If the title does not repulse you, I think there may be something wrong with you. That is the point of this post. The headline is what a medical professional told former Pennsylvania Secretary of the Department of Drug & Alcohol Programs Gary Tennis when he asked the person what should be done with people like me. I know he was told this because he related this story several times when talking about stigma at public events. I am grateful to him for acknowledging how horrific these attitudes are. Acknowledging the truth is the first step to changing it.

As a person who would be so eliminated, it actually hurts my heart to hear that medical professional feel that way about us. I have been thinking about this lately because of yet more efforts here in Pennsylvania to reduce SUD privacy rights under the argument that to do so would improve care. Giving more access of information to people who despise us will not help us. Maybe we should do something about the horrible attitudes within our medical care system before we open up people like me to more discrimination.

If you think my example is an isolated situation, consider this NYT article “Injecting Drugs Can Ruin a Heart. How Many Second Chances Should a User Get?” published on April 29, 2018. The section that has long haunted me is where a physicians describes the “care” to a young man in Tennessee is related:

A little over a year ago, he replaced a heart valve in a 25-year-old man who had injected drugs, only to see him return a few months later. Now two valves, including the new one, were badly infected, and his urine tested positive for illicit drugs. Dr. Pollard declined to operate a second time, and the patient died at a hospice. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” he said.

The young man was left to die because he did not respond to treatment immediately. They withheld treatment and let him die. That is what I see when I read this. It is so very telling about the brazen nature of the discrimination against us. They don’t even bother hiding it.

I want to be the first to acknowledge that some really great people in our medical care systems are working very hard to change this. I have friends who will read this, and I know they get up every day and work from within the medical care system to improve the perception and show we do get better, and we are actually human. If you are someone who is so engaged, I salute you. You are part of the solution. Unfortunately, I see little evidence that the prevailing negative attitude about us has changed nearly as much as it needs to.

How prevalent are these underlying negative biases against us?  Here is a USA today article about an Ohio politician who tried to pass a law to limit overdose reversals and simply let people die in the street while EMTs stood by with Narcan in hand. If this is what people are saying out loud, what do you think is said when they think no one is listening, or how they act when they think no one is watching?

Still thinking such bias against us is rare? A physician in Oregon wrote this piece about his patients avoiding hospitals because they are drug users and they are afraid that their drug use will mark them as a different class of patient, that their treatment will be worse, and they will suffer. He writes that they are correct. He sees it too. As he notes “It announces itself with, “Well, you did this to yourself.” As if patients with tobacco-ravaged lungs, or with complications from diabetes, or clogged arteries, or broken legs from driving too fast or skiing off trail didn’t also contribute to their own hospitalizations.” This discrimination happens all across America, every single day.

My friend and colleague, Dr. Sean Fogler wrote this piece in STAT News about how stigma is weaponized in our medical care systems. As an openly recovering physician, he would see such things more easily than others. Another recovering physician friend once told me that persons with substance use disorders in their hospital are known as GOMERs (Get Out of My ER). I know more than a few medical professionals in recovery who will not let anyone in their hospitals know they are in recovery because the attitudes about us are abysmal. These are the people we are going to give greater access to our sensitive addiction histories. God help us.

I have experienced such discrimination in medical settings more than a few times. Taking people into the ER for help at 2 AM and being treated like vermin even as the person accompanying them has happened to me more times than I can count. One time I told a dentist treating me that I was in recovery as he was handing me 30 days’ worth of opioids for a dental procedure when an NSAID was a better choice. I told him I did not want an opioid; I took Advil instead. A few days later, I experienced some pain and swelling and set up an appointment to see him. I was worried about infection and went into see him to get ahead of it with an antibiotic in case it was infected. The gentle hand of the professional who treated me the week before was gone. He jammed his hands into my mouth causing more pain, he told me I was fine and informed me I would get no drugs from him. I walked out disgusted and ashamed. 30 years in continuous recovery at the time and I walked out feeling dirty. It still hurts my soul.

The Recovery Research Institute Center for Addiction Medicine and Harvard Medical School conducted this study, “Perceived discrimination in addiction recovery: Assessing the prevalence, nature, and correlates using a novel measure in a U.S. National sample.” It estimates that around 15.2% of people in recovery found it hard to get health insurance because they were in recovery, 14.7% felt like they received inadequate medical treatment, 48.8% reported people assumed they would relapse and 38% held to a higher standard than other people. The mark of stigma is on us.

Thinking about all the lobbying that medical institutions and insurance companies do to get ever more detailed access to our substance use records “so they can better help us.” They usually lobby to align it with HIPAA which allows greater ease for disclosure of illegal drug use to law enforcement than under the SUD privacy rules. Some physicians and nurses are bound to part of the half of the US population mentioned in the study above that assume I relapse, or I am lying to them, and they provide me and people like me substandard treatment. Please realize why many of us do not want the scarlet letter “A” for drug ADDICT written across the front of our medical record by reading this post. Maybe read it a few times.

We keep making it easier to expand access to highly sensitive information. Every case I worked on as a clinician contained detailed drug use history, including family drug use history. I imagine that soon we will see those records show up in criminal cases and divorce proceedings. While recent changes to our privacy rights in the CARES Act now contains extra protections against discrimination, the amendments also permits records to be disclosed pursuant to court order or patient consent for uses in criminal, civil and administrative proceedings. Up until 2020, there was a good reason people could not sign away their rights for their records to be used against them. Now they can. Inevitably, we will see people who are coerced or not properly informed of the gravity of signing away these critical protections.

How exactly do we improve care if medical professionals have such negative views about us and nothing is done to hold them accountable? We should talk about why we are okay with allowing a 25-year-old to die in hospice instead of providing a medical procedure. Do we let diabetics die because they do not follow their diet? Why is it ok refuse care and send a 25-year-old with a substance use disorder to a hospice to die?  It happens fairly regularly simply because we are seen as less than human. Why is there only concern expressed for us when it is associated with reducing our rights to privacy – which serves to protect us against such discrimination is proposed solution instead of fixing the attitudes and aggressively prosecuting discrimination?  

These attitudes are pervasive. It is the proverbial elephant in the room that nobody wants to deal with because these institutions are so powerful, and we are seen as less than human. Let us clean up our medical institutions as step one to reducing stigma. Where are our anti-discrimination laws and what teeth do they have? We need to have a zero-tolerance policies on discriminatory treatment of persons with a substance use disorder written into every hospital policy. They should include strong administrative sanctions for all staff who discriminate against us and everyone who witnesses it and fails to report it. Put such policies in place in every medical institution in the country. Then enforce them.

One in three families experience a substance use disorder. “Those people” are “our people.” We must prosecute discrimination and include compensatory and punitive damages in our laws. We must hold medical care institutions and medical professionals accountable. We must change behavior. We must stop accepting the unacceptable.

Matt Frank has been a SMART facilitator for over seven years.  His uses his experience and LGBTQ+ perspective to shape the tools and conversations to be most effective for his meeting participants. 

In this podcast, Matt talks about:

• How pride can be a problem emotion
• SMART discourages using labels
• Practicing recovery actively
• Focusing on behavior versus identity
• The difference between self-esteem and self-acceptance
• Using Motivational Interviewing in his Sexual Maladaptive Behavior meeting
• What people need is a good listening to
• The pros and cons of online versus in-person meetings
• Not letting pride lead you astray
• Appreciating the small things in life

Additional resources:

Click here to find all of SMART Recovery’s podcasts

PLEASE NOTE BEFORE YOU COMMENT:

SMART Recovery welcomes comments on our blog posts—we enjoy hearing from you! In the interest of maintaining a respectful and safe community atmosphere, we ask that you adhere to the following guidelines when making or responding to others’ comments, regardless of your point of view. Thank you.

• Be kind in tone and intent.
• Be respectful in how you respond to opinions that are different than your own.
• Be brief and limit your comment to a maximum of 500 words.
• Be careful not to mention specific drug names.
• Be succinct in your descriptions, graphic details are not necessary.
• Be focused on the content of the blog post itself.

If you are interested in addiction recovery support, we encourage you to visit the SMART Recovery website.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

If you or someone you love is in great distress and considering self-harm, please call 911 for immediate help, or reach out to The National Suicide Prevention Hotline @ 800-273-8255, https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

We look forward to you joining the conversation!

*SMART Recovery reserves the right to not publish comments we consider outside our guidelines.*

One of my favorite resources pertaining to the 12 Traditions is the simple list of the “Spiritual Principles in the Twelve Traditions” provided by OA. That simple list can be found here. Many are familiar with the spiritual principles of the Steps, but are not aware that there are spiritual principles identified for the Traditions.

My other favorite resource related to the Traditions is this kind of Tradition Working Guide. Many are familiar with working guides specific to the Steps, but are not aware that there are similar working guides for the Traditions.

Perhaps someone will find this information or these kinds of resources helpful or encouraging.

Shayn confronted use disorders as a youth, but successfully used SMART Recovery to overcome them and thrive, and now also hosts SMART Recovery meetings for teens who need help. Go Shayn! Everyone at SMART Recovery is delighted to work with you and proud of what you are accomplishing!

Watch on our YouTube channel.

Learn more about becoming a SMART volunteer.

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Video storytelling is a powerful tool in recovery, and we are proud to share our SMART Recovery content free-of-charge, available anywhere, on any device. Our videos hope to inform, entertain, and inspire anyone in the recovery community.

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PLEASE NOTE BEFORE YOU COMMENT:

SMART Recovery welcomes comments on our blog posts—we enjoy hearing from you! In the interest of maintaining a respectful and safe community atmosphere, we ask that you adhere to the following guidelines when making or responding to others’ comments, regardless of your point of view. Thank you.

• Be kind in tone and intent.
• Be respectful in how you respond to opinions that are different than your own.
• Be brief and limit your comment to a maximum of 500 words.
• Be careful not to mention specific drug names.
• Be succinct in your descriptions, graphic details are not necessary.
• Be focused on the content of the blog post itself.

If you are interested in addiction recovery support, we encourage you to visit the SMART Recovery website.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

If you or someone you love is in great distress and considering self-harm, please call 911 for immediate help, or reach out to The National Suicide Prevention Hotline @800-273-8255, https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

We look forward to you joining the conversation!

*SMART Recovery reserves the right to not publish comments we consider outside our guidelines.*

Yesterday I was sent a report of a “preprint article” about some interesting research results. 

(The report states a preprint article is one that has not yet been peer-reviewed or evaluated and should not be used to guide clinical practice). 

The article reported on a study that asks and answers if there is a “safe level of alcohol consumption for brain health”?

First, the authors summarized the existing state of the literature on this topic by noting that the level of alcohol intake required to cause brain harm is not known – and this was part of the reason they undertook their research project.    

After reviewing brain imaging (functional MRI) data for 25,378 participants the authors found, among other results, that alcohol consumption was associated with reduced grey matter volume and white matter micro-structure. In conclusion the authors state,

No safe dose of alcohol for the brain was found.  Moderate consumption is associated with more widespread adverse effects on the brain than previously recognized…Current ‘low risk’ drinking guidelines should be revisited to take account of brain effects.”

Over the last several years, I’ve taken particular interest in studies that fall under the concept I call “Harms of Use.”  The simple harms of simple use are generally interesting to me. 

One project I undertook on the topic of Harms of Use required gathering and studying a number of research reports on the topic.  That list of references is here. I have already added the research report above to my growing archive of these kinds of studies.

Readers of Recovery Review might recall that in my Stages of Healing series I asked what brain healing should and should not be expected – when particular medications are given. 

Reference

Topiwala,A., Ebmeier, K. P., Maullin-Sapey, T. & Nichols, T. E.  (2021).  No safe level of alcohol consumption for brain health: observational cohort study of 25,378 UK Biobank participants. medRxiv. 10.1101/2021.05.10.21256931

8 Reasons Socializing Sober is Better

By Kelly Fitzgerald  from www.thefix.com 

When you’re used to taking shots before any social interaction, it feels weird when you show up anywhere sober. But I learned that it’s actually better this way.

Let’s face it, socializing is something that is historically associated with alcohol. If you’ve watched television, surfed the Internet, or even browsed your Facebook feed, you’ve seen advertisements from the alcohol industry—or pop culture sites in general—on what you should be doing on a Friday night, what you should be mixing your vodka with, and how you can meet good-looking people at the bar. It’s one reason it took me such a long time to try sobriety. I truly thought the only way to socialize was by going out for drinks or by eyeing up my next boyfriend from across the club while listening to “Drop It Like It’s Hot.”

It took me a little while to adjust to life sober and socializing has been a big part of that. When you’re used to taking shots before any social interaction, it feels weird when you show up anywhere sober. Each event and situation that I participated in sober was a new learning opportunity, and they proved to me that socializing sober is much better than socializing drunk.

No. 1: It’s GENUINE

I was always the drinker who felt these deep spiritual connections with their drunk friends. I would meet someone at a nightclub in a bathroom at 2 a.m. and she would just get me. We’d be besties for the rest of the night. Sometimes these “friendships” lasted and we’d become party pals. I had tons of party pals, people who I could call on any day at any time and convince them to drink with me. Since getting sober, I’ve come to realize just how fake these connections were. It takes a lot more than sharing tequila shots to become close with another human. Sobriety has shown me that genuine connections are made with a clear head.

No. 2: It doesn’t entail a hangover

Socializing for me in active addiction always had a hangover attached to it. That’s because I didn’t know how to socialize without consuming alcohol. I won’t lie to you, I had a lot of fun on some days while drinking, but the price I always paid was a nasty hangover. No matter how much fun I thought I was having, the next day I paid for it. Socializing sober doesn’t require the social currency of a hangover. Today when I socialize, I get to wake up the next morning feeling refreshed.

No. 3: You develop connections that have substance

Along with drunk connections not being genuine, they also don’t have substance. When I got sober, I left a lot of friends behind because I realized we had nothing in common. What we had in common previously was drinking and drama. Once you leave that stuff behind, you realize you need to socialize with other people who have similar world views and goals. It’s easier to find people who share your views and goals when you are sober, understand what you’re looking for in this life, and go out to the right places and get it.

No. 4: You don’t have to worry about embarrassing yourself

My drinking years were a long history of embarrassing situations. I know people who drink and aren’t alcoholics who have embarrassed themselves, at least a time or two, while indulging in alcohol. The beauty of socializing sober is that you don’t have to worry about embarrassing yourself! Of course, it’s possible to make a mistake or do something silly while sober, but not to the extent that I used to do it when I was drinking. I can make the conscious decision to behave in a certain way while socializing instead of leaving it up to who I become during a blackout.

No. 5: You can remember all your conversations

Do you know how many times people confided in me and told me serious stuff while I was intoxicated? More times than I can count. Not only that, serious things in my life happened—surgeries, deaths, and other important events that I can hardly recall. It pains me to know that I can’t remember crucial details of my life due to my addiction. Now that I move through the world sober, I can remember all of my conversations, big and small.

No. 6: You might find new hobbies you love

Socializing sober has been advantageous because I’ve found new hobbies I never knew I liked. It’s a common misconception that you won’t have fun in sobriety and that socializing is hard. But the truth is, you find new ways to socialize. I’ve started CrossFit and have met new people through that community. Sobriety offers time to find new hobbies and new friendships with people who enjoy those hobbies.

No. 7: Friendship will be based on values, not booze

I never realized how my entire life was based around alcohol until I got sober. I thought I was drinking like any other 20-something party girl. It wasn’t until I looked deep within and examined my relationships, that I realized I sought out “friends” who could drink a lot, who liked to go to the same nightclubs as me, and had connections to get drugs. It might seem like common sense, but these are not the qualities that make up a good friend! Today, my sober friendships are based on real values like loyalty, honesty, and reliability.

No. 8: I have the choice to socialize or not

I never realized it until I got sober, but socializing became forced for me, meaning drinking was equated to socializing and socializing was equated to drinking. I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I felt like I had to put on a face, be the life of the party, and act like I was enjoying and interacting with people no matter what. Now that I’m sober, I get to choose if I want to socialize or not—what a crazy concept. I also don’t equate socializing with drinking anymore.

Once I made the separation of drinking and socializing, it made sense to me why socializing is so much more enjoyable sober. You can be who you are and thrive in any situation. Of course, it took time to adjust to being a part of a crowd sober, making friends without exchanging shots of tequila, and knowing when I just want to stay home on a Friday night. But socializing has become one of my favorite things about being sober. All I have to worry about when socializing now, is being myself.

Kelly Fitzgerald is a sober writer based in Southwest Florida whose work has been published on the Huffington Post among other sites. She writes about her life as a former party girl living in recovery on The Adventures of The Sober Señorita.

About Fellowship Hall

Fellowship Hall is a 99-bed, private, not-for-profit alcohol and drug treatment center located on 120 tranquil acres in Greensboro, N.C. We provide treatment and evidence-based programs built upon the Twelve-Step model of recovery. We have been accredited by The Joint Commission since 1974 as a specialty hospital and are a member of the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers. We are committed to providing exceptional, compassionate care to every individual we serve.

There was this thing going around the internet a few years called “the Dress,” millions of people around the world saw it  and chimed in on what color that they perceived the dress to be. It has its own Wikipedia reference. People either see a black and blue dress, or white and gold dress. There were even studies done on how the human brain may process color differently. One article identified it may have to do with a lifetime of sleep wake patterns. Early rising larks (like me) may be more likely to interpret an ambiguous image as being lit by the short-wavelength light they’re used to seeing and thus more likely to see the dress as white and gold. Late night Owls should have a tendency to assume long-wavelength, artificial lighting, and would thus see the dress as black and blue. For the record, I see it clearly as a white and gold dress. So we may be subtly influenced by a lifetime of experience on how our eyes gather light.

It is so analogous of a lot of things in our world today, including recovery. The difference is that what we “see” when we think of recovery is all the associations we have with that word. What we see is influenced by our own experiences. For me, it was a lifesaving process that helped me redefine my life in ways that I honestly believe led me to be a better version of who I am as person. The journey has shaped me in ways I don’t think I would have had in any other way. What is called in the literature post traumatic growth or as what researcher Dr David Best terms “better than well.” 

It is also about what we assume about others when we hear the word. Some believe recovery means being absent all medications, others do not feel this way. Many believe it is a process that includes more than abstinence from all misuse of drugs, some others see it as any movement towards wellness. I often hear the assertion that recovery is defined by the individual, which empowers the individual but may not be particularly useful in respect to developing care frameworks to increase access to it. I even hear a groundswell of voices that the word has become so tainted that it should be dispensed with entirely. The defining of recovery is a contentious space.

Perhaps we would make progress if we saw recovery like the dress pictured above. While I see a gold and white dress, I understand that there is a phenomenon occurring that result in markedly different visual experience of what people see. I don’t think that a person is bad or evil if they see a black or blue dress or make some other value judgement on them if they see it differently than I (which unfortunately does seem to happen with how we view recovery). There are differences in how we perceive things both visually and experientially. Let’s figure out a way to honor that.

We do require some level of categorization of what recovery is and proper language to discuss it so as to avoid additional confusion or to falsely attribute what we think people are saying because of imprecise language. I experience challenges due to the imprecision of our recovery definition language often. I agree with what Austin Brown said in his recent and thoughtful post “Reflections on Current Debates Regarding Recovery Definitions.” He notes that we need a scientific definition of recovery, but that great care must be taken to center such a definition around how survivors of addiction view themselves. Like the dress, we have varied views, and a viable definition of recovery must encapsulate lived recovery views in ways that make sense for all of us. Challenging but possible.

You may say it does not matter. Bill White has written about the importance of the debate over how we define recovery over the years, here is one article, and here is another he has written. He notes that a lot rides on how we define recovery, what gets in and what gets left out. Austin Brown noted in the piece linked above that the opioid crisis brought a lot money and interest into the recovery space and that simply being an expert in a medical realm does not make someone an authority on recovery. Dr David McCartney wrote a piece recently called You’re all going to hate the word ‘recovery’. I agree with his statement in his piece “The point, I suppose, is that it is not possible to have a reliable single tool that measures recovery. Recovery is a complex process and it’s not fundamentally a clinical journey, but a social one and doesn’t fit under the microscope easily.”

I am not going to pitch a new definition of recovery here. I respect what anyone has to say about their own recovery. In the same breath, we don’t define cancer remission scientifically based on individual perception, it has an accepted classification that is subject to change as we learn new things about it. Cancer as a pathology is very different from recovery, but both must be ground in science. Perhaps we could start with encapsulating the experiences of all persons in recovery in a framework based on our collective lived experience. We could start by asking each other what we see and why we see it that way rather than filling the word with our own associations and making false assumptions of what others see. We just might be able to develop a framework for categorizing the recovery process that we can all agree is valid. The nomenclature of recovery matters. It ends up informing how we conceptualize solutions and organize care.

So what is the recovery you see, how much room do you have to accommodate the recovery you don’t see?   

Saying goodbye to a friend and colleague as they leave an organization is almost always a bittersweet moment. We want them to embrace new possibilities and chapters in their lives, but at the same time we’ll miss them terribly.

Jim Braastad, after 13 years of service to SMART Recovery, has retired. His impact was major, as we’ll see from the following testimonials celebrating his work and, almost equally, just who he was as a person.

He became known to SMART as GJBXVI, his online username. Jim’s responses to message board posts, according to those present at the time, were filled with understanding, compassion, and SMART tools. No surprise there, because that is how he was his entire tie while associated with SMART.

Jim was never shy about volunteering, and he served in many volunteer capacities for SMART through the years: Online Leadership Team, Message Board Liaison, volunteer helper to online trainings, and eventually, based on his commitment of time and talent, it became clear it was time to make Jim a member of the staff.

He was responsible for creating the online training platform which has trained thousands of volunteers. Really, SMART Recovery would have experienced far less growth in what would have required far more time if it hadn’t been for Jim and his involvement. 

Personal Testimonials

Now for the good stuff, personal testimonials from Jim’s co-workers about who he was and how SMART benefitted.

From just this small selection of people who have known Jim over the years, it is easy to see how important he was to SMART as an organization and the people who make up SMART. It is not often that an individual has the years of impact upon where they volunteered and worked. Jim Braastad did.

Jim, from the bottom of our SMART hearts we thank you. Words can’t really express how much you’ve meant to SMART, but we tried. May you have a wonderful next chapter of your life.

Mark Ruth, Executive Director

The first statement of appreciation comes from Executive Director Mark Ruth, who felt Jim’s impact immediately after he joined SMART.

Right after I started working with Jim in 2018 I was quickly impressed with his overall knowledge of SMART, especially training programs and tools, and the needs of volunteer and participant. Jim was instrumental in helping make immediate online training improvements, adding new courses, and in our training website marketing and rebranding. 

Equally important to me, Jim provided a valued historical perspective of SMART that helped me make more informed decisions.  Jim’s planned retirement is well deserved but for those who know Jim, we know he will not be too far away in his ongoing support of SMART. 

Our National Office staff and SMART community wish Jim the very best in his next phase of his life journey.

Shari Allwood, Former Executive Director

A longer-term historical perspective is offered by Shari Allwood, former SMART Executive Director.

The most important thing Jim did was help others change their lives. Whether that person worked directly with Jim online or benefitted from well-trained facilitators sharing the SMART program with them, Jim was hugely impactful .

Jim, wishing you all the VERY best as you enter and enjoy retirement.  May you be 1/10th as well cared for as those you cared for during your time with SMART.  That would equate to you having it made in the shade! Thanks for giving your all to SMART!

Christi Alicea, Assistant Executive Director

Christi Alicea, SMART’s Assistant Executive Director, especially notes his going the extra mile, or two, or three.

Jim and I first met in 2015 when I signed up for our Distance Training to prepare for my new job at SMART Recovery.  He was patient with me and my questions as I was still juggling my former position, a part-time job and personal things in life, just like many volunteers he worked with experience.

Once I got settled at SMART, Jim and I worked together quite a bit, and I saw how much he cared about each and every participant who took our training.  Volunteers often continued to reach out to him as a resource even after they graduated because of his knowledge and helpful demeanor.

Importantly, Jim’s sense of humor made things fun “around the office,” even all the way from Minnesota. For example, he would never let me forget about the time I accidentally turned my camera on in a training session FULL of Facilitators in Training while looking “less than camera ready!” Enough said.  

Thank you for your hard work, dedication, and everything you did to help grow SMART!

Hammer, Lead Onsite Trainer

The person we all know as Hammer (aka Mrs. Hellnoerstrom) wonders what she can say about Jim. Then she offers this incredible tribute.

What can I say about Jim Braastad? We had many fun and entertaining moments together.  I noticed Jim when he first came to SMART Recovery and I asked him if he would be interested in being a message board volunteer. He jumped right in and made the most insightful posts.

I was working with others to run what was then called Distance Training. The number of trainees kept growing exponentially and we needed to find someone to help. I approached Jim and he joined our team.

One year we had the idea to try to stay awake for the entire 24 hours that it would take to welcome New Year’s around the world.  We did it several years in a row – never quite making the 24 hours – but having a blast in the meantime.  Those were early days. When I returned to SMART Recovery to work on the Onsite Training Team I got to work with Jim once again.  He had learned a whole lot of stuff and blew me away with how much he was doing for SMART Recovery.

There have been many moments we have shared over the years. But the one thing I will say is Jim’s heart is always in the right place and he truly cares about the people he works with. Recently he asked me to work with a young person that he mentored and to whom he provided a personal scholarship for training.  What a treasure!

I am so happy that Jim has chosen to retire and enjoy time with his precious family. Jim, I wish you all the best in everything you do. It has been a distinct pleasure knowing you as a colleague and a friend. I hope you stay in touch.

SEL, Training Team Member

SEL notes that while Jim may not have fit in the conventional mold as volunteer and staff for SMART, that didn’t matter.

Since November 2014, when Jim asked me to join the Distance Training Team, he has demonstrated his value. He told me again and again that the absolute best part of Distance Training was working closely with the Facilitators in Training; consider the many trainees from all over the world who have stayed in touch with him after completing their training. His kindness and moral center are obvious, with his buckets of patience as well as joy in helping others “discover the power of choice” and “life beyond addiction.” Yes, I teased him about using quotation marks for emphasis. His influence and energy (rationality and wisdom) will continue to be felt throughout the SMART Recovery organization. I wish him great satisfaction in whatever he decides to pursue next. And yes, there will be something, you just wait.

Sam Lester, Training Team Member

Sam Lester, a colleague on the Training Team for many years, was always struck by his level of compassion.

I first met Jim when he joined SMART in 2009 and I connected with him right away.  I felt his enthusiasm for not just his own recovery but for others’ as well.  He contributed endlessly by posting helpful information on the SMART Recovery website.

His leadership in the GSF online Distance Training has been outstanding, not only for the trainees taking the course but for us, the Training Team.  His quick response to all our needs and just the empathy he expressed to anyone who was struggling is who he is, a kind person. 

While he is already deeply missed by all of us, we accept his decision to retire and wish the best for him and his family.

Gigi, Volunteer

Gigi, a volunteer for more than five years, is convinced that without Jim she would have quit.

I reluctantly started training after thinking I had to have it all together first. That was March 2015 when there was a lot of work to reading the responses from the New Facilitators in Training from all over the world. I learned so much from reading the responses. I knew of a Jim Brastaad and the Team of Sam and Sarah because we communicated twice a month with training calls.

I had some bumps in the early days and Jim sent some wonderful support and using Tools, specifically ABC. I felt his earnest support from the beginning. I finally got to MEET Jim at the Conference 2019 in Chicago. What a great time to talk to him in person. I left energized for SMART and facilitating. Thank you Jim!

PLEASE NOTE BEFORE YOU COMMENT:

SMART Recovery welcomes comments on our blog posts—we enjoy hearing from you! In the interest of maintaining a respectful and safe community atmosphere, we ask that you adhere to the following guidelines when making or responding to others’ comments, regardless of your point of view. Thank you.

• Be kind in tone and intent.
• Be respectful in how you respond to opinions that are different than your own.
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Hi all,

This post is a request for your help.

I’m involved in the formation of an addiction recovery affinity group (AKA employee resource group) in a hospital.

We have well over 2000 staff and roles range from administrators to food service to RNs to housekeeping to doctors.

I’m interested in models and examples for this type of thing. I’ve seen a lot of examples of recovery-friendly workplaces and I’m aware of things like Caduceus groups, but this is a little different. It may provides some mutual aid but it also seeks to improve employee engagement, strengthen culture, and accomplish some diversity & inclusion (D&I) goals.

This group could provide support for other recovering colleagues, provide feedback to HR about policies to support recovery at the hospital, and provide feedback about improving care for patients in recovery or with a history of addiction.

Of particular concern is the fact that many colleagues are licensed health professionals and may see professional risk in identifying as a person in recovery.

I’m interested getting information on the objectives, activities, and experiences of similar groups. I’m particularly interested in experience in navigating concerns about licensing and confidentiality.

Please share your thoughts and experience with me via email at jfschwartz(at)gmail.com or twitter @RecoveryReview

Thank you! Jason

One of the projects I am working on currently is to do interviews with people who attended the historic 2001 Recovery Summit in St. Paul, Minnesota. I am doing it to develop a deeper understanding of what was occurring at the time and how it all came together. The better we understand such things, the easier it is for us to apply the lessons of history to our current challenges. One of the main things I am learning is that there was an emphasis from the very first moments of planning the event to include multiple pathways of recovery. It was a central focus of what they were trying to accomplish. Essentially, to highlight we are all in this together and to value and respect all pathways.

In respect to the new recovery advocacy movement, we are at such a milestone right now. Twenty years prior to the summit, in 1981, there was no care. Advocacy in those early years was simply to create funding mechanism to get people treatment. I got help in 1986 because of that effort. Without studying history, my assumption would have been that such services had always existed. I was oblivious to how much blood sweat and tears it took for that door to be there for me to walk through. Without a lot of hard effort in the late 1960s and 70s it would have never happened. I see parallels to work that came out of the 2001 recovery summit and how younger people may see it at twenty years out.

As an aside, I am reading a book called the Fourth Turning, one of the main points of the book is that society changes every twenty years or so, and that each generation has a different viewpoint based on the conditions in their formative years. Using this lens, history has patterns that echo over increments of an average human life cycle, 80 years of so. It is an interesting framework for history and makes some fascinating points. We do see changes in societies that tend to reflect these twenty-year measures.  I suspect this is also true for us as a recovery movement. We live in different times.

Through a study of recovery history, it is evident that anything around the addiction and recovery world means a lot of varying views. We become defined by our differences. It is also true then and now that many groups benefit from a divided recovery community and may even work to foment such division. This has always been true, but it is also true that we have always has much more in common than any of the smaller points on which we divide up and get heated about. That lesson of unity is one we need to heed now. It is the lesson our last generation has for our new leaders.

The divisions that pull us apart are understandable. There are very different experiences for persons trying to access care along lines of race, economic class, rural access versus urban and many a myriad of other factors. We must address them. Resources for recovery have also been so limited, we are like drowning people pushing each other down into the water to pull ourselves out of the water for a gasp of air. Some may even benefit from our own version of the recovery hunger games. Like recovery, it seems to me that everything we put before this common cause we are likely to lose. In that lens, the need for common purpose is clear. We are the smallest entity at the funding level but unrivaled in the size of our constituency when we come together. When we come together, we can succeed. Full stop.

In conducting the interviews with attendees of the historic recovery summit in St Paul, the other thing that stands out to me is that there was widespread recognition at the time that this was probably the best opportunity there ever would be to establish a national recovery movement. In short, the forces that brought them all together were greater than the forces which pulled them apart. Necessity brought them all together.

We are now in such an era of necessity and opportunity. The Biden administration has released a FYI 22 budget proposal of 3.5 billion, an 87% increase in federal Substance Abuse Block Grant (SABG) dollars. This is the primary source used by states to fund treatment, prevention, and recovery support services across the nation. It includes a 10% set aside for recovery support services, this is the FIRST EVER federal proposed budget that sets aside dollars for us. We have never been resourced like what is being proposed. It is a proposal; however, it will take a herculean effort to make it a reality.

We will get nowhere divided. We never have. We may have multiple pathways of recovery, but we have one common cause, to get as many people into recovery as is possible. It is about the lives of our families and community members.

What lessons can the recovery movement history tell us about what we do next? I pose questions here:

• What are ways our community shows division that would be better off addressed behind closed doors?
• What are some ways we can bring all of our communities together in common cause moving forward?
• How do we keep our eye on the prize of supporting recovery for all of our diverse communities with equity?
• How do we want to be remembered?

The truth is that together, we are Hercules. Let’s go make history!