SMART Recovery support groups for teens and for young adults and SMART Recovery Family & Friends groups are popping up all throughout Connecticut! Find out which ones are near you and check them out with a friend!

Our TurningPointCT staff are running a SMART Recovery teen group in Fairfield and about to start one in Norwalk. To find a SMART group near you, click here, or to find other cool spots to check out in your area, visit our map here. Join in on the conversation here.

So what exactly is SMART Recovery?

SMART Recovery is a peer support group run by trained facilitators. It is for people seeking support with any struggle they may have: substance abuse, anxiety, depression, bullying, fighting, etc. But it’s more than your average support group–it also helps you develop coping skills by analyzing your behaviors, triggers, reactions, etc.  When our TurningPointCT staff got trained to facilitate SMART groups, they tried the skills out on themselves–and the skills worked! Check out our “What We Like About SMART Recovery” discussion about it on our Videos page.

For more information on SMART Recovery in CT, click here or to find an online meeting visit www.smartrecovery.org

So what exactly is SMART Recovery Family & Friends?

SMART Recovery Family & Friends groups help those who are affected by substance abuse (drug abuse, alcohol abuse) or other addictions of a loved one. If your boyfriend, sister, parent, friend or child is dealing with any type of addiction, this group will not only give you social support from people who have been exactly where you are, but it will also help you develop skills, based on the CRAFT model, to help you handle their behaviors better and also to help you get them into treatment.

For more information on SMART Recovery Family & Friends visit: https://www.smartrecovery.org/family/

Everyone, at one point or another, eventually finds themselves. For many the journey begins in pre-adolescent to adolescent years. And in that time people typically try out different personalities, personas, and identities in hopes of find one that sticks with them. This process could last a few years to a majority of some people’s lifetimes, but there’s one underlying factor in the end of that journey, and that’s being comfortable with yourself, your looks, your personality, your actions. It’s normal to have some insecurities or things you’d like to better about yourself, but first you need to “be yourself”. The process of finding yourself begins with the release of preconceptions about yourself and judgement that have been passed on to you by others. From there, you create a some what blank-ish canvas to paint on. Sometimes we have a hard time trying to decide which paints to use, some paints we fear might be a little edgy, some paints we think my offend others, whatever it is about that paint that is holding you back from putting it on the canvas, let it go. Because if you’re even contemplating, there’s something about that color you enjoy, and if you don’t end up enjoying as much as you thought you would later, you can white it out, no big deal, such is the way of life. What’s something you eventually embraced about yourself after pushing through the fear of judgement?