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A new group meets from 7 to 8:30 p.m. every Friday at the Jackson Recovery Resource Center, Home of New Vision, 407 W. Michigan Ave. It is based on the Self Management and Recovery Training program, which emphasizes rational thinking. It aims to change "self-defeating" thinking, emotions and actions and offers an alternative to Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous.
(Danielle Salisbury/MLive.com)
JACKSON, MI - They talk about retraining their brains. They talk about distractions - crocheting, puzzles, basketball, about finding joy in the mundane.
For one man not far removed from relapse, they map out the pros and cons of quitting. Continuing to drink is familiar and enjoyable. It provides escape, but these and other positives are short-term. The benefits of abstinence - self-respect and greater accomplishment - are more long-term, the leader notes.
It is a meeting not entirely unlike others for people with various dependencies. A small group of men and women sit and speak frankly about their urges and issues. They find camaraderie in people with the same struggles.
But it is different; it is not Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous.
Robert VanSumeren, 36, started a Friday night Self Management and Recovery Training (SMART) group about four months ago. It is based on a four-point program rooted in science that aims to teach people to change "self-defeating" thinking, emotions and actions. It avoids labels like "alcoholic" and does not subscribe to the idea that addiction is a life-long disease.
The cognitive-behavioral group therapy, which starts with building motivation and ends with "living a balanced life," is the only such group in Jackson. It offers a substitute to the spiritual or religious AA meetings organized every couple hours throughout the county.
"It is unfortunate because if people don't like 12 steps, there is no alternative," VanSumeren said.
Some individuals are turned off by the "antiquated pseudo-religious aspects of AA," he wrote in an email. "If more people in our community knew about the program, I think there would be significant interest."
VanSumeren, a student at Wayne State University Law School, has had his own problems with alcohol and drugs.
His family broke apart while he was a teenager. Immature and ill-equipped, he discovered alcohol. Within a year and a half, he was headed to prison for robbery. He served about six years and turned his life around, focusing on education, but never truly addressed the substance abuse problems until years later, in 2012 while he was on probation for a drinking and driving offense.
He had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after his release and pills developed into a crutch. "I was trying to cope and the cost of coping was just way too high," he said.
"So I changed directions."
In sobriety, he found his anxieties disappeared.
As a graduate student at Western Michigan University, VanSumeren, who calls himself agnostic, started researching AA alternatives as part of a project for his studies in comparative religion.
Now, he leads the SMART meeting, which has grown from about five people to about a dozen. It starts at 7 p.m. every Friday at the Jackson Recovery Resource Center, 407 W. Michigan Ave.
Participants are of varying ages and backgrounds. They have a range of troubles. They struggle with alcohol, heroin, marijuana or gambling.
Anyone is welcome.
Rich Swincicki, a 48-year-old truck driver, started attending at the end of September. He discovered SMART online after he blew a $30,000 inheritance and realized, as he sat on about $150,000 in betting debt, he had an issue with gambling.
"It never set right to me, admitting you are powerless," he said, comparing the SMART program, which stresses empowerment, to Alcoholics or Gamblers Anonymous. "I get to control my own destiny."
He now regularly passes casinos despite the cash sitting in his checking account. "In the past, if I had money... I would go to a casino and see if I could double that up."
Swincicki is using rational thinking that the SMART program emphasizes. Instead of agonizing over his debt and incurring more of it by trying to make money quickly, he is putting aside funds as he is able, he said.
"Talking to other people with their problems is helping me with my problems," he said.
He is not opposed to religion. "I went to a psychologist. I went to a priest and now, I've done this," he said. "All three of them have given me a better understanding of who and what I am."
Some, like Danielle Dossett, 32, couple the SMART program with AA meetings.
Dossett, who has been fighting a heroin addiction since she was 19, believes in AA. It is her church.
She goes to every Friday SMART meeting for a "different perspective" and she shares with others her story, about how using heroin was "death."
"I was depressed when I was getting high," she said. "Now, you can't get me down."
During the meeting, VanSumeren steers the conversation. He asks questions and provides personal reflections.
He also chairs a weekly AA meeting. He does not have a problem with what has become an often court-ordered, universal standard in the recovery community. Its effectiveness, however, is questionable, he said, and cited a retired Harvard Medical School professor who placed success or retention rates at between 5 and 10 percent.
Success rates for SMART are unavailable, but VanSumeren contends they can be no worse. Some suggest the results are much better, and the program's basis on cognitive behavior is more in line with other treatments, on scientifically proven methods.
He wants to see more SMART meetings in more places.
"You can wait for programs, wait for government help," he said. "Sometimes, the community needs to take care of these problems themselves.
"If people can stagger into us, and get to us, we'd like to help them."