SMART is 25 years old. We have about 50 meetings/week online. Free and funded by donations.
I've been an online facilitator there for about a years now. Peer support works for many people.

I was just listening to an interview with Keith Richards while scrolling here. He said that getting clean from addiction is not hard. Keith spoke of heroin addiction. Three days of climbing the walls and you're through. He said to Ed Bradley, he can speak on it with confidence, because he has done it many times ( 7 times) You just have to want it more than the drug.
Simple!
It also helps to be locked in a room, watched by real friends, and provided with lots of water and a bucket.

One must do what works for them. Every person is different. I cleaned myself up from both heavy drinking and drug abuse (Cocaine, Mescaline, Mushrooms were my faves) as well as being a 3 pack a day cigarette smoker over a period of almost 2 years. But this approach will not work for everyone.

One has to first admit they have a problem. You need to have exceptional willpower also. Asking for help if you have an addiction is no different than asking for a hearing aid if you have trouble hearing or asking for a cane if you have difficulty walking.

Willow's right, faith based treatments have a poor success rate. With regard to alcohol, abstinence based systems also have a worse outcome than controlled drinking systems. This is unique to alcohol because abstinence is far.more difficult with alcohol compared to other drugs because of the social reinforcement to drink.

Faith based drug and alcohol recovery is as effective as any other faith based medical treatment, which is to say “not effective at all.”

In addition, although Smart Recovery is best known for Alcohol and Drug abuse issues, many other compulsive behaviors may be helped with the same methods (gambling, etc).

Good to know. I've suggested SMART Recovery to acquaintances looking for help and couldn't stomach the 12 step groups, but then lost touch so I don't know if they ever tried it.

Great to know. I don't drink or smoke but thanks.

Thank you so much for the advice. Let me tell you how this goes with me. I'm an alcoholic. For years I had a stressful job where I drank whiskey and beer at night to relax. My music went right along with that. I was a functioning alcoholic who went right on to work the next day with no problems.

That has all changed now. I might manage 2 or 3 whiskey drinks or even that much in beer. That's when my body shuts me down. There is no "buzz" or fun in drinking any more and I have to stop. I don't get sick. I just can't go on. Whatever this is has saved my health but try and imagine an alcoholic who cannot drink. It really pisses me off. I cannot get buzzed but also really do not want to be buzzed any longer. My frige probably has about 30 beers in there. They go back at least 6 months when I thought I was going to drink that night but could not. Every now and then I give some beer away.

This pisses me off mentally but never enough to punch anything or treat people badly. It's all just an unexpected change in my life even though it is for the better.