SMART Recovery itself is around 25 years old. You can read more about SMART Recovery on the national web site.
SMART Recovery Connecticut was established March 22, 2014 when the first meeting took place at Hagaman Memorial Library in East Haven. During the summer of 2014, the meeting moved to the James Blackstone Memorial Library in Branford while the Hagaman was closed for the summer.
The New Haven meeting, sponsored by Yale Humanist Community, takes place at The Grove in New Haven and was established October 6, 2014. (For a period in 2015/2016 we were next door in the Murtha Cullina Room at the Happiness Lab coffee shop, but moved back into the Grove to make room for New Haven Games.)
We decided to move the East Haven meeting to a location closer to our active facilitators’ homes. Our last East Haven meeting was Saturday, June 20th, 2015. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Hagaman Memorial Library. The new meeting was held at the Wilson Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library.
During 2016, Loreen Lawrence added two meetings, starting with a Monday night meeting at the American Legion in West Haven. Following Joe Gerstein’s talk at the VA in West Haven, Loreen added a Tuesday night meeting there in June.
Founding facilitator Joe Esposito started a new Friday morning meeting at the Hagaman Library in July, meeting every other week.
In October, Kristen took over the Tuesday night meeting.
November saw Gabe start a Thursday evening meeting at Whitneyville Cultural Commons in Hamden, and the Friday meeting at the Hagaman switch to the early afternoon and become a weekly meeting. That brought us to six open meetings per week in the New Haven area. (Trinity College and St. Vincent’s Healthcare had both started closed meetings outside the area.)
In early 2017, two new public meetings started in the Hartford area, one at CCAR, and one in the north end at Mt. Sinai rehab hospital. Loreen also added a Monday daytime meeting in New Haven.
In June, 2017, Mark took over the Wednesday night meetings at the Grove.