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East Carolina University *
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2003
Subject
Medicine
Date
Dec 6, 2023
Type
docx
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Uploaded by ProfWillpower7974
1
Support Group Reaction Paper
Brenden Strom
Department of Addictions and Rehabilitation Studies, East Carolina University
ADRE 2003 Section 601:
Alcohol and Drug Use- Health and Social Problems
Jarmichael R. Harris
October 1
st
, 2023
The first group meeting I attended was the NA (Narcotics Anonymous) online meeting
where the meeting names was “Guiding Principles”. This was my first ever meeting that I went
to for a support group, and I learned a couple of things in my short time there. The Narcotics
Anonymous support group is
“a voluntarily maintained lifestyle characterized by sobriety,
personal health, and citizenship”. 12-Step involvement has been shown to facilitate continuous
abstinence and remission, as well as to confer recovery-supportive benefits including
connectedness, support, acceptance, and enhanced quality of life”, (2023). My first reaction to
being in the meeting was kind of nervous and ready to listen because this was my first
experience being apart of something like this. There were many people in there all under
anonymous names of course, but once the meeting started and people started sharing their
experiences, I felt a little more comfortable being there. There are many risks when taking
substances like loss of appetite, friends/family, and loss of yourself. There are different cases for
everyone but a person who uses substances daily all some something in common. They are just
looking for something to take the pain away or just get them to the next day, which isn’t the best
option for them but that is all they have sometimes at the end of the day. If you just sit down and
listen to someone who has a substance abuse disorder or had one in the past, you can really learn
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a lot about the mind of someone lost and broken. It’s hard for some people to get the help they
need but if you just listen to them sometimes, you can hear their cry for help, and they just need
someone to be there for them and help them where they can’t help themselves out. Every case is
different for every person though, some people don’t want to receive help or feel like they need it
but it is only so much you can do for those certain people before you have to let them find their
journey on their own.
My second group meeting I attended was the SMART recovery online meeting where
they have a 4-point recovery program. “SMART Recovery is a fresh approach to addiction
recovery. SMART stands for Self-Management and Recovery Training. This is more than an
acronym: it is a transformative method of moving from addictive substances and negative
behaviors to a life of positive self-regard and willingness to change.” (
About Us - SMART
Recovery
, n.d.) My personal reaction to this meeting was a little more comfortable and ready
because I was prepared after my first meeting to hear some good stories. The 4 steps of the
SMART recovery are “building and maintaining motivation, coping with urges and cravings,
managing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and living a balanced life”. (
About Us - SMART
Recovery
, n.d.) I feel like these are great steps and can work with anything you put your mind to
not just with substance recovery. I resonated with this meeting more because it wasn’t only about
disorders or substances, it was more about being better for yourself because that is all you have
at the end of the day. Doing this 4-step program will help you start helping yourself and getting
better, but you must keep doing the work after you are done and not just give up. There are a lot
of people who experience troubles daily and all they must go to is substances sometimes, so this
gives them a way to express how they feel and talk to someone if they need it.
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Comparing and contrasting the meetings is not too difficult because each meeting brought
similarities and differences to my knowledge. My first meeting with the NA was smooth and I
learned some things that I didn’t know before. Sometimes you a quick to judge people without
even meaning to, but if you just sit and listen to them speak you will be able to see that they
really are a good person deep down with some substance problems. Nobody in this world has a
perfect day every day and some people who see themselves at the lowest part of their life
sometimes see no other way but to turn to substances. It was the same with the SMART recovery
meeting, people just wanting to be heard and get some help, but it is hard for them, and I can
truly understand why now. Some people take longer than others to figure it out and sometimes
they don’t figure it out at all. I’d say the only difference between the meetings were that NA was
mainly about narcotics in substances and the SMART recovery was an overall recovery for all
types of people in need of help.
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Works Cited
Sinclair, D. L., Sussman, S., Savahl, S., Florence, M., & Vanderplasschen, W. (2023).
Narcotics anonymous attendees’ perceptions and experiences of substitute behaviors in
the western cape, south africa. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention and Policy, 18(1),
40-40.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13011-023-00552-z
About us - SMART Recovery
. (n.d.). SMART Recovery.
https://www.smartrecovery.org/about-us/