SMART Recovery and the Courts

What SMART Recovery Provides:

SMART Recovery offers a well-established religion-neutral approach, in keeping with the Courts’ mandates against promoting faith-based approaches without offering secular alternatives.

SAMHSA affirms that individual engagement in choosing a treatment approach offers a better foundation for success and SMART is pleased to provide a program that represents an alternative for those looking to use either a scientific method, or a secular approach that does not conflict with their spiritual views.

SMART Recovery’s 4-Point Program® is organized to address establishing motivation, coping with urges, problem-solving and lifestyle balance.

SMART’s science-based offerings for peer support include our face to face meetings and online resources utilizing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Motivational Interviewing (MI), evidence-based tools which are widely accepted in the treatment of addictive behaviors.

We are pleased at the recent endorsement of our program by the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP) as a model for peer support, alongside 12-step AA and NA choices.

“Participants regularly attend self-help or peer support groups in addition to professional counselling. The peer support groups follow a structured model or curriculum such as the 12-step or Smart Recovery models.¹⁹“

¹⁹ “Drug Courts must offer a secular alternative to 12-step programs such as Narcotics Anonymous because appellate courts have interpreted these programs to be deity-based, thus implicating the First Amendment (Meyer, 2011).”

— NADCP, Adult Drug Court Best Practice Standards, July 2013

SMART Recovery’s mutual peer support meetings are free to the general public. We welcome court-ordered participants.

SMART Recovery Court Outreach Committee

SMART Recovery’s Court Outreach Committee endeavours to ensure that every court in the United States embraces choice in recovery in relation to treatment and support for addictive issues. Our focus is to increase awareness and acceptance of SMART Recovery as one such choice, and also to gather data about where SMART Recovery is currently accepted by the courts, as well as how SMART Recovery can be of assistance to the courts and staff within the judicial system.

Our objectives are to:

• Increase presence and awareness of SMART Recovery in the court community
• Share information of interest with the courts
• Increase local SMART Recovery meeting referrals
• Ensure that SMART Recovery meeting verifications are accepted by courts or related agencies requiring peer support meeting attendance
• Gather information of interest to SMART Recovery – contacts, historical, trends, policy, court cases