the country; today Las Vegas, Nevada, is home. Her professional journey has taken her from being a Navy Seabee to a long-haul truck driver to currently a peer recovery support specialist at the Alternative Peer Group Las Vegas.  It’s here that she counsels teens in recovery using the SMART Recovery tools and principles. 

In this podcast, Eboni talks about:

• Being a SMART facilitator and peer recovery support specialist
• Using exchange vocabulary with the teens to bridge the gap between AA and SMART terminology
• Why she was reluctant to become a SMART facilitator and what changed her mind
• Ways she makes learning the SMART tools fun for her teen participants
• Keeping her recovery and sexual identity hidden while in the Navy
• That it’s okay to have fun in recovery
• Wanting a better life for herself and daughter
• Facilitating a SMART Recovery Online (SROL) meeting for Maladaptive Behaviors
• Working with the Las Vegas School District to get SMART Recovery into the Mission High School curriculum
• Being an African American, LGBT, Female
• SMART concepts fitting well into spiritual concepts
• 2020 being a year of change

Henry Steinberger, of Madison, Wisconsin, is a long-time, trusted advisor and facilitator for SMART.  His extensive educational credentials and background have been invaluable in shaping SMART Recovery into the organization it is today. 

In this podcast, Henry talks about:

• Working with Albert Ellis
• The fork in the road with Jack Trimpy
• The psychology of understanding why people “are so messed up”
• Discovering SMART and serving on the Board of Directors
• Contributing to the SMART Recovery Handbook
• The seven therapeutic lifestyle changes
• The Japanese concept of Shinrin-Yoku (translated as Forest bathing)
• Using CRAFT and the SMART Family & Friends Handbook
• Meeting people where they are and varying degrees of religiosity
• Rebuilding the trust bank
• Incorporating the SMART Facilitator Training for Professionals into your practice
• His definition of Life Beyond Addiction
• Being present is part of being in love, romance, and intimacy

Dr. Reid Hester is a psychologist and researcher.  He is the founder and director of the science division of Checkup & Choices.  Reid’s extensive research in alcohol abuse has led to professional opportunities and collaborations with many experts in the field.  One long-standing partnership has been with SMART Recovery. 

In this podcast, Reid talks about:

• His educational background and path to earning a doctorate in psychology
• Meeting the “rising star” William Miller in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1978
• Finding a kindred spirit in Tom Horvath, a founding member of SMART Recovery
• Publishing findings from a drug and alcohol abstinence focused protocol, in conjunction with SMART, in the Journal of Medical Internet Research
• How the pandemic is affecting recovery
• The Checkup & Choices approach and app
• Receiving funding for continued research through Small Business Innovative Research Grants
• Carpe diem is the term when looking for web-based applications to make changes
• Future innovators including Chess Health and Vorvida
• Reasons to be hopeful and optimistic in recovery
• The positive ripple effect

Shawn Fisk is an addiction treatment counselor in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.  His lived personal and professional experiences have led him to challenge cognitive discrepancies and chart a new path for his and his clients’ lives.   

In this podcast, Shawn talks about:

• The privilege of working at Serenity House, an intensive, in-house men’s recovery home
• Giving the residents the opportunity to model and practice new skills to replace old behaviors
• His life as a competitive athlete and sports psychology coach
• Getting the opportunity to hit the reset button
• Taking Carl Young’s advice to find the courage to look at the dark things and find freedom
• Learning to value himself enough to take care of himself
• Applying SMART tools to behaviors like over-eating or spending
• Understanding labels
• Freedom from judgement
• His perspective on Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT)
• Helping people see their value
• Finding a new hobby every year

Stacey McKeever is a librarian in southern California.  Her lifelong struggle with food addiction has led her to use SMART Recovery as one pathway to maintaining balance in her life.   

In this podcast, Stacey talks about:

• How she was a librarian even before she earned her degree 
• Being put on diet pills at eight years old 
• Using food to cope with her feelings 
• Finding out she had a food addiction  Her inability to feel space or boundaries  
• The blocked memories from her childhood 
• Growing up in a household of women, where everyone was continuously dieting
• How needing food to live makes the struggle more difficult 
• Learning how to have boundaries with words not food 
• Incorporating SMART Recovery and Weight Watchers programs into her life 
• Finding balance on the beam and knowing when enough is enough 
• Making excuses because it’s the holidays 
• The sexiness is all about the planning of the meal 
• Going into the holidays with eyes wide open 
• Trying other programs  
• Learning how to be a whole person with SMART What is most valuable about SMART meetings 
• Advice for staying on the balance beam 
• Learning recovery is an individual journey 
• Ways of supporting others without accepting their burdens 

Les Waite is a veteran and a clinical psychologist at the Albany Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany, New York.  His struggles with addiction lead him to SMART Recovery.  Now, he uses the SMART tools daily in his practice for veterans.   

In this podcast, Les talks about: 

• His educational resume that includes learning the teachings of Alfred Adler 
• Serving in the military during the first Gulf War 
• Seeing his comrades come back from deployment with trauma issues and finding limited professional resources to help them
• How trauma and substance use disorders are linked 
• His own struggles with addiction 
• Being introduced to SMART and why he fell in love with the program 
• Why the VA hospitals' programs dovetail beautifully with SMART's teachings
• His “been there, done that” connection with patients 
• Why the structure and order of the SMART program is effective for veterans 
• Playing Jonny Appleseed in the VA hospitals by starting SMART meetings everywhere he goes
• Motivational interviewing and the stages of change model
• Having honest, genuine dialog with his patients about the reasons they are seeing him
• Reconnecting a veteran to their own values using the hierarchy of values tool 
• His post-COVID goals of launching more SMART meetings for veterans and in his community  

Nick Goodwin is a SMART Recovery facilitator and co-chair of the new Veterans and First Responders meeting starting on November 10th.  He is a former Infantry Officer, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. 

• What led him to join the military
• His commission in the Marines
• What triggered his alcohol use disorder
• Finding SMART Recovery through the Veterans Addiction Recovery Center
• Why military veterans gravitate towards SMART
• Why battling himself was the hardest battle
• How crosstalk is effective in SMART meetings
• Substance abuse as a symptom of a mental health problem
• What failure means to him
• Finding a new life purpose
• Starting the first SMART Recovery Online Veterans and First Responders meeting

Kevin Minnick is the SMART Recovery Regional Coordinator for Indiana. He is also a probation officer for Hancock County. 

In this podcast, Kevin talks about: 

• How being a professional golfer paid for his master’s degree in counseling 
• Seeing an ad for SMART Recovery in an underground newspaper in the 1990s 
• How working in the chemical dependency unit was luck of the draw 
• Recognizing that many aspects of recovery were not being addressed in 12-step treatment programs
• Challenging his supervisor that multiple options for recovery needed to be offered 
• Taking a client-centered approach to the person’s recovery
• Being a clinical coordinator in the drug court  
• How SMART Recovery’s program shows results
• Incorporating the Successful Life Skills book into meetings 
• Why to become a SMART Recovery facilitator 

Peter Finger is a SMART Recovery Regional Coordinator in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He is also an advocate for the drug courts in his state. 

In this podcast, Peter talks about:

• Why partying like Frank Sinatra was the way his family coped with issues
• What caused tremendous anxiety during childhood and carried into his adulthood
• Who held an intervention for him when his drinking habit was out of control
• How he found SMART Recovery and Alltyr
• Why he never drank again after taking the SMART Recovery Training program
• How he became involved with the South Dakota Drug Courts
• What people are searching for and why the search over when they find it
• Taking the National Drug Court Institute training
• Using the Successful Life Skills book in his SMART meetings
• Why it’s important to extend compassion and empathy to everyone
• Where life goes from here