The main roads: SMART Recovery (secular, CBT-based tools, meetings worldwide), Refuge Recovery (Buddhist-inspired, meditation-centered), LifeRing (secular peer support, 'sobriety, secularity, self-help'), and Women for Sobriety (for women, built on empowerment). Same core engine as AA — people doing it together — with no higher power required.
The most established secular option, with meetings worldwide and online. SMART (Self-Management and Recovery Training) is built on cognitive behavioural therapy: four points — building motivation, coping with urges, managing thoughts and feelings, and living a balanced life. There is no sponsor, no steps, no spirituality; there are tools, worksheets, and a room of people using them.
It fits people who want the mechanics explicit and the framing psychological. Marrow's SMART track walks the same four kinds of work in plain words.
Built on Buddhist principles: the four truths of recovery, the eightfold path, and a lot of meditation. Craving is worked with as a phenomenon to be watched rather than obeyed — the same family of move as urge surfing. It fits people drawn to mindfulness and practice over doctrine.
LifeRing runs on three words: sobriety, secularity, self-help. Meetings are cross-talk conversations about the week, driven by 'what worked', with each person building their own recovery plan.
Women for Sobriety is the oldest women's program, built on thirteen acceptance statements centered on empowerment and emotional growth — a deliberate counter to surrender-based framings, for women specifically.
The evidence across programs is broadly comparable: what predicts staying is engagement and connection, not the logo on the door. SAMHSA is explicit that recovery has many pathways. So the choosing advice is simple: try two rooms of whatever fits your temperament, and stay where you actually return. A road with people on it beats the perfect road alone.
Marrow walks the twelve steps and a full SMART-based pathway side by side — and always points you toward real rooms, whatever their sign.
If you are thinking of ending your life, or you are not safe where you are, stop reading and reach a person instead. These lines are free, confidential, and answered at any hour.