Tonight I talked to my Smart Recovery Group about TSM. I emailed the leader about it last week and asked if he wanted to hear more about it at Group. I have left it this long because the leader is abstinent and there are 3 or 4 abstainers there who have been pretty hard core and been in rehab. I didn't want to talk about it without the leader's permission. I prefaced it with its not suitable for abstainers. People were really interested, especially the brain science part -the extinction process. I find that fascinating too. Anyway it was a positive experience and the leader thanked me at the end.

One lady there has a daughter who has had a naltrexone implant for heroin addiction. She didn't know it was used for alcohol.
I said the nal gave me breathing space away from the cravings to deal with the habit side of things -the CBT side. SMART recovery is all about CBT so the leader was happy to approach it from that aspect.

So TSM got out to a few people down here in Sydney tonight. There is one hard core guy who fell off the wagon a while back and hasn't been back. I reckon he should try TSM as he has tried everything else and I really think that rebound effect is just to hard to cope with.

MD

For abstainers who are white-knuckling and are likely going to relapse TSM could save their lives. Your group should be made aware of this lifeline.

It was the Smart Recovery forum where I first heard about TSM. Someone mentioned it in passing wondering whether to try harm reduction vs abstaining. I googled, and here I am. I'm sure there will be at least one person in your group who eventually benefits from trying TSM. Good for you for being willing to put it out there.

I've been hesitant about continuing to hang around the Smart forum because it's been emphasized that it's an abstinence program a couple of times that I've read. I have been continuing to go there a bit though because I am a fan of CBT in general and I think the Smart tools are really helpful.

Well done, MD! Thanks for doing that! Sounds like you really made some inroads there.