The Searchers Road Map with host Renford and guest MonaSides

MonaSides-Smith

Mona Sides-Smith is the widow of Robert “Smitty” Smith, the son of Dr. Bob Smith, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

            Mona is President of the Serenity Retreat League, Inc., in Memphis, Tennessee, a non-profit corporation offering, annually, about thirty Twelve Step related retreats and workshops in the U.S., Mexico, Canada and on cruise ships. As a volunteer for the League for more than fifteen years, Mona has helped to organize those retreats. She facilitates several of them. She is a retired addictions and family therapist. In addition to a private practice, Mona conducted counselor training workshops and community leadership programs.

            She is one of the founding mothers and fathers of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of Northeast Mississippi, Inc. (NCADD). She has served as Treasurer of the West Tennessee Chapter of the Tennessee Association of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Counselors (TAADAC) more times than she remembers. Mona founded and published the TAADAC Times for a few years in the 1990s. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from that organization.

            Earlier in her career, she worked in Washington, D.C., with the Adjutant General of the National Security Agency, and for Mississippi’s Agricultural and Industrial Development Board in Jackson, Mississippi. She also owned and operated a weekly newspaper and commercial printing business, both in Tupelo, Mississippi.

            Mona lives in Memphis, Tennessee, near her several children and grandchildren, where she continues her work with the Serenity Retreat League.