• Treatment is crucial, yet funds slow to a trickle
• A family's love changes one woman's life
• Kittery leads way in prevention by giving youths a place to go
• 'Low-risk drinking' can prevent a small problem from getting out of hand
• Problem escalates among women; elderly learn to reach out for help
• 1997 deaths related to alcohol
• Team of reporters, editors, photographer produced series
• Series summary: Maine pays dearly as families are ruined by alcohol abuse

Gene Barber of East Waterboro couldn't connect to AA's 12-step program so a counselor suggested he try SMART, a recovery program based on an approach called rational emotive behavioral therapy. ''It doesn't say that you're powerless. It doesn't say that you're an alcoholic,'' explains Barber. ''What it does say is that you really have to take responsibility for yourself. And that's where I see the difference lies.'' Staff photo by David A. Rodgers

Gene Barber knew he was out of control again and had to stop drinking.

This time, his wife was threatening to leave him if he didn't get a grip on his addiction.

But what to do? He had tried AA before, but just didn't like it. He could never get past that first step, the one where you admit you are powerless over alcohol. Not drinking had exactly the opposite effect on him; it made him feel so powerful.

But stopping without any support at all seemed impossible.

Then a counselor suggested he try SMART, an alternative to 12-step programs that uses an approach called rational emotive behavioral therapy to get addictions under control.

Members of SMART think that spiritual convictions, such as the belief in a higher power that is espoused by 12-step programs, can be helpful in battling a drinking problem. But they prefer the intellectual to the inspirational. SMART emphasizes practical skills that can help a drinker faced with temptation work his way through a difficult situation.

''It doesn't say that you're powerless. It doesn't say that you're an alcoholic,'' explains Barber. ''What it does say is that you really have to take responsibility for yourself. And that's where I see the difference lies.''

SMART isn't for everybody, but nothing out there is - and that, SMART says, is the point.

The great majority of recovery programs in the United States follow the 12-step model, including institutional programs in prisons and hospitals. The 12-step program has a long history behind it, and it has helped millions of people stop drinking.

But it isn't perfect by any means. There's a high attrition rate, partly because some people don't like the 12-step model's spiritual bent. And women, especially if they have been in abusive relationhips, have said that they don't feel they fit in at groups like AA because of its hierarchical structure and talk of powerlessness.

Like the 12 steps, SMART is an abstinence-based program. But members of SMART view addiction more as a complex, maladaptive behavior than as a disease. They focus on increasing their motivation to stay sober and learning to handle urges to drink without acting on them. ''We view sobriety as a personal choice,'' says their brochure, ''and relapse as a learning opportunity.''

Gene Barber, who lives in East Waterboro, first stopped drinking in 1988, after a stay in Portland's Smith House. He stayed sober for three and a half years, but fell in and out of going to AA meetings.

''I didn't like listening to the drunk logs - people telling how they drank and how they got to the bottom and how AA helped them recover,'' Barber says. ''To me personally, I didn't really care about everybody else's drunk story.''

Staff art. Source: SAMRSA, Office of Applied Studies, National Drug and Alcohol Treatment Unit Study.

After three and a half years of sobriety he felt ''healed,'' and he started to drink again. Then, last November, he realized his problem was once again out of control.

''My wife threatened to leave me if I didn't get a grip on what I was doing, and I stopped drinking,'' he recalls. ''I stopped on my own.''

SMART helps people stay abstinent by teaching them the ''ABCs:'' There are Activating events that cause someone to want to drink; those events trigger certain Beliefs; and those beliefs, if followed through, have Consequences.

For Barber, hearing someone open a bottle of white wine and smelling the liquid as it's poured into a glass is an activating event.

''The first thought in my head is, geez, I'd like a glass of that,'' he says.

At that point, a number of beliefs follow.

SMART Recovery has a web site explaining its program at www.smartrecovery.org.

''One is that I can have a couple of drinks and get away with it, I wouldn't get caught,'' Barber says. ''But those are really irrational.''

That's because, if he took a drink, there would be consequences; he would be giving up his health and strength, reverting to his old style of living.

Although alternative programs like SMART are the norm in other parts of the world, this country has become so accustomed to the 12 steps that it has been a struggle to introduce it to mainstream America, says Dr. Joseph Gerstein, an internist and Harvard professor who is past president of the national SMART organization.

''As a matter of fact, I spent 25 years as a practicing physician bludgeoning everyone into AA,'' he says. ''I recognize now that that was ridiculous, but that's what I did. And if they didn't want to go and they got better anyway, I made some rationalization to explain it away.''

Then he heard someone give a talk on the Rational Recovery movement, the forerunner of SMART He decided to start a group in the Boston area.

Today, there are 40 SMART groups in Massachusetts, including 16 in hospitals and seven in prisons, and there are 200 groups nationwide. A third of the people who call SMART looking for help are referred to the organization by substance-abuse professionals.

SMART started in Portland in June, and there are now two weekly groups meeting at the Dana Center at Maine Medical Center. One is at 5 p.m. on Mondays, the other at 7 p.m. on Wednesdays.

SMART emphasizes practical techniques over the spiritual. Suppose you're going to a wedding in two weeks, Gerstein cites as an example. What will you do when they offer the toast? Will you leave the room? Will you hide your glass? Will you let the glass be filled, but then put it down?

''The trick there is not to just walk in naked and say let's see what happens, because nothing good is going to happen,'' he says. ''Instead, it means talking over all the situations you might get into and figuring out in advance - when you're not under pressure, when you're rational and have the input from the group - what you're going to do.''

There's also a SMART Internet discussion group that's always available. Gene Barber visits it every day.

''I just keep bombarding myself with good reasons why I shouldn't be doing that behavior, why I should be able to exemplify behavior that I consider to be acceptable - for myself, not for anybody else,'' he says.

Barber has worked hard to build a positive, healthy lifestyle. He now runs three miles three to four times a week and has lost 40 pounds. Though he chose a path to recovery other than AA, he has not ignored his spiritual growth. Since he stopped drinking, he has taken up meditation and dabbles in Zen Buddhism. He is also exploring the spirituality of his American Indian heritage.

Staff art.

Barber, who has been working as a wholesale mortgage account executive, also has decided to change careers. SMART helped him realize that the job wasn't helping him to stay sober because he was constantly having to entertain people and buy them drinks.

Some people might say that Barber is in denial because of his refusal to call himself an alcoholic who has a disease. But he disgrees. He knows that if he ever decides to drink again, it could be a dangerous thing, so he plans to stay abstinent.

''I feel like I'm fairly intelligent, pretty lucid,'' he says. ''I don't think I'm in denial. I think I'm looking at this thing pretty face-on and tackling it. I work on a really regular basis at trying to restructure my whole way of thinking about things.

''And it's working.''