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Helpful Recovery-Related Videos

Let's Talk About Urges - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY THAT WORKS! - EP10

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Let's Talk About Urges - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY THAT WORKS! - EP10

Urges are a natural part of life. But what ARE urges, and what AREN'T they? When it comes to successful recovery, we need to better understand the basic mechanics. To learn more about SMART Recovery please check out: www.smartrecovery.org To find a local online meeting in your area, please go to: https://www.smartrecoverytest.org/local/ To donate to SMART Recovery and help us serve the greater public during the Coronavirus outbreak, please go to: www.smartrecovery.org/donate

The ABCs of Coping with Urges - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY that WORKS! EP2

04:09

The ABCs of Coping with Urges - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY that WORKS! EP2

Check out SMART Recovery's ABC Tool for Coping with Urges. Derived from REBT (Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy) - this tool invites you to really evaluate what you believe about problems in your life and then test those beliefs to affect better reactions to them. More at: www.smartrecovery.org Questions/Concerns/Suggestions? Please email us at: tipsandtools@smartrecovery.org

Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY that WORKS! EP3

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Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY that WORKS! EP3

Check out how to use SMART Recovery's tool: The COST/BENEFIT ANALYSIS or C.B.A. It's a great way to take a good hard, honest look at what the real risk/reward profile of your behaviors really are, and then make sound decisions accordingly. More info at: www.smartrecovery.org Questions/Concerns/Suggestions? Please email us at: tipsandtools@smartrecovery.org

The DEADs Tool - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY that WORKS! EP 1

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The DEADs Tool - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY that WORKS! EP 1

Have an urge? Next time you're jonesing for whatever you want to abstain from, simply employ the helpful SMART Recovery tool "DEADS". Find out more at www.smartrecovery.org. Questions/Concerns/Suggestions? Please email us at: tipsandtools@smartrecovery.org

ROLE PLAYING - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY that WORKS! EP 13

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ROLE PLAYING - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY that WORKS! EP 13

Wants some great ammunition to overcome urges in certain circumstances you suspect may be problematic (dates, weddings, football games, etc.)? SMART Recovery has the great ROLE PLAYING TOOL to help you map out future urge scenarios in your mind, and then play them out with a friend in advance so that you can rehearse the urge situations and create the most desirable non-relapse outcome. To learn more about SMART Recovery please check out: www.smartrecovery.org To find a local online meeting in your area, please go to: https://www.smartrecoverytest.org/local/ To donate to SMART Recovery and help us serve the greater public during the Coronavirus outbreak, please go to: www.smartrecovery.org/donation

The DISARM Method - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY THAT WORKS! - EP11

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The DISARM Method - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY THAT WORKS! - EP11

The DISARM Method is a great help in recovery and a classic drawn from the SMART Recovery Toolkit. It's short for "Destructive Image and Self-Talk Refusal Method." Check out this new Tips & Tools Video to see how you can put its powerful principles to your new or continuing recovery today! To learn more about SMART Recovery please check out: www.smartrecovery.org To find a local online meeting in your area, please go to: https://www.smartrecoverytest.org/local/ To donate to SMART Recovery and help us serve the greater public during the Coronavirus outbreak, please go to: www.smartrecovery.org/donate

Stages of Change - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY that WORKS - EP 4

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Stages of Change - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY that WORKS - EP 4

Developed by Dr. Carlo DiClemente, the STAGES OF CHANGE model is a very important way to look at your recovery from a long-term perspective. What STAGE are you in? Interested in hearing more from Dr. DiClemente: Check out his recent presentation at the SMART Recovery 2019 National Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBfbo… Questions/Concerns/Suggestions? Please email us at: tipsandtools@smartrecovery.org For more information on SMART Recovery: www.smartrecovery.org

Vital Absorbing Creative Interest Exercise (VACI) - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY that WORKS! EP6

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Vital Absorbing Creative Interest Exercise (VACI) - TIPS & TOOLS for RECOVERY that WORKS! EP6

The VACI or Vital Absorbing Creative Interest exercise is a SMART Recovery tool designed to help you think about new, healthful ways to find pleasure, fulfillment or just simple contentment from activities that don’t rely on your substance or addictive behaviors of choice, and ultimately aim to REPLACE them. Questions/Concerns/Suggestions? Please email us at: tipsandtools@smartrecovery.org

FILM REVIEW: ANOTHER ROUND

By Ted Perkins

As a veteran of the film industry who’s also a SMART Recovery Meeting Facilitator, I enjoy finding films that tackle the subject of alcohol abuse. I’ve rented every film there is, from dark and daring classics like LOST WEEKEND and DAYS OF WINE & ROSES, to contemporary popcorn movies like 28 DAYS and CLEAN & SOBER - to name just a few.

Much to my delight, I found that my SMART Recovery meeting participants really enjoy discussing recovery-related films during our meetings. We always find ways to relate the themes of the films back to SMART Recovery principles and toolkit exercises. So in a very real sense, I’ve found that films - and more broadly, entertainment in general - can be helpful in some people’s recovery.

At their core, alcohol-themed films are morality plays, cautionary tales in one form or another. But not always. I recently encountered a notable exception in my Itunes recommendation queue: ANOTHER ROUND, a film in general release and available to purchase or rent on all platforms. It’s written and directed by Thomas Vinterberg, a Danish filmmaker who has a reputation as an enfant terrible of world cinema.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I rented the film, but I was delighted to discover that ANOTHER ROUND is actually the cinematic equivalent of a 2-hour SMART Recovery Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) exercise writ large on 35mm!

Before I discuss the film, some words of caution: If watching scenes of people drinking alcohol is a trigger for you, consider some other film. And if you’re triggered by scenes of beautiful, happy, well-adjusted people drinking A LOT of alcohol in a consequence-free environment where excess actually enhances the quality of their lives, then you might want to unplug your TV altogether.

However, if you can put your triggers aside, to me there is probably no more fascinating, insightful or honest exploration of the topic of alcohol use and abuse than ANOTHER ROUND. Vinterberg has succeeded in dramatizing the essential mystery of drinking itself: Why does a substance that makes many people’s lives so awesome end up harming others’? How is it that some people’s lives are enhanced by drinking, while others’ are destroyed? My SMART Recovery meeting participants and I ask ourselves this all the time.

To explore this dichotomy, Vinterberg and his writing colleague Tobias Lindholm set the film at a Danish high school where copious amounts of beer drinking by the students is an acceptable and time-honored tradition (the legal age to buy beer and wine in Denmark is 16). The school’s history teacher, Martin (played by ex-James Bond Casino Royale super-villain Mads Mikkelsen), is in a funk. His marriage is on auto-pilot going nowhere, and the quality of his teaching is so uninspired that all his students’ parents call a PTA meeting to complain.

Martin joins his work colleagues Tommy, Nikolaj and Peter, for an alcohol-soaked dinner to lament their similarly bleak situations in life: Tommy is a bored PE teacher who dislikes children. Nikolaj is a psych teacher who hasn’t slept in years because his children always wet the bed. And Peter is the school’s choir director whose ears bleed every time his students try to sing.

But it’s nothing that eighteen rounds of drinks can’t fix. The evening devolves into a midnight soccer game in the park that looks like a bunch of children falling all over each other. But one chestnut emerges, however: Nikolaj tells his friends about a little-known Danish doctor who claims that humans were born with a blood alcohol level that’s TOO LOW. According to his philosophy, maximum human productivity, potential and happiness can only be achieved by maintaining a BAC of .05%. All day long. Or at least until 8pm, which is when Hemingway apparently set his cut-off time (and we all know how that turned out).

And so the four friends agree to conduct and document an experiment to see what will happen if they stay continually buzzed from 8am to 8pm every day. Now those of us in recovery know EXACTLY what will happen. Or do we? This is where the film gets REALLY interesting.

Turns out that at this particular Danish high school, daily drinking is not just a wondrous feeling, but a boon to one's teaching career. Tomas loosens up enough to bring history alive to his students. Their exam grades skyrocket. Similarly, Tommy begins to enjoy coaching little league soccer, and his team wins more games. And Peter’s idea to turn off the lights and have his students hold hands during choir practice sees them all suddenly sing like angels.

Tomas’ newfound success also spills over (forgive the pun) into his romantic life. He and his wife Anika finally click, and the family goes on a long-delayed camping trip. They have an actual conversation with their two teenage sons instead of watching them watch their iPads. Tomas and Anika make love - and actually love each other - for the first time in years. And all of this thanks to a BAC of 0.05%!

Now, if this were where the story ends, ANOTHER ROUND would be little more than a 2-hour infomercial for Tuborg Beer, Denmark’s finest. But it doesn’t end here. To Vinterberg’s credit, the second and third acts of the film reveal themselves as fully balanced, honest explorations of what anyone in SMART Recovery already understands all too well. In the words of Hollywood legend Billy Wilder: “One is too many, and a hundred’s not enough…”

(SPOILER ALERT AHEAD FYI)

Predictably, Tomas and his buddies are so delighted with the experiment’s results that they decide to push the envelope. Why not up their daily dosage to sustain a BAC of 0.06% Or maybe 0.1%? And hell, if you’re going to go to all the trouble, why not just go all the way to 0.2%?

Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict what happens next. Bad stuff, basically: Tomas slams into a wall and gives himself a bloody nose at a school staff meeting. He passes it off as history-teaching-related stress. Nikolaj can barely climb the stairs to his bedroom, and once he does he becomes the bed-wetter of the family. Tommy shows up blotto to an admin meeting, but this being socialist Denmark, he’ll likely wind up on paid leave, free 5-star rehab in the French Riviera, and a raise.

It’s choir director Peter who seems to suffer the fewest consequences from experimental day drinking. Moderation works so well for him that he spreads the word by helping an anxious student ace his final exams with a quick shot of vodka under the table.

What is so relevant and appealing about the film is how Vinterberg allows each character to personify different levels of alcohol-related repercussions - from moderate to severe. The drinking experiment has different results for each participant, just like actual drinking has for everybody in real life. Most can handle it. Some can’t. Some really can’t.

It would have been easy for Vinterberg to dwell on the obvious extremes, but he does the opposite through the character of Tomas. His experience of alcohol use and misuse is the most fully explored and multi-dimensional of the four friends. At first a teetotaler, later an alcohol-curious novitiate, and eventually a seasoned pro who wakes up face plastered to the sidewalk, Tomas is a reflection of the trajectory that many people in recovery have experienced.

So does Martin learn his “lesson” by the end? Does moderate alcohol use inevitably lead to misuse? Why do some lose control while others thrive?

Vinterberg doesn’t answer these questions. He leaves them hanging in the air, savory nuggets for debate. Some SMART Recovery participants may find this lack of clear answers frustrating, others may find it fascinating. I believe that at the end of the day, there really are no easy answers. Everybody in SMART Recovery learns a different lesson about alcohol that can only be gained through the (often painful) experience of using or abusing it. Clearly there are some benefits (at least at the beginning of one’s drinking career), and obviously there are consequences (towards the end).

I was pleased to find that ANOTHER ROUND generated a wonderful debate among my SMART meeting participants, and led us all to reflect on the CBA exercise and several other toolkit exercises. As such, it was extremely useful, and highly accessible (even with Danish subtitles), and I highly recommend that anyone in SMART Recovery check it out (but only if it won’t trigger you)!

NOTE: Do you have a recovery-related film or TV show or book you would like me to review? Just answer in SmartCal.