Peer Lived Experience - Anon
By SMART Recovery Australia on
My story starts like anyone else’s. A few drinks here and there in my teens, more drinks in my twenties, and then progressively throughout my life because it’s part of our cultural make up to have a drink. We drink for every occasion: happiness, sadness, sophistication, bravery, social acceptance, strength, relaxation … and we drink to forget, and to erase our problems, and to cope with life.
I like to preface that with, nobody leaves school with the intention of ‘becoming an alcoholic, or drug addict, or gambling addict, or addicted to shopping or porn’ – addiction is not an ‘intention’.
I loved drinking and I hated it, in equal measures. It morphed over the years into something far more insidious which started to affect my entire life,...
Peer Lived Experience - Gill
By SMART Recovery Australia on
My thirst for alcohol developed in my early teens when I discovered that it altered how I felt. At the age of 15, I also developed a smoking habit and for the next few decades I drank and smoked myself silly. It never occurred to me that I was using alcohol and cannabis as medication. I just did it without thinking.
When I reached my 50th birthday I came face-to-face with my deep unhappiness. By then, I had already stopped smoking thanks to two pregnancies. But there I was with two teenagers who were watching me pour wine down my neck every night and waking me up during a family movie to tell me that I’d missed the best bit!
The booze made me very cranky, and I was in the never-ending cycle of wishing for it to be five o’clock so that I...
Recovery Story - Bob
By SMART Recovery Australia on
Decades of self-medicating my anxiety and depression created a spiral of physical and mental health issues which led me to making an attempt on my own life on the 16th of March, 2015.
Recovering in hospital, despite feeling unworthy of saving, I decided I would invest in myself and do the necessary things to keep myself alive. I had been utterly destroyed but I was now in the unique position to be able to rebuild myself from scratch.
I made the decision to try sobriety.
Four weeks in hospital and off alcohol led to a reduction in my weight from 100kg to 95kg. When I left the hospital, I decided on a goal weight of 75kg as a way of dealing with low self-esteem.
By the 11th of July, 2015, I reached that goal. This was through a combination...
Recovery Story - Tallulah
By SMART Recovery Australia on
What do you want to be when you grow up? Where do you see yourself at 40+?
Recovery Story - Matt
By SMART Recovery Australia on
This story originally appeared in The Courier Newspaper on February 21, 2021
At the height of his reliance on alcohol, Matt Woodley became a master of hiding his drinking.
Cooking sherry became his alcohol of choice because it was easy to access and it was unlikely his wife Anoushka would check whether it was being consumed at a fast rate.
“There would always be a bottle in the cupboard and nobody monitors it,” Mr Woodley said.
His reliance on alcohol crept up on him in his early 30s after he stopped smoking cannabis.
Mr Woodley, who lives in Ballarat, said he took every opportunity when home alone to become intoxicated.
“If my wife started work and left at 6am that’s when I would start drinking.”
Mr Woodley, 47, said in addition to...
Recovery Story - Nick
By SMART Recovery Australia on
[The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of SMART Recovery Australia.]
Get SMART
You know that feeling when you wake up after yet another ‘slip-up’, smothered in guilt and anxiety, swearing that you will never do it again? Then, a week later you’re at it again…?
Or, that feeling when you are presented with the two narrowest of options: give up everything you care about forever, or continue down the path you’re currently on – neither of which seem remotely sustainable…?
I’ve been there.
To hell and back.
To the same place you might be in now, and may have been many times.
Luckily, there is another way.
This story is for anyone who has ever tried to either quit alcohol and/or other...
Recovery Story - A
By SMART Recovery Australia on
[The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of SMART Recovery Australia.]
I can’t remember exactly when I first made contact with SMART Recovery but it was a few years ago. I heard about it through my psychologist who was a SMART facilitator. I got that feeling you get when someone tells you about something they really believe in so I wanted to find out more.
Backing up a little … I guess I have always had a problematic relationship with alcohol. From my late teens I identified as someone who liked a drink but I also realised that my drinking had negative consequences that I didn’t like.
Many years before I reached out to SMART, my life had taken on an inverse relationship to alcohol. It...
Life Beyond Addiction - Christopher Sullivan
By SMART Recovery Australia on
Hello! My name is Christopher Sullivan and I am recovering from my father’s alcoholism. The countless nights of grief and regret, of feeling like I could have prevented my father’s passing if I was more knowledgeable on addiction, led me to seek help from SMART recovery. SMART is helping me to fully understand what he was going through and discover ways in which I can help those who are experiencing what he went through. What was once complete ignorance on the topic of addiction, is now a sense of understanding and acceptance. I still have a ways to go in terms of learning about addiction and recovery, but I just know SMART will guide me through my life beyond my father’s addiction.
Please note: although SMART actively seeks to refrain...