ToddE1

Hey Kirashi,

I was going to make some comments for you, but I guess that's off topic. Poof a couple posts were gone. Didn't seem much more than a recovery/frustration issue to me, but I guess everything is a bit of a judgment call. Oh well, I hope you continue to find places that fit well with you on your journey. Sounds like you are having a fair amount of success on that end, despite a bump or two though.

I do a LifeRing online meeting. You may want to check out one of there's if you haven't already. I've attended a couple online meetings here also. The format here is topic meeting, one person talk at a time, no cross talk allowed. I prefer a more open discussion, but I understand on a place with so many strong and differing opinions, why they have a no cross talk rule.

Hey Lizak,

I read through all the SMART stuff early on in my own recovery, but never really used any of it. Seems like a lot of work, for no particular reason to me anyway. I agree with you, simple works best, at least for me it does. I liked the idea of some of the SMART tools, some just seem silly to me though and why so many. It seems a bit too much overload, to be helpful for someone starting out or even with a bit of time in, at least in my opinion.

I prefer LifeRing over SMART for that aspect. They have three books. A workbook, a book called “Empowering Your Sober Self” and one called “How was your week?” which is their training manual for people running the meetings. I've never read the workbook, but I did read the “Empowering” book early on. I think it covered enough of what probably is in the workbook, too though. They don't have all the full library of “tools” that SMART does, but do have one or two. I can't say that I found those helpful in the least and didn't care for the book much at all. One thing I did like out of it though was basically this. The LifeRing book I read essentially said, some people will only go to online meetings, some people will only go to f2f, some people will only use the forums or e-mail lists, some people will only use the workbook or parts of the workbook and other people will use everything or something in between. Their point was all of it's OK. Use as little or as much as you want, in whatever way makes sense to you.

Since I thought most of their “canned” ideas are a bit, well lets just say they aren't my cup of tea, I like the take what you want leave the rest attitude. I'd say it's pretty true in practice also. I've been to lots of LifeRing online meetings, before I started doing my own. Rarely do any of the LR “canned” ideas even get mentioned in the meetings. SMART's intention, if I understand it correctly, isn't to push their material at meetings either, but in my experience at least, they have a harder time not doing it. Online meetings and f2f meetings are a bit of different animals too with SMART, again that has just been my experience with it anyway.

I'll break to a separate post, for my next train of thought. (Actually it's late now, so I'll save that for tomorrow).

Best to you.