Our Friday morning meeting at the Hagaman Memorial Library in East Haven will change to a weekly meeting starting Friday, November 18. The time will change to 1:00 PM. The meeting will end at 2:15 PM.
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NEW meeting in Hamden on Thursday evenings!
Beginning 17 November 2016 there will be a SMART Recovery meeting Thursday evenings at 6:00 at the Whitneyville Cultural Commons. WCC is the historic brick building located at 1253 Whitney Ave. To find the meeting room, enter the main entrance and climb one set of stairs to the second floor balcony, toward the back of the building. There is ample free parking to the left of the building and between it and Lake Whitney.
No Saturday Morning meeting on November 12, 2016
We just realized that the Wilson Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library will be closed in observance of Veterans’ Day on Saturday, November 12, so we will not be able to hold our usual Saturday morning meeting.
Rebuilding Trust
The topic of rebuilding trust comes up frequently in meetings. I keep mentioning this talk by Henry Steinberger at the 2013 SMART Recovery Conference. It starts about 3:30 into this video, but the initial short talk on the “pause button” is worth watching too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-phEgUbAuA
New Alternating Friday Meeting at the Hagaman Memorial Library, East Haven
We’re very pleased to restart meeting at the Hagaman Memorial Library, 227 Main Street, East Haven, CT 06512
SMART Recovery Connecticut’s founding facilitator, Joe Esposito (CASAC-T), will be running the meeting from 10:15 AM to 11:45 AM on alternating Friday mornings. Please check our meetup site or the main SMART Recovery local meetings listing for exact dates.
We greatly appreciate the continued support of the Hagaman Memorial Library.
New Tuesday Night Meeting at the West Haven VA Health Center
We are very pleased to announce a new Tuesday night, 7:30 to 8:30 PM meeting will be held at the VA Hospital on Campbell Avenue in West Haven, Connecticut.
Loreen Lawrence will be the facilitator. The meeting is open to anyone. Please come to the main entrance and ask for directions to the meeting. Since this is a federal facility, you will be asked to provide ID.
Numerous people worked on getting this meeting started. SMART Recovery’s Founding President, Joe Gerstein, gave several presentations at the West Haven VA. We have also enjoyed the presence of several participants from the VA’s excellent PTSD treatment program at our other New Haven area meetings.
New Monday Night Meeting at the American Legion, West Haven
Loreen Lawrence has graciously made space available for a meeting at the American Legion, 337 Main Street, West Haven, CT 06516
Loreen will also be the meeting facilitator. The meetings will be held from 7:00 to 8:00 PM on Monday nights.
More free online courses
Here are several free online courses you may find useful:
- “Understanding Drugs & Addiction” has just started on March 7 and runs for 6 weeks.
- “Understanding Anxiety, Depression and CBT” starts on May 9
- Another run of Monash University’s “Mindfulness for Wellbeing and Peak Performance” is more than half over. The course is likely to run again.
Snowstorm forecast – no meeting on Saturday, January 23, 2016
Since there’s a snow storm forecast for this weekend, we decided to cancel the Saturday morning meeting scheduled for 1/23/2016.
The best place to keep track of meetings is on our Meetup site. You can also check the list of upcoming meetings in the left sidebar on all pages on this site.
New Year Checkup
The New Year is a good time to take stock. After you have checked your smoke detector batteries:
- Update your hierarchy of values (HOV). Have your priorities changed?
- Review your cost-benefit analysis (CBA). Do you have a clearer picture of the pros and cons?
- Look over your list of vitally absorbing creative interests (VACIs). Should you be making more time for them?
- Take stock by filling in a lifestyle balance pie. Do you need to work on an area of your life?
If you’re making New Year resolutions, fill in a change plan worksheet. You can use the tools of SMART Recovery to plan and implement many changes in your life.