I think an interesting thing to point out is that something like SMART (which I'm not yet familiar with) may be of help to a wider range of people than the kind of program which is not suitable to discuss in this section of the forum. It probably helps people who may not have - or yet have - or may be uncertain as to whether they have - or doctors or counsellors are uncertain as to whether they have - the 'allergy' component, as well as people who do, as far as I can deduce. It presumably helps people who are doing the kind of program referred to, at the same time, as far as I can deduce. Like Tyler says behaviour change is the key either way or both ways. Any means to improve our lives by getting off the drink, if it's wrong for us - that is g-r-e-a-t !!!
I'm a great believer in what I call ballpark language. I put the most compatible interpretation on it possible. Like Salparadise quoting Seeburger (whom I hadn't come across) while this is far from being just rhetoric, the two viewpoints can coexist in a wider scheme of things. Some guys who unfortunately couldn't see described an elephant as a (warm blooded
) snake, a rope and a wall. All of them were right.
My experience showed me I did have the allergy component so I bore the responsibility to abstain and also to investigate anything that would help me continue to abstain, and the second part of this responsibility I several times stalled in, leading to my lapsing in the first (abstaining). I also experienced its progressive nature. The other kind of program may go to more depth on some issues but this kind of tool may cover more breadth of issues. Hence what one does based on the two "different" visions is probably compatible & complementary in practice, in my view as a newcomer to SMART concepts. In so far as in some ways I was acting as a 'bad boy', behaviour changes beckon.
I'm going to look out a SMART meeting as soon as I can and meantime can say that I have already been doing the cost benefit analysis (seemingly one of the best known features of SMART) at least in my head for 3 and a half years now, and benefitting thereby. What I know of SMART so far appeals to me for practical rather than ideological reasons.