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 from using labels like “addict” and “alcoholic,” we recognize that when others describe their experience they may choose to do so. Thank you for understanding.


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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,...

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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...

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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...

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