LifeRing Convenor

Report from Hawaii

2010-07-26T22:38:00.000-07:00

Now I've had a chance to dig out from under the backlog and the frontlog that piled up while I was in Hawaii, I'm going to take a few minutes and jot down a report and some memories, and post some photos.

The main purpose of this trip was to try to get LifeRing started in Hawaii. To do that we needed someone or someones in Hawaii to come up with the airfare and hotel. Would you believe it took almost two years to get that done?

The principal engineers were Lorraine Robinson, head of a women's prisoner re-entry program; Eddie Merseneaux, head of a North Shore recovery program; and Bernie Strand, representing Access to Recovery (ATR), a federally funded granting and training council. In this team, Lorraine was the sparkplug, Eddie was the engine, and Bernie was the fuel pump -- she found and moved the money. Here's me with Lorraine, photo above. Lorraine's program is called Ka Hale Ho‘ala Hou No Na Wahine-- Hawaiian for The Home of Reawakening for Women. More about that later.

My main job was to do an all-day workshop explaining LifeRing to treatment professionals. Even though this had been talked about for many months, the authorization for the money didn't get cleared until three weeks before the date of the workshop. I was a bit concerned that there might not be much of a crowd, with so little time to prepare. But Lorraine and Eddie and Bernie each turned out their staffs and their contacts, and Eddie's email blast hit just about every addiction and mental health professional on the island -- an impressive list. It also helped that the island of Oahu is not all that big, and almost everybody knows almost everybody. Result: the conference room was full up with 50 people, all but one being staff at one or another treatment agency.

Some very senior people attended, including the counselor who heads all substance abuse training in the State of Hawaii; at least one psychiatrist medical director; and a lot of younger staff as well. Here's a photo of me with Eddie.

We met in a kind of unusual location: the conference room of Hilo Hattie's, probably the leading vendor of all things Hawaiian in Honolulu. You wandered to the conference room through aisles and aisles loaded with Aloha shirts and every other conceivable item of Hawaiian merchandise, and soft hula music wafted in the background. That was lovely and very relaxing, but there was a downside. The conference room walls didn't reach to the ceiling; they were just partitions. Moreover, there was another conference room directly to one side, where another program was going on. And after lunch, a hula class began on the other side. But the price of the room was right! Luckily, I have a robust set of vocal cords, so that even after the microphone gave out, which it did, I was able to reach the back rows without too much trouble.

I started the program by asking people to identify themselves and say why they were here, and I was struck by how closely these folks followed the consensus of other treatment professionals I had met at conferences such as NAADAC, CAADAC, and APA (search this blog for those acronyms for details). That is, they all had clients who were willing to do recovery, but the 12-step approach was not their cup of tea. They were looking for additional tools, choices, to offer their clients. OK, that's why I was there. Hilo Hattie's provided a nice big flatscreen TV on which to run my PowerPoint, and I presented a somewhat modified and expanded version of the 200-slide workshop I had given previously to two different CAADAC audiences in Oakland and in Sacramento. You can download the original version from lifering.org here.

At lunch, we had a prominent guest speaker, Gary Hooser (right), the outgoing majority leader of the Hawaii state senate and candidate for Hawaii lieutenant governor. I had the privilege of being introduced to Gary before his talk, and gave him a LifeRing lapel pin, which he wore during his talk. He spoke mostly about political realities in general, but also disclosed that his father was an alcoholic and his brother was a drug addict, so he knew something about the topic of our concern. I've met a number of politicians in my time but I thought Gary was rather special in his frankness, directness, and courage.

After lunch, I started off by showing the 1 min 37 second Flash animation of how LifeRing works (here). I'd not had the chance to test this with a live audience before. It was fun to switch back and forth between the screen and audience faces to gauge the reaction. Somebody important once said that the measure of a good idea was whether you could explain it in 30 seconds as well as in 3 days, and I like to think that the LifeRing idea is passing that test, at least on the short side. On the long side, both Eddie and some other listeners felt at the end of the day's presentation that there had been enough material presented for three days, and encouraged me to prepare a longer workshop. I have to agree; I barely scratched the surface of the Recovery by Choice workbook, for example, and never touched on some of the issues in the later chapters of Empowering Your Sober Self. There were some great questions asked. BernieStrand asked a brilliant one, namely whether it made sense to talk about building a Personal Recovery Program with a person on day one of their recovery, in view of the presence of cognitive distortions, etc. I could have spent an hour on that one alone. Here's a photo of Bernie and me, to the right. A longer workshop format would leave time for more audience participation, breakouts, demonstrations, one-on-ones, and the like. So, that's for the future.

After the day's workshop, Lorraine took me to her program for a short visit, and I got a chance to meet three of the residents. Lorraine's program is a six-month residential program that helps women who have been released from state prison on parole to try to reintegrate into the community. I got a lucky break there. One of the women, M., told the story of her job interview earlier in the day, when she was turned down because of her felony rap. She said that on the bus ride afterward, her mind was a battleground between part of her that wanted to say "f*ck it" and get drunk and go back to prison, and the other part that boosted her courage and urged her to hang in (she did).

The next day, Lorraine invited me to give a short talk to her program residents, and then lead them in a LifeRing meeting. We met on plastic patio chairs under a canvas awning in the parking lot that forms the internal courtyard of the program. I had given a few LifeRing talks to parolees, but never to an all-women group, and I mentally listed about 10 different ways that I could screw it up. I chose to use M.'s story about her mental battle after the job interview as the boat on which to sail into my talk about the A and the S and about empowering your sober self. That was a happy approach, and after I had finished my introduction, I started the round of "How Was Your Week?" to my left and sat back to watch. The residents took to the format like ducks to water. It took just a tiny nudge to start the crosstalk, and I was treated to a phenomenally excellent LifeRing meeting, with the women giving each other support all across the circle. The sun set and we had a few showers as the meeting went on. We spent two hours going around, and I worried that fatigue and short tempers would set in, but no need. The engaged body language and the animated facial expressions of the women sustained the session until we were all the way around the circle. We then broke for refreshments, prepared by the residents, and I got excellent one-on-one feedback from several of the women, who contrasted the LifeRing approach positively with other kinds of meetings they had attended.

An evaluation survey filled out by the residents the next day gave LifeRing very high marks; I'm going to post that separately. There was strong support for having the LifeRing meeting at this facility once a week. One of the guests at this meeting was a counselor from a related program, who volunteered to be the convenor. Plans were laid to transition the meeting to an outside location, where nonresidents of Lorraine's program could join in.

That was the end of my LifeRing business in Hawaii, but I had planned to stay for the weekend and do some R&R. After all, it's Hawaii. My new friends were exemplary in their Aloha spirit, driving me literally all around the island to see the beautiful beaches and other sights. I also got to eat poi, the traditional Hawaiian dish, which tasted like lightly grape flavored ice cream (not at all like library paste, as I'd been warned). Hawaiians are legendary for hospitality, and my friends were shining embodiments of that legend. I took a ton of pictures (like these plumerias), which I will post somewhere when I get the time, and I have a head full of wonderful memories.

Well, working to get LifeRing started in Hawaii was a tough assignment, but somebody had to do it. LOL.

P.S. I just heard from Rachaell at the Service Center that a Hawaii agency has ordered more than 100 LifeRing books. That's a good sign. Lots of people told me they wanted to help LifeRing get started in Hawaii, but one never knows how serious it is until they cut the check.

Denver (Finale)

2010-06-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning opened without a cloud in the brilliant blue sky. The Unitarian church being busy with services, our LifeRing group convened in a community center next to Cheesman Park, as we did in 2007. Immediately the contrast with three years ago was obvious. In 2007, the whole body met around a modest conference table. This time we needed a conference room with a head table and classroom seating. This session, known formally as the Delegates' Assembly, is composed of LifeRing participants who have been selected as delegates by their meetings. The basic rule is that each meeting (face-to-face or online) gets to select one delegate, who has one vote in the Assembly.

Tim S. from Tucson acted as Secretary to the session, and his Minutes will give a comprehensive report. I'll just give a short synopsis. The group approved the Minutes of last year's Delegates' Assembly. We then heard the Treasurer's report, by LifeRing CFO Robert Stump. This led to discussion of how LifeRing handles money; the report was approved unanimously. LifeRing Office Administrator Rachaell C., the only person doing LifeRing work who is paid (as a contractor on part-time hours), then presented information about the role of the LifeRing Service Center in Oakland. I then presented the Annual Report, which, after discussion, was also approved unanimously. I then yielded the chair to Craig Whalley, a leading member of the Expansion Committee, who presented the Expansion Committee proposals. These proposals had been worked out over the course of six months with input from a wide variety of stakeholders. They were then published and publicized widely (we even had a YouTube video) for comment. In view of the deliberate and transparent process that had preceded them, these wide-ranging proposals aroused no deep controversy at the meeting. The labels of some of the newly created leadership positions were amended, and then the whole package was adopted without abstention or dissent, giving rise to a burst of applause from the group. As it happened, I was the only person present who had also attended the LifeRing founding Congress in 2001. This session had the same enthusiastic and energized atmosphere.

After a short humorous side-show, of which more below, we went on to the elections for the Board of Directors. There were three vacancies, and three candidates, so this was not a complicated affair. Craig Whalley, a former member of the Board of Directors, was elected back to the board. Joe M. of San Francisco and Tom J. of Denver joined the Board for the first time. Tim's minutes will give more details. After an expression of thanks to the Congress organizers, the group adjourned for a short break. Then the newly elected Board of Directors met for the very important business of filling the newly created leadership slots with people. Thanks to Steve S. for this portrait of the new board.

Since this was my last appearance as CEO of LifeRing, I was the subject of repeated honorifics. At the Saturday session, the Board presented me with a full-size functional life ring fitted with brass plaques containing words of thanks (photo above, thanks to Steve S). At the dinner, I was awarded a nautical clock with a lifering motif and more messages of appreciation (photo right, by Steve S). At the Assembly, LifeRing participant Shauna W., a classmate of mine at Boalt Hall School of Law, Class of '86, had me and the group in stitches with a roast embroidering on some of my radical activities of the 1960s and 1970s, including a fantastic post by somebody on a forum somewhere in 2001 claiming that I had disappeared into the jungles of Brazil with a guerrilla army. I squirmed and loved it.

While the newly elected Board met to do the heavy lifting of dividing up the workload, I seized my new freedom and went for a long walk in the park and a visit to Denver's top-notch Botanical Garden (photo of prize-winning roses, above). I got a bit of a tan and returned to the meeting site just in time to help Kathleen G., the hard-working main organizer of the event, turn off the lights and close the doors. I learned that Craig Whalley (photo, right) had been elected Executive Director of LifeRing (the CEO position has been retired) and that most of the other new positions have also been filled. Craig is a wonderful person, whom I have known for many years, and he has my full support. Pouring my energies into LifeRing as founder and CEO for the past thirteen years has been a wonderful and rewarding experience for me. I'm proud as heck that the network has now grown both in size and in talent to the point where I can hand over the leadership to others.

I'll still be working on the new website for a while, and I've got some unfinished LifeRing writing projects in my hopper, and of course I'll still be attending (and probably convening) a meeting or two, and blogging, and a bit of traveling and speaking as author. But first, a break. Did I mention that the World Cup is starting at the end of this week? What perfect timing.

Website Redesign Underway

2010-06-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

A brand-new LifeRing website is under construction. You'll see a new, cleaner, and more attractive design, with up-to-date web functionality, based on an up-to-the minute web platform, WordPress 3.0. All of the core content of the current website will be preserved as pages on the new site; some of it as-is, some with reformatting or other edits. Some of the content will be reshaped into blog posts, retrievable through categories and tags. Some of the content will drop away.

What content will drop away? It's largely up to you. Content will drop away if (a) the pages get a low number of hits and especially if (b) no one maintains and updates the content. Among the top candidates for obsolescence are:

The Gallery
The Humor Page
Keepers
Lawyer's LifeRing
Music
Recreation
Science

Selected content from some of these pages will become blog posts. But the pages themselves will disappear, unless someone steps forward and pledges to maintain them.

Stay tuned for further updates. The new website is scheduled for unveiling by the end of this month. I will stay on as webmaster until about the middle of August to make sure that the new site is running smoothly and in good condition to hand over to my successor. -- Marty N.

Denver (2)

2010-06-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

Bill Staudenmeier is a soft-spoken man. You could see yourself in a room with him, one on one, pouring out your troubles, and having him ask questions, ever so softly, that cut right to the heart of your issue. In the crowded auditorium of the second floor of the Unitarian Church in Denver, Bill had to raise his voice to be heard. His topic: mindfulness. Bill had us sit with our feet square on the floor, back straight, shoulders relaxed, eyes either closed or in soft focus (easy for me, just had to take off the glasses), and become aware of our body, limb by limb, our breath, our vision. What I got is that mindfulness is an exercise, or a set of exercises, where we become quiet and, well, mindful of our bodies. This helps relax us, dissipates stress, gives the speeding mind a rest. And there's more. It's not only an exercise, it's a mental tool that you can take with you and use in a great variety of situations. For example, when you're in the presence of "your" drug, and you're experiencing a craving, the mindless thing to do is grab the drug and put it in your body. The mindful thing is to say, "Ah, I'm in the presence of this drug and I'm being triggered and I'm experiencing a craving. How boring! Well, soon this feeling will be over and there'll be something else more interesting to draw my attention." Mindfulness generates a calm inner observer that gives us distance and cool in the presence of emotional barking dogs. And there's more. Mindfulness is not only a meditation exercise and a tool for self-government, it's a philosophy for being in the world. If we are mindful of ourselves and of our relationship with other beings and things, we are likely to be more truthful, more kind, and more fair in our behavior. And that's a good thing. Many people in LifeRing are interested in broader life guidance and philosophy issues -- what does it all mean? -- and Bill Staudenmeier's introductory exposition pointed toward an entirely secular, soft-spoken, and spiritually enlightened body of thought. In keeping with his motto of speaking kindly, Bill also said some kind things about my book, Empowering Your Sober Self, for which I am grateful. Bill's talk got a special lift at times from the huge round stained glass window that formed his background. This being a Unitarian church, the window's motifs consisted of flowers, jewels, feathers, and other non-religious designs; nevertheless, as Bill spoke in his calm, thoughtful manner, occasionally it seemed as if a halo had materialized approvingly around his head. See photo, above.

Candice Shelby, the next speaker, comes from several generations of drunks, which did not prevent her from becoming a professor of philosophy, which she is. Her interest in addiction was piqued by the dawning awareness that philosophers, by and large, didn't know the first thing about it. Candice spoke in an edgy, animated tone, with endearing wisecracks and asides that let you know she knew some things about addiction from personal experience. She made well-deserved fun of rationalist theories of addiction (theories that deny that addiction is real and see addictive behavior as a rational choice). Her battle with the philosophers ultimately led her to look for answers in the neurobiology of the brain. She spent a couple of years acquiring the equivalent of a second Phd, as she put it, in the subject. She took us onto a tour of the human brain: neurons, axons, neocortex, limbic system, amygdala, dopamine, and all that. She showed that some of the addicted persons' response to triggers, and some relapse mechanisms, are not conscious and not within the rational framework; that emotions are faster and more powerful than rational thinking, and that people sometimes truthfully do not have a clue why they did what they did. All in all, if I were a rationalist, Adam-Smithian philosopher, I might have felt crushed by the onslaught of neuropsychological research findings that Candice marshaled. I have read a number of neurobiological explanations of addiction, particularly those trotted out to clients in treatment programs to prepare the clients for step one, and Candice's was definitely one of the best informed, better than that of some medical doctors, and far more lively and witty. But it had some of the same limitations. The standard program lecture on neurobiology of addiction typically builds up the power of addiction to such an extent that it becomes quite incomprehensible how and why many people are nevertheless able to shake off their addiction and get free. What is the neurobiological basis of recovery? Candice's talk, perhaps because her time was up before she could finish her prepared text, left this issue unexplored. It would be interesting in a future LifeRing event to hear her lively analytical mind present the results of her study of the brain's inherent powers of recovery.

After lunch -- on our own in an area of Denver with quite a few choices of restaurants -- we reconvened in the cooler downstairs room of the church, and heard a short presentation by Anne Hatcher with ideas toward building a LifeRing Partners group. Hatcher, a veteran counselor and teacher with a formidable list of credentials and affiliations, is a plain-spoken, empathetic person. Among the points of her talk that stuck with me was that the people in a relationship with an addicted person often find themselves adapting to the addicted person. This, of course, tends to reinforce the addiction, requiring further adaptations, and so on in a vicious spiral. The conduct that Anne has seen work is for the partners to put their own priorities first, and force the addicted person either to adapt to that, or be left alone. Anne would like to see a LifeRing Partners group come into being. She left us with some handouts that I will be posting shortly.

Next came a convenor workshop, led by Dru B. of Union City CA, where Dru convenes a highly successful Friday evening meeting at the Kaiser Chemical Dependency Recovery Program. The meeting is remarkable in that it has had a consistently good attendance, averaging about 25 in the past year, despite the fact that it commences hours after the treatment program's schedule is over and everyone has gone home. It's also remarkable in that it is a success story in a time slot where most other meetings have not done well. Dru runs a standard format, How Was Your Week?, and has created an atmosphere where there is lots of cross talk with people engaging one another. The workshop session also featured presentations by Mona H. of Connecticut, focused on meetings by conference telephone; by Lynn C. of Sacramento, describing recent developments in the LifeRing chat rooms, and by Lloyd E., describing the workbook study format he has been developing in his study group at the Kaiser CDRP in Oakland. He too has developed additional material for posting.

The afternoon closed with a brief presentation of the Expansion Committee Report by Craig W., Kathleen G., Lauretta M., and Carola Z., leading members of the working body that was formed at last year's Congress to engineer the transition of LifeRing from its founder to a new generation of leaders. As the Expansion Committee proposals had been thoroughly ventilated and publicized for months both by mail and by electronic media, there was very little discussion at this session. Except for the fact that this was not a Congress session but just a workshop, it would have been adopted by consensus voice vote then and there.

Dinner that evening not only satisfied the belly, it demonstrated the growth of LifeRing in Denver. At our last annual meeting in Denver three years ago, everyone fit around a single table. This time it took four tables to hold the group, more than the restaurant could accommodate in its separate dining room, so we ate in the main room. It was also delightful and reassuring to see that the average age around the tables was probably ten or 15, maybe 20, years younger than at the last occasion.

I had the pleasure during the dinner to award the annual LifeRing Pioneer certificates. The award goes to LifeRing participants, usually convenors, who push the envelope in a good way, for example, by starting a new meeting, or a new online venue, or performing some other service that helps the organization move forward. The number of awardees was at an all-time high. The certificates this year took their graphic theme from the plaque mounted on the Pioneer 10 spacecraft. A few small modifications enhanced NASA's original design for our purposes; see image.

(To be continued)

No Snow in Denver

2010-06-05T12:38:00.000-07:00

Is there still snow on the ground in Denver? I wondered when getting ready to pack my suitcase for the trip to the LifeRing Congress. A quick check online showed not only the absence of snow, but the presence of a heat wave. So I packed shorts. When I got into Denver, it turned out that the predicted 85 degrees was on the low side. A sign outside a bank in downtown Denver at about 3 in the afternoon said 90, and Jim R.'s car said the temperature on the asphalt was 102. Denver was in full bloom, with roses and bearded iris and other flowers making a spectacular show on the streets near the Congress venue, see photo.

The Denver LifeRing regulars have their act together. Kathleen Gargan and Tom J. had a LifeRing banner up outside the Unitarian Church at 14th and Lafayette by midafternoon Friday. Tom, who broke his right arm when he fell off a chair trying to hang the banner at last year's Congress in Berkeley, stayed on solid ground for the banner hanging exercise this time. (See photo.) Despite Kathleen's vintage Volvo shutting down with vapor lock on the way back from the airport after picking up Mona H., who was coming in from New York, everything was in place for the evening's reception. I got to meet Phil S., a Denver regular with whom I'd only corresponded via email, as well as Bonnie and Jim and Lokken and Kirk and Anna and other Denver LifeRing participants. It was clear that Denver LifeRing has grown significantly. I also had the privilege of chatting for a while with Anne Hatcher, a veteran addictions counselor and teacher in Denver, and we discovered that we shared a common friend in Bill White, the author of Slaying the Dragon, the excellent history book.

Michael Walsh and Adam H. drove in from Victoria BC, an amazing scenic trek through the Northwest. Jim R. and Karen I. as well as Dru B. drove in from Oakland. Mary S. came in from Albuquerque, and showed off her spectacular custom-made sobriety bracelet with a gold life ring (see photo). Andy R. got in his car at 2 pm Friday in Wichita and drove in one shift to Denver, arriving around 10 pm. Others flew in airplanes. By the next morning, when the Expo program began, the upstairs auditorium of the Unitarian church, with its gorgeous stained glass window, was just about full.

(To be continued).

From Little Acorns Grow ...

2010-05-24T20:18:00.000-07:00

James McS. posted the following on the Aardvarkian Tales blog, and graciously gave me permission to reprint it here:

It all started in a dining room of a house in north County Dublin. Present and correct were two men, two women and two dogs. I can’t speak for the dogs but I know for a fact that the four humans were (and are) recovering addicts, mainly alcoholics but there was some drug abuse, too.

LifeRing had arrived in Ireland.

Tonight, in St. Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin, we had two groups of 19 people, each recovering (or hoping to recover) from whatever their drug of choice happens to be. People from all walks of life, looking for hope, support, and camaraderie. The St. Patrick’s group is one of three active meetings in Dublin. The other two are located at the Methodist Mission on Abbey Street, and the Stanhope Street Alcohol Treatment Centre. The last piece of the jigsaw, St. John of God’s Hospital, will fall into place within the next month or two.

LifeRing has arrived in Ireland.

It’s a recovery program without a program. By this I mean there are no Steps, no Higher Power, no powerlessness over our addiction. The choice to whether or not drink or use is put in our hands. We alone are responsible for picking up a drink or drug. End of story. Sure, we’re powerless once we do — that much is obvious — but if we chose not to, that choice empowers us. That, in essence, is what LifeRing is all about. We keep it secular and leave our Higher Power (if we have one) outside the room until we leave. We chat to each other, we cross-talk, we laugh, cry, but ultimately we’re all about positivity. Our “drunk-a-logues” and “drug-a-logues” are a thing of the past. Our “war stories” remain just that — stories. We talk sobriety in the here and now. We ask each other: “How was your week in sobriety?”

It is an alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous and its Twelve Steps, and without becoming all preachy, LifeRing offers the addict a different forum from which to draw strength. Some addicts can’t “get” the AA approach, so LifeRing shows them another way. It has worked well in the U.S.A. and the signs are that it will work well here in Ireland, too.

For the original click here. Thank you, James!

How LifeRing Works

2010-05-07T21:50:00.000-07:00

Here's a Flash video that explains how LifeRing works and what we mean by the motto "Empowering Your Sober Self" -- in 98 seconds. I had fun making it. I've improved it a little and added a sound track since first posting it. Your comments are welcome.

You can see a silent version of the same content as a Flash video here.

Adolescents of All Ages

2010-05-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure on Thursday morning of attending and staffing a LifeRing exhibit table at the 13th Annual Northern California Tobacco, Alochol, Drug, School Wellness & Youth Development Conference for Educators, held at the Clark Kerr Conference Center of UC Berkeley.

The attendees were teachers, counselors, and community leaders from seven Northern California counties. All were concerned with prevention and treatment of the tobacco, alcohol, and other drug issue among young people, particularly teenagers.

The most frequent question to me was "Do you have meetings for teens?" Since, at the moment, none of our meetings is limited by age group, my answer had to be, "Our meetings are open to adolescents of all ages." That got a laugh.

There was a universally positive reaction to a secular option for sobriety support. A number of people volunteered that a lot of teens tended to resist the religious aspects of the 12-step groups.

The problem is how to convert the positive reception we get from educators working with teens into actual meetings -- or some other organized presence -- in the schools.

A few years ago the counseling staff at a local high school wanted to start a set of support groups, including LifeRing, on campus. The initiative was killed by the principal, not because of any animus toward LifeRing, but -- observers believed -- because the program would call attention to the campus drug problem and taint the school's reputation.

I had brought only 50 local meeting schedules to the conference, and these went quickly. This wasn't a book-buying crowd -- didn't sell one book -- but the schedules and brochures got into a lot of hands. Maybe some of them will trickle down into the hands of some wide-awake students.

The keynote speaker at the conference, Dr. Ken Winters of the U of Minnesota, presented a PowerPoint entitled "This is Your Brain on Adolescence." It featured MRI scans of brains lit up by cocaine and charts of dopamine levels -- the scenes a faire of addiction lectures. It carried a sound and important message about the lifetime dangers of early alcohol and other drug use. The adolescent brain is engaged in a major neural reorganization, a very bad time to be throwing addictive drugs into the works.

Still, the notion that teen behavior and attitudes generally, and the proclivity to do drugs in particular, are rooted in developmental brain anatomy, is overly broad and unfair. Only a minority of teens do drugs. Some teens are impulsive, others are cautious. Some take risks, others avoid them. For every teen who has impaired judgment, there is another who is wise beyond their years. We certainly see kids who do drugs and hide it from their parents, but we also see kids who fight hard to get their parents off drugs and into treatment. Bottom line: teens deserve as much respect as adults for their individuality, their wisdom, and the choices they make.

An Outline for Workbook Study

2010-04-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

Lloyd E., who just began a Tuesday night workbook study group at the Kaiser CDRP (Chemical Dependency Recovery Program) in Oakland, has drafted a short study outline that I want to pass along, below. The Recovery by Choice workbook was written mainly for individual study, and the convenor who leads a group through the text needs to select a few issues out of the many that the book contains, or -- experience shows -- it may take a group several years to complete the book. There are several outlines in existence, and more will probably be created. Lloyd's outline is short, but it touches on every chapter in the book. He's based it on a review exercise in the Relapse chapter. Here it is:

Recovery by Choice

Weekly Topics of Conversation

1. Decision: Do we remember why we originally wanted to get clean and sober? Have we found additional reasons? How do we make sobriety our priority?

2. Body: Can we make progress in addressing concerns about our bodies and our mental health?

3. Exposure: Have we done the best we can to minimize our exposure? Or are we being reckless about getting into trigger situations and neglecting our reminders?

4. Activities: Can we make progress in learning to do life’s activities clean and sober, and in starting up new activities that interest us? Or are we barely functional or doing very little different from when we were drinking/using?

5. People: Have we worked out who are the friends and who are the opponents of our recovery, and can we make progress in improving our relationships? Or are we spending too much time with people who are a drag on our recovery, and not enough with people who care for us as sober persons?

6. Feelings: Can we succeed in building more clean and sober pleasure into our lives. Can we identify and deal with our trigger feelings, and do we feel better about our emotional lives? Or are we treating recovery as a punishment or retreating into numbness?

7. Lifestyle: Can we pinpoint our major lifestyle issues and can we make progress in repairing damage that addiction did to our lifestyle? Or have we resigned ourselves to the way things were and given up trying to solve real-life problems?

8: History: Have we reviewed our personal history and come to an understanding of what part of our life was us, and what part was our addiction? Do we have a clearer sense of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.

9. Culture: Can we recognize the sources of support and the problems areas for our recovery within our culture, and have we begun to figure out our roles in it?

10. Treatment: Have we made the necessary decisions about treatment and support groups, and do we know how to get what we need from these resources.

11. Relapse: Do we understand the structures of relapse and do we recognize what might undermine our recovery? Do we have a better sense of ourselves, .and do we monitor ourselves frequently for early warning signs. Have we prepared ourselves to eject immediately in case of relapse?

12. Plans: How do we develop our Personal Recovery Plans for the short and long term?

My only quibble with this outline is that it has 12 -- count them -- 12 points. Inevitably people will start to refer to this as the "12 Steps of LifeRing." (Sigh and groan.) Apart from that, I think it's a great starting point for a workbook study group. Initial reviews of the opening session were raves. It took more than five years of nudging and begging to get a room at this facility for a workbook study meeting, and this one looks like it's going to be a big success story. Congratulations, Lloyd!

Shining Model in Walnut Creek CA

2010-04-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

Carola Z. writes:

Just a quick note with some good news: The meeting we started at Kaiser CDRP in Walnut Creek [California] celebrated its first anniversary today.

The meeting is every Wednesday from 12:15 to 1:15 pm in Room 3D at 710 Broadway 3rd floor. It's still going strong and we had a nice large group of regulars and newcomers today.

I had made a commitment to convene this meeting for a year, and I am especially happy to be able to announce that I handed it over today to two very capable members of that meeting as the new convenors.

Way to go, Carola! Starting a new meeting and then passing on the convenor role to other members of the meeting is a shining model of how LifeRing takes root and expands.

Carola makes it sound so simple, as if there were nothing to it. But there's a lot to it. First, you have to get the room -- sometimes a battle of years with an entrenched and obscure administrative bureaucracy. Then, you have to create the positive LifeRing atmosphere in the room: safety, openness, honesty, freedom, humor, caring ... the environment that empowers the sober self, and keeps people coming back. It's only then that you get regulars who build up sober time and learn the ropes of the LifeRing process. And it's only when you begin to have such a core group that you have your pool of future convenors to whom you can hand the clipboard and the basket, give a friendly hug, and move on to start another meeting somewhere else.

The core message of the LifeRing convenor handbook (How Was Your Week) is "Pass it on!" The "it" here is the convenor role. When convenors remember that message and put it into practice, as Carola has done, then LifeRing thrives and grows. There are, unfortunately, also some negative examples. Last week at the monthly convenor workshop at the Service Center, I learned that a certain meeting that I had started fourteen years ago, and passed on long ago, was now without a convenor. People had gone to the room, sat and waited, and no convenor had showed up. So, I went and acted as pinch-hitter tonight. There were ten participants, and we had a great meeting. A member of the meeting told me that the regular convenor had convened this meeting for more than three years. No one knew what had happened to him, and we had only sketchy contact information for him in the database at the LifeRing Service Center. I enjoyed pinch hitting and I'll do it again next week; but I shouldn't have to. Convenors who fail to develop other convenors and pass the meeting on will eventually burn out, and risk taking the whole meeting down with them. That's not a recipe for a healthy, expanding organization.

So, congratulations and a shining gold star to Carola and the other convenors who "pass it on!"

Letter to My Addiction

2010-02-16T14:50:00.000-08:00

One of the exercises in the Recovery by Choice workbook -- and it's an old exercise, widely used, not invented by me -- is writing a letter to one's addiction. You write a "Dear Jane" letter to the addiction, then you write your addiction's response to the letter, and you conclude by replying to the response. In the framework of the "A" (addict self) and "S" (sober self) metaphor, it's a dialogue between the S and the A.

Mark J. did this exercise last month and read it out loud to his group. So many people commented on it that it came to my attention, and with Mark's permission I'm reprinting it here:

Dear Jane,

I am writing you this letter in regards to discontinue our relationship altogether. I want to be forthright with my stance on this. We have spent a time in our lives that for life safety reasons I realized needed to be ended. I ask of your acceptance of this as I need to move on and pursue a life that is productive to my development and responsibilities. There were good times, yes. However the damage to my well being both physically and emotionally has caused me to seek recovery and I’ve found it to be a life worth living. Let me not leave out the fact that I have caused damage to others as well when we were together. Let me state again that I am taking action at this writing to cease relations with you permanently.

Sincerely,

Mark

Mark,

I have read your letter and think you maybe need a break for a while and I am more than willing to let things cool off (or until you finish your phase). But let’s be serious, you know we are meant to be together. A break from this relationship is fine with me, but to consider never seeing each other again is not like you. You are the one who sought me ought and wooed me with your words, touch and actions in all situations when you felt the need. You came to me! Through those times we produced the best sensations and moments of true genius that you demonstrated to others. The music on computers you made was untouched in individuality. You were afraid of talking to the people you really wanted to talk to until we were together. When we were together you consciously new it was better than sex and you ignored sexual advances with the thought that sex would get between you and I. We had mystique. It was I with you the greatest spiritual moment in your life happened, and you dare wonder if it was real or imagined. Of course it was us. Do I need to go on? I think you know the answer to this question. So now after all I have given to you, this is suddenly something you would never consider again? I know you romanticize about me and you think you can shut out or use your bullshit recovery techniques to stop yourself from me. However, I’m always here and that makes you wonder doesn’t it? You can’t forget about us can you? I understand you are going through some voluntary brainwashing to delude yourself from our relationship, however to think you’ll leave me for good is not something I’m worried about.

In remembrance of old times,

Jane

Dear Jane,

I have read your reply and cannot overstate the fact that you and I together is life threatening to me. I will die and hurt others along the way. While it is true that there were times together that still bewilder me, I am working towards moving into the now and there is evidence that this is happening. I simply enjoy being sober more than the ups and downs of being with you. The adventure of life is unfolding and I know in my heart that I can always find a way sober no matter what may happen. The past experiences with you brought a change in how I wanted to live. I don’t want to shut my memories out and accept that I will remember the “good times” as well as the bad. This is not a war and I will not fight you. I just simply will not take you. The things that I thought I needed you to do with me I now am doing myself and I don’t need an audience to tell me when I know something is right. From this moment on I choose a life worth living.

Mark

LifeRing in 2010 and Beyond

2010-02-14T00:46:00.000-08:00

The LifeRing Service Center in Oakland was humming and buzzing last week with the Expansion Committee mailing. In a few days, every LifeRing convenor in the world should have the committee's proposals in hand. (If you didn't get one, it's probably because we don't have contact information for you in the database.)

The committee of eleven worked long and hard to produce these proposals, and they deserve a full and detailed reading. The time for membership discussion is from now to March 15. You can send feedback via comments on the LifeRing-10 discussion blog, or via email to service@lifering.org, or via snail mail or phone to the Service Center (1440 Broadway Ste 312 Oakland 94612; 1-800-811-4142).

Growing in Dublin

2010-02-07T16:01:00.000-08:00

This email came in to the Service Center this week from a counselor in Dublin, Ireland:

I am writing to you in the hope that I may receive information about facilitating LifeRing meetings within our organisation. We are a community based organisation based in Dublin 12, we work with both problematic alcohol and drug users. We have at the moment A.A meetings being held each week, but it has come to our attention that the amount of people attending these meetings is far less than the amount of people who need help. When we put the question to the people who don't attend, their response is that they believe it was themselves who chose to drink or take drugs and that it should be themselves who chooses and has the power to stop. Since finding out about and from reading your web-site,(which I really enjoy and agree with) I have mentioned it to some of our service users and they seem excited at the idea of attending these meetings.
I understand that there are 2 meetings being held in Dublin, but I am hoping that maybe we can facilitate them here also. Is there any possibility of this? Or can I receive some information please about training myself to become a convenor of LifeRing.

Dennis S., the LifeRing convenor who founded the first two LifeRing meetings in Dublin, promptly contacted the writer and offered his assistance and cooperation. It's very likely, from the looks of it, that Dublin will soon have three LifeRings.

Note that this email comes from a counselor at a program that so far is exclusively 12-step oriented. If you looked at this program from the outside, seeing only the surface, you might write it off as a stone 12-step program, beyond hope.

But the clients on the inside have different ideas. The amount of people attending the 12-step meetings, the writer observed, "is far less than the amount of people who need help." That's just about a universal condition in every 12-step program. As we know from AA's own triennial membership surveys, reported in Don McIntire's journal article (covered in my book Empowering Your Sober Self), out of 100 people who approach AA, at the end of 90 days, 90 per cent have walked away.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there's a gap here. To its immense credit, the staff at this program in Dublin actually asked the people who don't attend AA, why don't they? This is almost revolutionary in a profession that's very strong on talking at clients but not so good at listening to clients. But the client-centered spirit of Carl Rogers is penetrating even into substance abuse treatment, the most backward province in the kingdom of mental health treatment, and the result is what you see: clients who insist that they're not powerless to get free of alcohol and drugs, and who want support groups that acknowledge that power and reinforce it. In short, clients who want LifeRing.

Even in Ireland. Or perhaps: especially in Ireland.

The Albuquerque Model

2010-01-30T10:30:00.000-08:00

Cell division is a basic growth process in biology, and we're seeing a great example of it in Albuquerque. Justin S writes:

I have been attending the Albuquerque, NM LifeRing Wednesday evening meetings for about a year. This chapter/meeting was originally founded by Mary S., who is still the primary convenor. I have been co-convening and benefitting from Mary's counsel since last June. Since our attendance has been good (and sometimes too large), we've decided to start a new meeting on Monday nights in the same location.

Here are the details:

Time: Monday 6:00 PM
Location: Albuquerque, Anna Kaseman (Presbyterian) Hospital
Address: 8300 Constitution Ave NE Main Entrance to Conf Rm B
Focus: How was your week?
Map: Map Link
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Contact: Justin S.
Phone: 505-249-6366
Email: justin320@flash.net

Justin concludes by asking that the info be posted on the lifering.org meetings page. Done! Congratulations Albuquerque LifeRing, congratulations Mary and Justin for a job well done. This is a model to emulate.

At the risk of over-analyzing, let's take a look. Mary, who started the meeting, has been doing two things right. One, she has created a safe, supportive atmosphere that makes people want to come back, and that generates good word-of-mouth to attract new people. Two, she has encouraged regular participants, such as Justin, to step into the convenor role. She's done it in part by creating opportunities for Justin to be the backup convenor and co-convenor in the existing meeting. This has given Justin the confidence and the skills to go out "on his own," as it were, and start a new meeting.

As a result, newly recovering people in Albuquerque who are considering their support group options now have twice as many reasons to select LifeRing as they had before. And treatment professionals considering their referral options have twice as many reasons to refer clients to LifeRing.

Just imagine if every LifeRing meeting in the world followed the Albuquerque model. After about a year or so, the number of LifeRing meetings would double. And in another year, double again ... The mind boggles. Of course, circumstances vary, and nothing is ever so simple. Still, there are important lessons here. The convenor's goal is two-fold. One: create a safe and supportive environment where people can empower their sober selves. Two: help and encourage regular participants to become convenors, so that the LifeRing network can "live long and prosper." If you're a convenor, do you have both of these goals firmly in your view?

Wants Meeting in Bend OR

2010-01-21T11:50:00.000-08:00

This message from Chuck H. in Bend, OR arrived at the Service Center yesterday:

There are only 12-step meetings in Central Oregon - no secular approaches. We are interested in starting a secularly-oriented group and would appreciate any assistance that can be offered. The treatment centers here are all 12-step focused. -- Thanks!

Chuck:
Thanks for your message. As with similar requests that come in to the LifeRing Service Center, we will be happy to help you with an initial supply of brochures and some other materials that you can use to spread the word about your planned new meeting. And when you have a room and a date and time that can be posted on the online meeting list, we will send you display copies of each LifeRing Press publication on invoice.

Do not hesitate to approach the 12-step treatment centers about your project and to ask their assistance. The 12-step world is not a monolith. There are "my-way-or-the-highway" types, to be sure, but there's also the "whatever-works" types. In every treatment center there are clients who are willing to do recovery but don't find the 12-step approach a good fit for them. In many treatment centers there are professionals who see it as part of their ethical responsibility to offer the client choices and to help the client find an approach that works for them, whatever it may be. Like any new approach, you will probably find doors slammed in your face at first, and you will need persistence and tenacity to prevail. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon.

Note also that there are now others in Oregon working on starting LifeRing meetings. Please get in touch with the persons starting LifeRing in Eugene and in Portland, and share your experiences and resources.

Letter from Tampa

2010-01-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

From Tampa, Florida, reader D.L. writes today:

I would like to start a meeting in the Tampa area. I have been to meetings in Pinellas Park on Friday evenings and enjoyed them. I also have read the book by Nicolaus and as a physician I agree with many things he has said. It was also nice to read about the work of one of my psychiatry professors at UCSD School of Medicine, Dr. Mark Schuckit.

Howver, driving to Pinellas is not an option for me any more. I started working Friday evenings. I would be willing to search for a meeting place for starting a meeting here in Tampa. There are at least five people who would like to come to the meetings initially. Also, I want to go to the treatment centers (12-step based) to ask them if they would be willing to pass information to the people about LifeRing. I would need information about how to start a meeting and also any supplies that you find necessary for the start. If I find a place for rent, could I count on you to help me out at least initially with it?

Dear D.L.: I salute you on your initiative to start another LifeRing meeting in the Tampa Bay area. The area is certainly large enough to support more than the single meeting that now exists there, the Friday night group at Pinellas Park. To put it more strongly, a city of that size needs to have a multiplicity of LifeRing meetings in order for the LifeRing concept to become established and to replicate. Many people in recovery, particularly in early days, want and need more support than one meeting a week. LifeRing may not appear like a viable support option to them until they have three or more LifeRing meetings per week within driving range. Treatment professionals who do referrals see it the same way. We've heard it time after time: I can't be referring clients to a group that has only one meeting. (Of course, there would be more meetings if they made more referrals; but that's another topic.) And so, a LifeRing meeting that's the only one of its kind in an area leads a difficult existence, and it takes extraordinary dedication, tenacity and hard work on the part of its core group regulars to keep it alive in the long haul. When there are more meetings, all of them benefit and all of them can prosper.

That being said, the topic is how to proceed. Your best guide is to read the book, "How Was Your Week," available from LifeRing Press. A key chapter is available free online here. You should definitely approach the treatment centers, no matter how 12-step they are, and ask for meeting space, bulletin board space, and referrals. Some of our oldest and best meetings are at 12-step treatment centers; they need us there. If you are able to get meeting space at a treatment center, there is rarely any rent to pay, as you are providing a service to the clients. The LifeRing Service Center does not have the resources to subsidize room rentals for meetings, even at the beginning. What the Service Center can and will do is to send you brochures and other literature to help you get started; and as soon as you have a meeting room and a time that can be posted on the online meeting list, then we can send you display copies of LifeRing Press books on invoice.

It is excellent that you know of a group of five or six people who are ready to attend the new meeting once it finds a home. It would be good if you could enroll all of them as a search committee to speed the process. Please also enroll yourself in the LifeRing convenor email list, and read and comment on this convenor blog. Break a leg!

Wants LifeRing Inside

2010-01-15T21:03:00.000-08:00

Arden M. wrote the LifeRing Service Center, in a letter received today:

I am currently incarcerated on a non-violent drug offense at the _________ in _______, New York. I am the inmate coordinator of the Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation and Treatment (DART) program, where I help to provide drug and alcohol counseling to inmates who request placement in the program or are mandated by the Court.

I have a copy of the book Empowering Your Sober Self, that talks about the LifeRing approach to recovery, and am interested in knowing if you could send me some of your resources. I am seeking donations of books and other material that I can use in the program. Although the program is administered by social workers and counselors, it is mostly facilitated by inmate facilitators. We are in need of any resources that could help us in presenting a better program. I hope you can help in our endeavor. I would like to set up a LifeRing group in this facility. [...] Sincerely, Arden M.

As with other similar requests, the Service Center can and will send a sampler of our brochures and a copy of the Presenting LifeRing magazine. In some cases we send a copy of the How Was Your Week handbook. Our church mouse budget (the only way in which we are 'religious') doesn't allow us to send more, particularly to a prison setting where the meeting can't pass the basket.

If any of the readers of this blog would like to contribute to a Prisoner Literature Fund, we will dedicate your donation to sending LifeRing literature to convenors like Arden for use of LifeRing participants on the inside.

You can make a donation by clicking the yellow "Donate Now" button on this page, which will take you to a charitable donation site (Just Give) which will send you an official acknowledgement for tax purposes. There you can dedicate your gift to the Prisoner Literature Fund. Thank you in advance.

We Need to Teach the Teachers

2010-01-14T20:41:00.000-08:00

I had the distinct pleasure this afternoon of speaking about LifeRing to a group of interns in San Francisco. These were all students at different colleges, ranging from trade schools and community colleges to UC Berkeley and even an Ivy League school or two. Some were undergraduates, some were working on a Psy.D. degree or M.F.T. certificate. They were all interning at New Leaf, the major center for counseling services to the LGBT community in San Francisco and the region, and they were a bright lot; you could feel the electricity from their brains crackling in the air.

Just one problem: almost none of them had heard of LifeRing before. You'd think, wouldn't you, that their teachers somewhere along the line would have mentioned to them that there are other approaches to substance abuse besides 12-step, and named some names?

In a recent New Yorker article, the writer tried to find out whether professors of economics in the universities had updated their theories in light of the recent economic crash. The answer was mostly negative. Most of them got their minds cast in cement a couple of decades ago. Could it be that something like that is going on with the professors of addiction studies?

I can think of some honorable exceptions: teachers who regularly send their students to check out support group meetings, including LifeRing. But clearly, judging by the experience of these interns, we have work to do. We need to educate some educators.

If you are a student in addiction studies and related fields and you have a teacher who has never heard of LifeRing, please forward their contact information to service@lifering.org, and we will undertake to send them some educational materials. Or, if you prefer, we'll send you the material and you can hand deliver it -- the best way.

And if your class would like to have a live LifeRing lecture, we can probably arrange that, too. Get in touch with the LifeRing Service Center, service@lifering.org or 1-800-811-4142.

P.S. Pietro Carnini, the New Leaf staff counselor who set up the gig, sent a very nice follow-up letter saying:

The interns found your presentation to be very informative, and they were pleased to hear about an alternative self-help program for those struggling with addiction. Their knowledge regarding this topic has been increased, and I believe that this is a result of your excellent presentation. I would welcome you to return next year to provide training on this topic.

And thank you, Pietro, for the invitation. I look forward to doing it again.

Passing it on: A Model

2010-01-12T14:42:00.000-08:00

A basic rule of convenor work is "pass it on" -- recruit someone else to take over the convenor role in the meeting, after a period of time. At the Service Center, we recently received a letter that's a model of how to handle that transition.

Dear LifeRing:
This is to inform you that my commitment as convenor of the Wednesday San Rafael Kaiser CDS meeting has ended as of December 30.
As my replacement, Caryl K. has volunteered to convene the meeting starting the following Wednesday. At that time, she will assume responsibility for turning in the basket receipts, ordering pamphlets and books, etc. Additionally, she has given her consent to be listed as a contact for this meeting; her phone number is [____].
I wish to thank you for the opportunity to be of service to this organization which is a much needed alternative to the non-secular recovery groups.
Sincerely,
Dee S

It's a pleasure to get a communication like this. It lets us know that the convenor, who had been in this role for about a year, understood the basic message of the How Was Your Week book, namely to "pass it on." And it allows us to update our database so that we know who is the current convenor of this meeting, and we have an address where we can send brochures, schedules, receipts, and letters, and we have a phone number to which we can refer callers for information. In short, it keeps alive the connection of that meeting with the rest of the LifeRing network, and with the recovery community as a whole.

You might think, "Well, of course! Isn't that always true?" Unfortunately, not. There are cases where convenors pass the baton and don't tell anyone outside the meeting that they've done so. Sometimes in remote areas convenors even drop the baton and tell no one. As a result, at the Service Center, we have no idea who is convening that meeting, and sometimes we have the unpleasant surprise of hearing from strangers that they went to the listed meeting and nothing was there. That happens rarely, but even once is too often, because it undermines the credibility of the whole organization. It taints the brand, as marketing people say.

Therefore, thank you, Dee S, for showing how it's done right.

New Face, New Look at Service Center

2010-01-11T20:55:00.000-08:00

A while back I covered the cleanup and remodeling work underway at the LifeRing Service Center in Oakland. See blog item. I promised photos of the "After" condition. Then something happened to my camera (duh, I fell on it when texting while walking in the park in the dark) and I couldn't follow through. Now at last I have some snaps to share. Ta-daa!
Here's Rachaell Castro, our new and great Office Administrator, at work in front of the computers that keep track of your literature orders, your meeting basket contributions, your donations, and much else. And yes, that's a real orchid in the foreground and a real palm tree in the back. The big white box in the rear is Fluffy the HP9050 printer.

This is the meeting space, where the monthly convenor workshops meet, as well as the weekly Tuesday eve workbook study meetings, and numerous spontaneous gatherings. Photo collages of past Congresses line the wall. And yes, that's a real silk plant in the corner.

This is the business end: the shipping desk, stock shelf, and the mailing machines. This hasn't changed much, except that it's neater, we're better equipped with packing material, and the worn-out jam-happy folding machine has departed in favor of a newer and bigger model, visible in the left rear. This is where LifeRing Press books are shipped out, where the Northern California schedules are folded, where mass mailings are folded and tabbed, and much else. Pictures of the LifeRing Constitutional Congress in 2001 are on the right, under the clock.

If you want to reach the Service Center, the email is service@lifering.org. If your issue is with LifeRing Press, the direct email line is publisher@lifering.com. That's "org" for the organization and "com" for the commerce side where we sell books and things. By phone call 800-811-4142. If you want to talk live to a real person, namely Rachaell (she pronounces it "Rachel") call Mondays, Wednesdays or Fridays between 9 am and noon. Those are also the hours to come to the Service Center to buy books, and to pick up schedules and other supplies for your meeting. The Center is located in Suite 312 (third floor) of the 1440 Broadway building, just a few steps from the corner of 14th and Broadway and from the Oakland City Center BART station. See map link. The Service Center's mission is "Serve the Meetings" See you there!

Treatment Journal Reviews Empowering Your Sober Self

2010-01-10T21:28:00.000-08:00

The current issue of Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly contains a review of my book Empowering Your Sober Self. The reviewer, who is none other than the distinguished scholar William L. White (Slaying the Dragon and other works), writes, in conclusion:

Nicolaus offers us a clear window into the basic approach of LifeRing Secular Recovery, one of the major secular alternatives to AA. LifeRing was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1999 and became a national organization at a founding conference in Florida in 2001. LifeRing hosts face-to-face recovery support meetings, a range of e-mail lists for member- to-member communication, online (www.unhooked.com, www.lifering.org) chat rooms and Internet forum (bulletin board), an online social network (lifering.ning.com), LifeRing social events, and the annual LifeRing Congress.

In Empower Your Sober Self, Nicolaus has created an engaging text for individuals seeking recovery and for service professionals wanting a greater understanding of LifeRing’s core ideas and recovery support strategies. Empower Your Sober Self also includes the voices of many LifeRing members whose personal stories illustrate key points in the book.

The discussions in this book include some of the more controversial issues in the addictions field. Nicolaus outlines positions on these issues clearly and forcefully and in ways that help distinguish LifeRing Secular Recovery from 12-step programs and from other 12-step alternatives. This book is intended to inform rather than convert. Not everyone will agree with the ideas and approaches set forth here, but for the past decade, individuals and families have used LifeRing Secular Recovery as an effective framework to initiate and maintain long-term recovery from life-impairing addictions. Those recoveries are cause for celebration, and this book details how they did it. Those seeking a solution to alcohol and other drug problems and professionals assisting people with such problems will find great value in Empower Your Sober Self.

This strikes me as a fair and even-handed assessment and I'm grateful to the writer. It's also a good sign that the journal, which goes to the more research-minded echelons of the treatment profession and to academics, has taken note of this book. Hopefully, the review -- and the book, for those who will read it -- will persuade a larger number of treatment professionals to include LifeRing meetings in their referral pool.

For a PDF copy of the complete review, click here.

A Preferred Provider in Boulder CO

2010-01-05T14:56:00.000-08:00

Stephanie Bryan emailed the lifering.org website yesterday:

I'm a therapist in private practice in Boulder. I recently learned about LifeRing as I was searching for a secular support system for a client. I attended a Wednesday meeting in Denver, learned about Empowering Your Sober Self, found copies at The Tattered Cover (the premier locally-owned bookstore in Denver) for my client and myself, read the book in its entirety and loved it, took my client to a Thursday meeting in Denver, was able to purchase a copy of Recovery by Choice at that meeting, and was able to use it with my client before he left town for a long-term in-patient treatment program in Arizona for people age 17-25.

I purchased two copies of Recovery by Choice directly from the LifeRing Service Center so I will have them for future clients. I notice you do not have any treatment providers listed in Colorado, so I was wondering if I could be listed. This is what I would like:

Stephanie Bryan, LCSW, CAC III, NCAC II
REAL Parenting
1530 55th Street
Boulder, CO 80303
303-397-0646

"I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Addictions Counselor, and Certified Parent Coach. I have worked in mental health and addictions since 1984. My parent education and parent coaching work is primary prevention, helping parents raise kids who won't make some of the poorer choices their parents made. I recently learned about LifeRing when I was seeking a secular recovery program for a client. I attended some LifeRing meetings, read Empowering Your Sober Self, and realized the LifeRing approach is compatible with the clinical work I do. I am trained in Cognitive Behavior Therapy, EMDR, and Brainspotting."

My website is www.REALParenting.net.

Stephanie:
Thanks for your post. On the lifering.org website there is a "Find Treatment" tab and a page listing "Preferred Providers." Preferred providers are, of course, providers like yourself who offer their clients treatment modalities beyond (or other than) 12-step. We do not charge for these listings, although we always appreciate it when listed providers make a tax-deductible donation. I, as the webmaster, am sometimes slow in responding to emailed requests for a listing, particularly when the request doesn't indicate any particular affinity with the LifeRing approach. Sometimes the requests come from stone 12-step programs that are pretending to be better than they are so as to lure more clients. But in a case like Stephanie's I am happy not only to post her listing, but to feature it in this blog, because Stephanie has actually read and used LifeRing literature with a client and has personally checked out a LifeRing meeting. That makes her a Preferred Provider, for real!

Desperate in Montana

2010-01-05T13:37:00.000-08:00

Cassie Z. from Great Falls Montana wrote to the Service Center yesterday:

My husband and I had a horrible time trying to get any support to stay sober, after we managed to get that way a year ago. AA doesn't fit or agree with everyone. I believe that people who are in Treatment Court that are forced to attend meetings -- AA, because that's all we have -- will quit the day they're able. I hope Lifering will appeal to more people for whom "working the program" just doesn't work. We have 3 or 4 outpatient facilities here, and Mental Health, Probation, etc., that I'm confident will understand my viewpoint and give it a shot, especially if I have the literature and a plan when I pitch it to them. I have 4 or 5 people who have said they'd attend if we had a LifeRing meeting. We have nothing like it in MT; we're desperate for a NEW approach.[...] Thank you, and I'm SO excited to get started!

When we get messages like these, we're happy to send a copy of each of our brochures and a copy of the Presenting LifeRing magazine free of charge. Once Cassie and her husband have a meeting room and a date and time that we can post on the web, we'll be happy to send them a display copy of each of our other publications.

Because we are such a low-budget operation, we cannot afford to send free copies of our books and bundles of brochures to everyone who writes in with the intention to start a meeting. I wish we could, but we'd go broke.

We will send display copies of books and bundles of brochures to meetings on invoice (without advance payment), once they have a place and time, but we expect the convenors to pay for the literature once their meeting has got enough money from passing the basket, however long that may take.

We have sometimes received donations from supporters earmarked to buy books for a specific meeting, or to buy books for new meetings in general, and we're happy to honor those.

Need Vet Convenor in Oakland

2010-01-05T12:49:00.000-08:00

This came in to the Service Center via email today:

Greetings,
Happy New Year!!
I would like more information about LifeRing and how we can possibly bring a weekly group to the Vet Center of Oakland. The Vet Center/ Oakland office is just right around the corner from the Oakland LifeRing Service Center. Vet Centers are a MH component of the Dept. of Veteran Affairs and provide readjustment counseling and outreach services specifically to all veterans who served in any combat zone and are dealing with PTSD. Services are also available for their family members for military related issues. Many of our Veterans have dealt with and currently deal with substance issues, as they have tried to self medicate the symptoms related to PTSD. Please contact me at [phone] @ your earliest convenience to discuss how we can possibly work together.
Sincerely,
[name]

Based on my conversations with Tonisa C. who has been convening the Ft. Miley VA LifeRing group, it's clear to me that the convenor of this kind of meeting needs to be a veteran. When talking about their military experiences, vets talk a language all their own and the convenor needs to be able to work without a translator. If you are a vet, of any generation, and have six months clean and sober, please contact the LifeRing Service Center ASAP, at 1-800-811-4142 or email service@lifering.org.

Convenor web site desiderata

2010-01-05T12:40:00.000-08:00

Chris A., who is working up a new design for the lifering.org website, is asking an important question: Why do convenors come to the website? What are they looking for? What do they do when they get there?

Truth, we don't know the answers very well, and we need to know. The new website design will have a convenor section. What should be there?

Here are some random guesses what convenors are looking for on the LifeRing website:

To check that their meeting is correctly listed
To find out if they're "doing it right"
To see how other convenors handled similar issues they're facing
To get questions answered about the convenor role
To get information about our books, brochures
To get more supplies when they run out
To share something interesting or frustrating that happened
To see copies of documents like nonprofit status papers or insurance
To get information about upcoming events (Congress/Expo)
To get reinforcement for being in the convenor role
To see what is happening in or with the network
To connect with other convenors
To learn more about LifeRing history and background
To find possible substitute convenors for themselves
To make announcements about holiday closures
To find out what to do with money and signup sheets

If you're a LifeRing convenor, past present or future, please post a comment here with your desiderata for the convenor section of the coming new LifeRing website. Thanks!

Great letter from Eugene OR

2009-12-26T19:56:00.000-08:00

James K. from Eugene OR writes:

I convened a successful first LifeRing Secular Recovery meeting Monday, December 21, 2009 here in Eugene, Oregon. It was helpful and, dare I say, fun, for all! I look forward to more meetings and hope we can grow while spreading the LifeRing philosophy.

I have a few comments I'd like to share with Mr. Nicolaus:

In 'How Was Your Week' (V1.00.0), Sec. 13.5.1.3 "Internal Ferment in the twelve step world." I would try and replace 'ferment' with something. Ferment is to alcohol as white is to school glue. 'Discord' and 'discontent' come to mind. [...]

Also, p. 11. Very nice example; indigenous tribesman and firewater c.1700s. I love this use.

"Recovery by Choice." I love this workbook! A few ideas: tear-out t-chart and plan pages, more sections dealing with medicine in recovery (more methadone please), perhaps adding more commonly used treatment devices such as suboxone and antabuse. Maybe a version for inpatient and a slightly different one for outpatient and one mode for groups of several or more people to use together along with their own copies or own sections.

Thank you so much for this opportunity!

-- J.K.

James, thank you for that great letter. I'm delighted that LifeRing is taking root in Eugene, and I feel in my bones that Oregon is going to be a big state for LifeRing one of these days.

Thanks especially for the comment on "How Was Your Week." On my to do list for the next year is to update this volume and get it printed as a regular paperback, instead of the copy-shop plastic comb binding that it now has. I'll certainly rephrase "ferment" to something less "spiritual."

You have great suggestions for the workbook. It's designed right now primarily for bibliotherapy (individuals doing it more or less on their own). But we're also using it in small peer-led groups and there are treatment professionals using it with clients, both individually and in groups. If you could provide some more concrete, detailed suggestions how the book could be adapted for inpatient and outpatient use, respectively, that would be very helpful.

Best regards for the new year, and best wishes for the success of LifeRing in Eugene,

-- Marty N.

Fundraiser Mailing Goes Out

2009-12-14T04:50:00.000-08:00

A small handful of dedicated volunteers prepared the annual LifeRing fundraiser mailing on Dec. 9 at the Service Center in Oakland. If you are on the mailing list, you probably will have received the mail piece by now, or will receive it in the next day or two. That is, unless our paper folding machine ate it.

Here's what it took to get this mailing out to you.

First, preparing the mailing list. This means selecting the most likely donors from our database. In this case, we included everyone who had donated to LifeRing within the past four years, plus everyone who had purchased something from LifeRing Press within the past two years. We also added all current or past LifeRing convenors so that the convenors could take the letter to their meetings and encourage meeting participants to pitch in.

Then, the mailing list has to be verified and sorted. For this we use a program called Dazzle Express, which costs $195 a year. Dazzle Express checks each address in the mailing list against Post Office data to make sure the address exists and the zip code is correct. It also checks for duplicate addresses. This year, the Post Office also required us to subscribe to an additional service that keeps track of change-of-address forms, and costs us an additional $250 for 100,000 addresses. The Dazzle Express software also generates traying reports, tray labels, and other paperwork required by the Post Office for our nonprofit mailing permit.

Once the mailing list is done, we convert it into an Excel file, and this becomes the data file for a Microsoft Word MailMerge printing operation. Once that's running -- and this gave us considerable trouble because of Microsoft Office 7 issues -- the job went to Fluffy, our HP 9050 printer. We acquired Fluffy second-hand from a bankrupt auto dealer at a good discount earlier this year, and it has brought much joy. Fluffy not only printed this duplex job in less than half the time it took last year on our small office lasers, it also spit out the finished paper nice and flat, instead of crinkled as in the past.

Then it was time for the folding machine. Our venerable Martin-Yale light duty friction-feed desktop paper folder, already temperamental in its youth, proved irrepressibly cranky in its decline, and indulged in spectacular paper jams that destroyed more than 50 mail pieces. By the end of the run, the rollers were barely turning over, an acrid overheating smell rose from the apparatus, and even liberal doses of 3-in-1 oil on the bearings revived it only briefly. One of the things we will have to do with the funds we raise is to purchase a new and more robust folder.

From the folder, the surviving stack of folded pieces went into the tabber. The tabbing machine, which automatically places little white round gummed stickers on the edges of the paper to keep it closed, was also unhappy at first, but recovered its good form for most of the run after a spray of WD-40 on its feed rollers. Magical stuff, that.

Then the pieces needed to be placed in the proper Post Office trays. The pieces came off the printer in proper sequence, and there were only four trays, and the Dazzle Express software created a list of what pieces go into which trays, so in theory this should have been a simple operation. But due to the problems with the folder, the pieces got quite out of sequence, and didn't seem to match the numbers on the printed list, so that the whole mailing had to be resorted manually before it went into the trays. This took the operation into a second day.

At the Business Bulk Mail Unit in the main Post Office in Oakland the next day, the clerk checked our work briefly, stamped it OK, and sent us on our way. But the next morning came a phone call that there were problems -- the Post Office's Merlin software found things out of order -- and we had to go back to the Post Office, bring more money, and move things from one tray to another before we had the official blessing.

So, when you get this modest mail piece, please give at least a fleeting thought to the people and the processes that brought it to you. And if you didn't get the mailing but would like to get the warm feeling that comes from helping a deserving nonprofit, you can donate online by clicking here, or you can mail a check to LifeRing Service Center, 1440 Broadway Suite 312, Oakland CA 94612. Thank you.

New Blog: The Shape of LifeRing in 2010

2009-12-14T04:08:00.000-08:00

Convenors will want to check out the new blog, Lifering-10, and join the discussion there to shape the future of LifeRing in 2010 and beyond. The blog begins with the report of the Expansion Committee. This contains proposals for greatly expanding the ranks of LifeRing leadership. The blog allows anyone to post comments either on the Expansion Committee report as a whole or on its separate components. Convenors are asked (a) to familiarize themselves with the proposals, (b) to sound out their meetings on the main issues that the proposals raise, and (c) to provide their own and their meeting members' feedback.

You'll be hearing more about these issues in the New Year. We want to make sure that every LifeRing participant is aware at least of the general drift of the proposals, and has the opportunity to comment on them. These proposals will form the centerpiece of the 2010 LifeRing Congress/Expo in Denver in June.

Please post your thoughts about the proposals in the LifeRing-10 blog (not here), thank you.

Service Center Gets New Look

2009-12-12T08:06:00.000-08:00

Starting Thanksgiving weekend, a handful of volunteers transformed the LifeRing Service Center from a seedy looking chaotic mess into a pleasant, tidy and better organized place to serve the meetings.

(If you don't see the movie, view this in Firefox, Chrome, or any browser other than Internet Explorer.)
The Service Center is a compact (euphemism for tiny) office space with an interior view (on an airshaft). It houses the computers that (try to) keep track of LifeRing meetings and the printers and other office machinery that put out much of our publicity. It's located in downtown Oakland CA. The rent is $600 a month.

LifeRing Press books are stored there and your LifeRing book orders are picked, packed, and shipped from there. It also serves as the meeting place for the monthly LifeRing convenor workshops (second Saturday of each month except August and December) and for a workbook study group (Tuesday evenings).

The office rehab operation involved moving dozens of boxes of books, reorganizing a big steel shelf, moving two big metal file cabinets, disassembling and removing a custom desk, assembling a brand new L-shaped desk out of the box (in hundreds of pieces), and taking down and reassembling all of the electronics, among other tasks.

Credit for the major makeover goes to David F. from Marin County, Robert S. (LifeRing Treasurer), Jim R. (LifeRing Secretary), and Karen I. (IT guru). I helped out and took some pictures, see video above.

The job isn't completely done yet -- there will be more decorations on the walls and the main computer will be upgraded -- but it was sufficiently completed by Monday morning to provide a more hospitable welcome and working environment for Rachaell C., our new Office Administrator. I'll post "After" photos when the finishing touches are added.

If you're local to the San Francisco Bay Area, come see the new digs for yourself at our Open House Saturday Dec. 19 from 1-4 pm.

Tenacity Pays Off

2009-12-12T07:22:00.000-08:00

This message came to the Service Center this week from Brian P., convenor of the LifeRing in Vacaville CA. Vacaville is a town of about 100,000 located halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento. The LifeRing meeting in Vacaville was started originally by one of LifeRing's founding members, Bill Somers, at the church to which he and his wife Anita B. belonged. After Bill's death, the meeting dwindled away. LifeRing convenors Ken K. and John D. restarted it at the Vacaville Kaiser facility (photo), but for many months it barely hung to life. So when an email arrived at the Service Center with the subject "LifeRing in Vacaville" I was prepared for the worst. What a sweet surprise:

I just wanted to check in regarding the Thursday Vacaville meeting which I have been convening for about 18 months or so. If you will recall, I picked up the meeting from the individual who had originally started it. I must confess, it was extremely slow to start. I originally worked with Ken and John D. Often, I would often be the only one in attendance. I am happy to report that we have finally have turned the corner and developed a core constituency of about seven people ranging in age from 71 to 24. While it still is a bit tenuous, having an established base is helping to enlarge that group.

Kaiser continues to be very good to work with and they have been good with program referrals. Kaiser, recently finished construction and opened their full care Vacaville hospital. Even through the construction chaos they always strived to insure that we had a meeting room. From time to time, I entertained the notion of trying a different night for our LifeRing meeting but Kaiser indicated they would be limited on meeting space until after the construction was finished. Now that construction is finished, Kaiser has offered us the opportunity for an additional meeting on Monday nights from 7-8PM. After polling the existing group as well as asking others, it would seem that there is a need for Monday meetings.

Accordingly, I would like to take advantage of this opportunity and add the second meeting to the schedule. Another individual, Robert M., has expressed in interest in convening the Monday meeting for at least six months. Rob has been attending my meeting as well as the LifeRing Monday meeting at Kasier Vallejo for the past nine months. I have also given him (and he has read) the LifeRing convenor handbook and related materials. He like myself, also participates in Kaiser's long term CDRP initiative, Phase III. I have offered to assist Rob with this program insuring that I can attend his meetings regularly for the first several months to try and insure a smooth start. [...]

Also, one area that I have been remiss in is in passing the proverbial green envelope. I have been reluctant to do so for fear of frightening someone away. I have made personal contributions through the Vallejo meeting in lieu of passing the envelope, but starting with the first January meeting I will start passing the envelope and remit the proceeds to the "home office" monthly. If you would kindly advise as to where I should send this it would be appreciated. I will see that Rob does so as well.

As a personal aside, I wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your book, Empowering Your Sober Self. It is a great read and it offers some of the most refreshing perspectives on addiction that I have read to date. I can also tell you that you made John D's day by including his vignette. He has every reason to be proud of his recovery and as you know, he has given much of himself to help others in need. It is great to give credit where credit is due. [...]

Congratulations to Brian and Rob and the other regulars of the Vacaville LifeRing for this achievement. In a follow-up email, Brian comments on the fact that getting a new meeting started, especially in a new location, may take an extraordinary amount of tenacity. He writes:

I read a book sometime back about Fred Smith, who founded Fed Ex, entitled Overnight Success. The name of the book always stuck with me because it was deceptively accurate. While it is true that he became success in the overnight business his journey to achieve that success was anything but overnight. I think there was a lesson there for me.

Not only for Brian, for all of us.

Teaching in Sacramento

2009-11-22T18:09:00.000-08:00

Dr. B. J. Davis and I had a good day Saturday Nov. 21 in Sacramento CA, teaching a group of addiction counselors about LifeRing and Choice Theory. LifeRing convenor Robert O. in Sacramento deserves major kudos for getting the event on the calendar and getting every detail, including ample refreshments, in place on the day of the event. Two leading members of CAADAC (the California Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors), namely regional director Pete Nielsen and regional vice-president Karl Hexberg, arranged for Continuing Education Units, email-blasted the regional membership, and prepared the paperwork, and Karl sat through the entire session.

We started at 9 am, and I began my 200-slide PowerPoint about half an hour later. I covered basic facts about LifeRing, such as where the meetings were located and typical characteristics of our membership, and then outlined the 3-S philosophy. I got to the end of the second S by lunch time. It was a good interactive session with just about everyone in the room getting into the discussion and nobody falling asleep.

After lunch I finished the third S, and then Dr. Davis talked for about 45 minutes about Choice Theory and his research into Quality of Life in recovery. Then I picked it up again and covered the LifeRing meeting format and the Recovery by Choice workbook. I had to cut it short as we ran out of time but certainly the main points got across. The audience were attentive the whole time. There was lots of crosstalk, all of it positive. Even though a number of folks present identified themselves as 12-step, there was no tension or animosity on either side.

Both Dr. Davis and I got a lot of thanks at the end, and I got a couple of inquiries about giving the LifeRing talk in other towns. There were people from Vallejo, Petaluma, Yuba City, and other towns plus local Sacramento folks at the session. Our only regrets were that not more people from social services agencies in the city attended, because apparently they were not included on the email lists. We're talking about repeating this training in the spring, this time with broader advance publicity.

The whole set of my 200 slides is available for downloading at http://www.unhooked.com/trxpro/CAADAC workshop.ppt

Visit to Charleston

2009-11-17T13:08:00.000-08:00

Despite beautiful summer weather -- 76 degrees and a blue sky -- about 30 people turned out at the Unitarian-Universalist meeting hall in Charleston South Carolina this past Sunday to hear me talk about the LifeRing approach to addiction recovery. Most of the credit goes to LifeRing convenor Matt Dean, who founded the LifeRing meeting that convenes in the same building on Friday evenings, and who proposed the program to the Lowcountry Secular Humanist Association who sponsored my talk and paid my transportation.

This was the first "normie" audience (people mostly not in recovery) I'd spoken to in quite some time, and they hung in there even when I ran a bit over time. I spoke without any text or notes and that seemed to work OK. The feedback I got directly, as well as the feedback that came indirectly (usually more telling) were all positive.

The Humanists have adopted LifeRing as the charitable organization to which they will direct their donations for the rest of this year. Quite a few people told me how relieved they were to have a secular recovery alternative where they could refer their family and friends in this mostly Bible-belt area.

Matt together with media maven Todd Fresh (who edited the terrific B J Davis DVD available from LifeRing Press) were perfect hosts and took the time to show me around historic downtown Charleston.

I have to say, this city has worked hard to clean up its act. In the old days it was the main port from which captive Native Americans were sold into slavery in the West Indies; it led the secession from the Union to preserve slavery; and of course it's the site of Fort Sumter, where the Civil War began.

I didn't see a single Confederate flag, and the whole tenor of the beautifully preserved or restored historic downtown is to let bygones be bygones and let the tourist dollars roll in from wherever. And of course the fact that the city has an active Secular Humanist group and a LifeRing meeting is a jewel in its reputation.

A message to warm an author's heart

2009-11-10T22:04:00.000-08:00

This message came in today from David F., LifeRing convenor in San Rafael CA:

I got an e-mail yesterday from a guy who wanted to know if he could "drop in" on tonight's LifeRing meeting. We exchanged e-mail a couple more times to be sure he got the directions, etc. Tonight, he showed up and, when it came time for him to talk, he said he'd gotten sober on his own for a while, then began drinking and it was affecting his marriage. He didn't now where to turn for help. One day, in the Self-Help section of a bookstore, he saw your book. It looked interesting so he bought it, read it, liked the way it was written and what it said very much, got on the web site and found our meeting and here he was tonight! I think he gelled very well with LifeRing and we'll see him again real soon and for a long time!

So, hey man.....Congratulations! -- David

Thank you David. This is the kind of thing that makes an author's long lonely hours of research and writing and rewriting worthwhile. The book was designed to bring people to LifeRing meetings and it looks like it's working.

Your input needed on website redesign project

2009-11-05T09:33:00.000-08:00

A major redesign is in the works for the lifering.org (a/k/a unhooked.com) website. Whether it needs it or not (LOL!). The site first launched on June 16 1996 and it's been growing like a kudzu vine ever since. Now a talented and experienced web designer has stepped forward. He is Chris Adams.

Chris' day job is as senior art director for Rolling Orange (see http://rollingorange.com/team/) and his personal website is at http://culturedesign.com/ He has designed websites for Santa Cruz Snowboards, Giro, RockShox, Bell BMX, Blackburn, Mahlzeit (Zurich), Carnegie Hall, Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis), Electronic Arts, 3M, Andersen Windows, Stanford University, Stanford School of Medicine, Yale University, University of Chicago, Santa Clara University, Covad, Cisco, Borland, QPorter (Zurich Mobile), Straub Hospital & Clinics (Honolulu), Wilcox Health (Kauai), and 3M Dental, among others. We are in good hands.

Chris' design process begins by casting as wide a web as possible for user input. In the coming days, if you have any connection with LifeRing, you will be invited to share your views about the lifering.org (unhooked.com) website via an online survey. Your emails, letters, even phone calls are also invited. Chris and the rest of the LifeRing IT group want to be sure that everyone has a chance to be heard and that no idea is overlooked.

Two survey forms are now up on the web, asking for your input. One is for the "general public" -- anyone at all with an interest in LifeRing, especially our online presence. Click here for that one. The other is aimed more specifically at LifeRing convenors, who are the living core of this organization. Click here for the convenor input form. Both are anonymous, and there's no rule against filling out both. But do it now, or very soon. (Survey is now closed. Thank you to all who participated.)

We hope very much to launch the new design in January, which means an enormous amount of work between now and then, and everyone's timely cooperation is necessary. I'm excited about this project, and I think you will be too. We're going to have a top notch professional looking website, and that's going to inspire even greater confidence in the organization and attract even more people to this positive, empowering recovery environment of ours.

LifeRing Training in Sacramento Nov. 21

2009-11-02T21:53:00.000-08:00

Following up on the well-reviewed Sept. 19 LifeRing training in Oakland, I'll be co-presenting a new LifeRing training for treatment professionals in Sacramento on Saturday, Nov. 21. This'll be in part a replay of the Sept. 19 presentation in Oakland, and in part an entirely new and exciting event, with the addition of my co-presenter, Dr. B.J. Davis of Strategies for Change. Dr. Davis is, of course, the author of the new DVD, What is Recovery? A Quality of Life Analysis (available from LifeRing Press), and a frequent and dynamic presenter at professional conferences. Here's an online flyer with the information about the event. As in Oakland, there'll be 6 (six) CEUs available for treatment professionals. Even better than Oakland, which cost $10, this event is FREE. LifeRing convenors and other participants are, of course, invited to sit in.

Choice of Support Groups: It's the Law

2009-10-08T18:03:00.000-07:00

My article, "Choice of Support Groups: It's the Law" is in the current issue of Counselor magazine, which is not only the best publication of its type but also, now, the official journal of the California Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors (CAADAC).

The article discusses the recent federal court decision holding that the 12-step program is religious in nature, when viewed in light of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

If you don't happen to receive this publication in the mail, I've scanned this article and made a PDF file for downloading. It's at http://lifering.org/discussion/Counselor-Choice-Article.pdf -- be patient, it's a 16 mb file and takes a bit of time to download.

This article is an expansion and update of the LifeRing brochure of the same title, available for download here.

You can also view a slideshow and an informal video of a talk I gave on this topic, here.

My Seventeenth

2009-10-02T15:56:00.000-07:00

Today is my seventeenth anniversary clean and sober. I woke up at 5 am and by a quarter to six was on the road from my home in Berkeley to Sacramento to staff the LifeRing table at the annual conference of CAADAC, the California Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors. Here's a snapshot of the Sacramento skyline from my car window at dawn.

Shortly after 7 am I landed in the LifeRing meeting in the Rose Room of the Marriott. This was the first LifeRing meeting ever at the annual CAADAC event. When I arrived, the CAADAC organizers were still setting up and there was no lobby sign directing people to the meeting, but the nice person unpacking at the registration desk immediately answered my request for directions to the LifeRing meeting. And lo! There were familiar LifeRing signs in the hallway and outside the door, and inside, Sacramento convenor Bob O. had assembled a pioneer bunch of LifeRing participants to make the meeting real. We didn't have all that many CAADAC people in the room at that hour, but the fact that the meeting was on the schedule helped a great deal with name recognition as I sat at the LifeRing exhibit table this morning.

We had a good table just inside the entry door of the exhibit room -- a considerable improvement over last year when we were packed like sardines -- and CAADAC CEO Rhonda Messamore came over and delivered a friendly welcome early in the morning. Later in the day I had a few minutes of chat with CAADAC President Joe Aragon, and gave him the sixty-second version of how LifeRing works. I also had a chance to pick up copies of the new October issue of Counselor, the magazine for addiction professionals, containing on p. 40 my article, "Choice of Support Groups-- It's the Law!" This mag goes to all CAADAC members as part of their membership, and a stack of copies was on the next table over.

Of the dozens who stopped at the table to look and chat, just one person walked away in a pout when told this was a way to get clean and sober other than via the 12 steps. Everyone else perked up in interest. Every counselor I talked to knew that client resistance to 12-step is a reality, and most understood that professionalism means offering the client options. It was particularly rewarding to talk with the many chemical dependency students who were attending the conference. Almost without exception, they were being taught that there are multiple roads to recovery and that they need to understand and provide options to their clients.
The future is bright.

But there's a way to go. The theme of this year's CAADAC event was "Moving Beyond Tolerance: Creating a Multiculturally competent workforce." You would think then that the keynote plenary address would take off on this theme and feature -- dare we hope -- a speaker from some culture other than Wonder Bread? Wrong. There was no greater cultural diversity among the plenary speakers this year than in past years. One of the few speakers on the program who has genuine credentials of birth, scientific competence and clinical experience in this subject -- Dr. B.J. Davis of Strategies for Change -- was marginalized to an afternoon breakout in competition with four other speakers. Davis would have been the logical plenary keynoter for a conference with this theme, if the Association meant "development of a multiculturally competent workforce" as more than window dressing.

Things were slower in the exhibit hall on the second day and I had a chance to chat at some length with Bob O., the LifeRing convenor in Sacramento whose quiet energy has a lot to do with the fact that we now have seven -- count them -- seven LifeRing meetings in the Sacramento area. The work that Bob has been doing exemplifies in my mind the role of area convenor (or "regional coordinator") that we are developing as part of the LifeRing expansion project. Sitting with me at the table all day Saturday, Bob had a chance to meet some of the CAADAC bigwigs and, perhaps more importantly, local area treatment providers and students.

It was also a pleasure to get a message from Jo Marie G., the pioneer convenor who started the first LifeRing meeting in Sacramento not so very long ago. Her job kept her away but she is doing fine and keeps in touch.

I also had the chance to meet the newest LifeRing convenor in Sacramento, Dan F. Dan is a counseling student and started the new Friday afternoon meeting in south City.

During dull moments in the exhibit hall Bob and I chatted with several people who took turns staffing the NA table. One of them told us that some judges in Marin County discriminated against NA and would only refer people to AA. That surprised me, but then it's not news that some judges need educating.

Speaking of educating, one of the people who stopped by the LifeRing table was a Washington lobbyist who represents counseling professionals. He said that his biggest headache is persuading legislators that addiction is a disease on a par with other mental health illnesses. They think it's a spiritual maladjustment or a character defect. But once he has them convinced it's a disease, he has to do a 180 degree turn and convince them that you don't need medical qualifications to treat it.

Just a few days before the conference, CAADAC sent out an emergency appeal to call the governor and tell him to veto a bill on his desk that would require addiction professionals to have the same educational background as other mental health treatment providers, namely a Master's degree at a minimum. This would throw the huge majority of California treatment professionals out of work. In this state you can provide front line treatment for the disease of addiction without having a high school diploma. Disaster was averted by amendment at the last minute.

My lobbyist friend was fully aware of the irony. Addiction professionals demand parity in funding but reject parity in qualifications. It's an Alice-in-Wonderland world.

In this regard, Bob O. asked why LifeRing spends the money (around $700) to put an exhibit table in this conference. Shouldn't the conference be paying us to be here? Certainly we don't make the money back in book sales. This is not, on the whole, a book buying crowd; counselors are notoriously underpaid. The answer, if there is a good one, is name recognition. We are still widely unknown in the profession, and it costs money to fix that. We're buying space in the "aha" region of the addiction professional's brain. If our name comes up, it sounds familiar to them, instead of strange. And that translates, over time, into referrals to LifeRing meetings. That's what we're paying for. It is, in my opinion, money well spent. Although really, for the price, the conference should throw in lunch.

Another (unanswered) call for help to LifeRing Partners

2009-09-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

Email received at the LifeRing Service Center today:

I am married to an alcoholic who is currently attending AA meetings and finds them helpful and fulfilling. I am looking for ways to help myself heal emotionally and cope with her recovery; she strongly recommends Al-Anon, AA's companion organization for friends and loved ones, but I am uncomfortable with the 12-step format and the religious content. LifeRing was, I believe, recommended by an acquaintance (it may have been my father-in-law, come to think of it) and looking over the website, the LifeRing Partners program sounds perfect for me. Unfortunately, I'm not having any luck finding a schedule of LifeRing Partners meetings in the Northern California area. Is one available, and if so, where might I find it?

Thanks,

A.

Dear A:

A quick answer. LifeRing Partners as of today is "all hat and no cattle." Energy has been put into drafting a Statement of Principles (how nice!) but so far no one has stepped forward to actually organize anything. Sooner or later someone with the talent and tenacity to turn this concept into a living reality will appear. Watch the website for announcements.

Full house for CAADAC LifeRing Training

2009-09-20T14:07:00.000-07:00

The turnout of treatment professionals for my full day LifeRing training yesterday surpassed expectations. More than 25 people squeezed into the conference room next to the Service Center in Oakland. Some had come from as far as Sacramento for the six-hour session. All except three, who were LifeRing convenors, were working in the addiction treatment field.

Peg Miller, a Vice-President of CAADAC and responsible for organizing trainings in CAADAC Region 4, which includes the Bay Area, organized the event, handled logistics, and awarded people their certificates of completion at the end. LifeRing CFO Robert Stump organized coffee and pastries in the morning and helped set up the room. Service Center volunteer Lou A. assisted with room setup the previous day.

The program took six hours, not counting an hour for lunch. During five of those hours, I presented a slide show of exactly 200 slides. Here's my outline:

LifeRing
An Introduction for Addiction Professionals
By Martin Nicolaus MA JD
CAADAC Region 4 Training
Sept. 19, 2009

Objectives
• To understand basic facts about LifeRing
• To get how LifeRing works
• To pick up tools that can be used with clients
• To facilitate client involvement with LifeRing

Hour 1: Basic facts about LifeRing
• What is LifeRing?
• Where is LifeRing?
• Who goes to LifeRing?
• How is LifeRing organized?

Hour 2: The Three-S Philosophy
• Sobriety
• Secularity
• Self-Help

Hour 3: How LifeRing Works
• Empower Your Sober Self: A short overview
• In more depth:
o The Divided Self
o Horizontal Synergy
o Confrontation v. Support Strategies

Hour 4: The LifeRing Meeting Format
• Circle seating
• “How was your week?”
• Crosstalk
• Limits
• Aim: Living Room atmosphere
• Closing ritual: Round of applause
• Peer leadership
• Signup sheet -- basket

Hour 5: How people build Personal Recovery Programs (PRP)
Two Pathways to PRP
Through the “How Was Your Week” Meeting Format
“Random access”
Through the Recovery by Choice workbook
• Nine Domains (Work Areas)
• My Decision
o The A-S T-chart
• Domain 1: My Body
• Domain 4: My People
• Relapse Chapter
• Pulling the PRP Together
Result: Diversity of Programs
Pros and Cons of PRP

Closing Thoughts
• LifeRing is a Strength-Based Approach
• The Aim of LifeRing is Choice
o We need more pathways
o Choice should not be controversial
What can providers do?
Choice is good program policy
More choices = more recoveries

For more information:
www.lifering.org – LifeRing, the organization
www.lifering.com – LifeRing Press e-commerce store
LifeRing Service Center, 1440 Broadway, Ste. 312, Oakland 94612
service@lifering.org
1-800-811-4142

P.S. Today, Monday, Peg Miller kindly sent me the program evaluations (feedback sheets) filled out by participants at the end of the program. Namely:

WORKSHOP EVALUATION (scale is 0-below satisfactory to 5-above satisfactory)

Your overall rating of subject matter:
•    20 5's
•    2 4's
Your overall rating of the trainer:
•    17 5's
•    5 4's
Your overall rating of the materials'handouts:
•    15 5's
•    4 4's
•    1 2
•    1 0 with comment (needed handouts--powerpoint printouts)
•    1 not marked--"handouts" circled followed by comment: "sparse hard to follow"
Your overall rating of the training/workshop:
•    16 5's
•    6 4's
Your overall rating of the fees:
•    18 5's
•    3 4's
•    1 not marked and with comment: "two days I went to training in NAPA... cost $75...$10 is nice"

Comments on this page:

Very good TR...affordable in very hard times
Educational, motivational in terms of realizing the need for choice.
Helped solidify what I had gleaned from the web site and publications
It was great!!!
Uncomfortable room
Enjoyed this training...learned a lot
Very interesting!
Excellent presentation Very worthwhile
I am glad that I had a chance to learn more about the organization.
Most important point missed...we refer less to LR with clients because there are few, and we teach clients to stay connected to others, to stay sober.
I was surprised by how much I learned today.
Difficult to sit in these chairs in small room
Lots of good info... Some areas/topics were too lengthy--redundant. Good program--Glad to see it growing in availability.

POST TEST INFO:

What did you learn today from Martin A. Nicolaus about LifeRing?

•    Three-S Recovery Philosophy; Strength-Based Sober Self Empowerment engine is positive practice of reinforcement; abstinence only is foundational; Personal Recovery Plans are highly individualized through support mtgs plus workbook; able to combine with variety of the models
•    Choise is best...many different paths
•    LifeRing is truly secular; LifeRing offers a choice other than faith based or 12 step; LifeRing emphasizes empowerment and positive reinforcement of the individual
•    A lot. Ways I can improve the program I work for by LifeRing tech and beliefs.
•    Many interesting things, among others personal recovery plan, that I found very powerful tool in recovery.
•    The S & A model for recovery and how it works through reinforcement. That all "personalities" are equally capable to become addicted.
•    It is focused on building on strengths of the individual--provides a choice--Personal Recovery Plan.
•    Lots--the choice factor; the love--feeding the S; forgive me--I'm way too tired and burnt to say more, but I got so much out of it.
•    Philosophy and history of LifeRing. I am a convenor.
•    How to get treatment programs to mention LifeRing as a group option.
•    That it mirrors my thinking about Treatment Approaches.
•    We have another option
•    Focus on individual treatment.
•    The client is instrumental in his own recovery if given the opportunity.
•    Secular spirituality--support sober self.
•    There is an alternative approach to group support other than NA/AA.
•    Friend.
•    Lots! I knew nothing of LifeRing.
•    The PRP program.
•    Philosophy...mtg structure.
•    It gives clients more of a choice.

How will you incorporate this information into your practice as a drug and alcohol counselor personally and in the agency you work in?

•    Philosophy and concepts (client choice, strength based, flexible treatment and support options); Skills--workbook exercises--alt. HWYW support mtg formats.
•    Continue with MET, RET use LifeRing principles in class, educate staff, talk with LifeRing meetings as Option more.
•    By A--facilitating myself with the visual and cognitive tools and use them in 1 on 1 sessions and groups; B--suggest to agency to use LifeRing possibily in continuing care program.
•    Investigating L.R. for and in my own recovery. The applying LR to the program.
•    I will use the point that the patient takes responsibility for his own recovery more than I did before. I would share todays experience with coworkers.
•    The strengthening of each individual will be the focus. And shifting the focus from flaws to what they are capable of and what they find works for them.
•    Help clients and staff understand the nature of building up the sober self through the interchange bewteen people--focusing on here and now
•    I bought the work book--I'm sure I'll use it next week!
•    My meetings will have an enriched meaning due to the workshop today.
•    Refer
•    I will introduce the information about LifeRing to my director.
•    Gives me encouragement to do more research on the subject.
•    Already do--offer as a choice of support group.
•    I hope to start a group for teens.
•    Present client with choices...give basic info about LifeRing.
•    Working more with clients to focus on a personal service plan.
•    Plan to discuss implementation of LifeRing on the approval by my Program Director.
•    Consider choice.
•    LifeRing used to do presentations at NCADA...can do again.
•    Not in field.
•    I am a convenor.

How can you contribute this material to your fellow counselors?

•    Educate and consult re: LifeRing as resource; inputs to program policy and planning; follow ups to stay current on related research
•    In community meeting; 1 on 1 discuss content
•    Familiarizing myself with the materials and sharing them at staff mtgs.
•    Word of mouth. Introducing things from work book into our program.
•    Through LifeRing Website.
•    Case conferencing, loaning my materials and discussing the information.
•    Not sure yet.
•    I will discuss the information with other convenors ASAP (any who were not present)
•    Talk about it
•    Sharing interaction. Communicating presentation ideas.
•    Tell them to check it out.
•    Already do.
•    Do presentation.
•    Share information, go to LifeRing meeting, go to web site; present it in Case Conference.
•    Staff Meeting.
•    Discuss this training with them.
•    Shared information.

To your clients?

•    Client info and materials re: LifeRing; use workbook exercises--ind, and group; Encourage ? families LifeRing
•    Will use stuff from workbooks; agian, refer as much to LR as AA
•    Sharing the ideas learned; by continually recognizing the sober person living inside my clients
•    Introducing things from workbook into our program--word of mouth.
•    Refer them to the closest meeting place and website.
•    The strengthening of each individual will be the focus. And shifting the focus from flaws to what they are csapable of and what they find works for them.
•    Plan to start a LifeRing group and turn it over to a group member eventually.
•    Pamphlets of where meetings are and the workbook.
•    NA
•    None yet.
•    Continue letting them know there is no one road or treatment towards recovery.
•    Give them another option.
•    Give them choice at intake.
•    Do a presentation.
•    Incorporate LifeRing materials to practice.
•    One on one sessions.
•    Paroles/State prison
•    Consider choice.
•    Shared info.

--------------------------------------------------------

P.S. 9/28/09: I've posted the PowerPoint at http://www.unhooked.com/trxpro/CAADAC workshop.ppt -- just the slides, no sound track. When I get time I hope to create a sound track and make a Flash video (or a series of them) based on this presentation. -- MN

A veteran counselor speaks

2009-09-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

This email came in to the LifeRing Service Center today:

I am a 54 year old recovering alcoholic, 25 years sober today actually. I've read Martin's book [Empowering Your Sober Self] and am very excited. I am a licensed alcohol counselor in practice for 17 years and my experience is that about 60% or more of clients DO NOT want anything to do with AA. For all the reasons that Martin cites.

I've always wanted to do something for the community (vs. for my own practice/income) and I think starting LifeRing in this area is the ticket. I'd like to know how to get started. I've got a place to hold the meeting, for up to about 12 or so. After it gets bigger I can deal with finding a bigger place. This is a VERY rural area so even AA meetings hover around 6 to 18 very seldom going over 25. But I'm sure there is a hunger for some alternative to "the 12 steps" in addiction recovery around here and I'd like to get a meeting off the ground. There are no [alternative] meetings even close to here. ...

Please let me know how to start and what help is available from your organization. I've read Empowering Your Sober Self and have the workbook on order.

The book that this writer probably needs most immediately is How Was Your Week? That's version 1.0 of a handbook for LifeRing convenors (meeting starters and meeting facilitators). A key chapter, dealing with how to start meetings in new locations, is online free here. More information about available resources is on the Meeting Starter page of www.lifering.org. I wish the writer the very best of success in starting LifeRing in his neck of the woods, and congratulations on 25 years clean and sober!

LifeRing at St. Patrick's Hospital, Dublin

2009-09-05T14:16:00.000-07:00

The second LifeRing meeting in Ireland will open Oct. 8, at St. Patrick's Hospital in Dublin, founding convenor Dennis S. has announced. The meeting will at first be limited to hospital residents only.

Permission from hospital authorities to open the meeting came after Dennis submitted LifeRing print materials and spoke personally with clinical staff members.

St. Patrick's is a private non-profit mental hospital that prides itself on its up-to-date methods and facilities. It is also a very historic place, having been founded in 1745 by a grant from the great English satirist Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels), who left his estate to found a hospital "for fools and mad." It was the first mental hospital in Ireland and is one of the oldest in the world. More.

The hospital is Ireland's largest independent mental health service provider. Besides clinical services, it promotes mental health education and is an advocate for the rights of the mentally ill.

St. Patrick's was also the site of the first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Ireland.

Second LifeRing at MPI

2009-09-05T12:23:00.000-07:00

Merritt Peralta Institute is the oldest adult residential addiction treatment facility on the West Coast. If you had any doubts about its treatment philosophy, the wall-size framed poster of the 12 steps, with letters 3 inches high, opposite the reception desk, removed them. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the 21st century, in March 2000, after three LifeRing presentations to staff and patients, and a prolonged soul-searching, the facility allowed the first LifeRing meeting onto its premises. I had the honor of being one of the founding convenors, and this was my regular Wednesday night meeting for about three years.

MPI was also the second treatment program where patients got a choice between the LifeRing meeting and a 12-step meeting on site in the same time slot (Kaiser Oakland was the first). At the appointed hour, a counselor takes to the PA system and advises clients that they have a choice of AA in Room x and LifeRing in Room y. The LifeRing meeting usually holds up very well in that setting. When I was the convenor, there were a couple of nights when no one came, but quite a few nights when everyone came, either because the AA speaker failed to show up or because the clients had quite enough of AA for the day, thank you. On the average, the LifeRing meeting drew about a third to a half of the program's census when I was present. I hear from John D., who has been convening this meeting for some time now, with help from Rick K., that the attendance has picked up from that ratio, and that the room is usually pretty full now. So I should not have been surprised to get a call from one of the staff counselors two weeks ago asking for a second LifeRing meeting to be established at MPI, please.

This is the new reality for LifeRing. Ten years ago we would knock and knock on the doors of treatment programs like MPI and the doors would get slammed in our faces. We had convenors ready to lead meetings, but no rooms or referral sources. Today, we get phone calls from treatment programs asking us to start a LifeRing meeting, or another LifeRing meeting, please.

Luckily, I quickly found not just one but two LifeRing regulars with the requisite six-months-or-more sober who are ready, willing and able to convene this new meeting. They are Rick B. and Jon M. We'll be launching the new Tuesday evening meeting at MPI this coming week, day after Labor Day, at 8:30 p.m.

What If There Were LifeRing Treatment?

2009-09-03T23:28:00.000-07:00

Quite a few recovering people in various treatment programs have expressed the wish that LifeRing filled more than an hour in their week. The desire for "more LifeRing" is especially strongly felt in programs where the other hours consist of heavy-duty 12-step lectures and meetings.

Of course, there is no such thing as a LifeRing treatment program, and there probably oughtn't to be. We are a peer-to-peer support group, and should always remain that. So much of our fundamental approach is premised on horizontal support dynamics that the introduction of vertical relationships -- inevitable in today's insurance-dominated treatment settings -- would bring about wrenching distortions. Still, wouldn't it be liberating if today's treatment professionals saw their role as not only facilitating 12-step involvement but also facilitating LifeRing involvement? Whatever works best for the client?

For treatment professionals in Northern California, an opportunity to learn the basics of LifeRing is coming on Saturday, Sept. 19. Thanks to sponsorship by CAADAC, the California association of addiction professionals, I'll be presenting an all-day workshop at the LifeRing Service Center in downtown Oakland. I'll be selecting material from Empowering Your Sober Self (my new book), from the Recovery by Choice workbook, from How Was Your Week (our convenor handbook) and from other sources. This six-hour program is aimed at treatment professionals, and six hours of Continuing Education credit, plus an hour of Professional Development credit, are offered. However, space permitting, any interested person, including of course any LifeRing participant, is welcome to take part. It only costs $10.

Here's a page with details about the venue, parking, meals, etc. Hope to see you there!

Choice is the Law: Forthcoming Article

2009-09-03T22:57:00.000-07:00

The October issue of Counselor magazine, the premier monthly journal of addiction professionals, will include an article I wrote about a recent federal court decision that requires a secular option in coerced treatment settings.

I reported on this court decision -- Inouye v. Kemna -- in a talk to the 2008 CAADAC conference, and there is an informal video and a slide show of the presentation on the LifeRing website, here. But the upcoming Counselor magazine article is the first print coverage of this important federal court decision, and of its precedents, in a nationally distributed medium read by addiction professionals.

The court decision says, in a nutshell, that criminal justice officers and addiction treatment professionals in a government setting should be aware by now that they cannot force clients into 12-step treatment or support groups over their objection, but must provide secular alternatives; and if they do coerce clients into 12-step, they and their agencies can be sued for money damages.

Better Early Than Never -- LifeRing Meeting at Counselor Conference

2009-09-03T22:31:00.000-07:00

For the first time ever, the annual conference of the California Association of Addiction Professionals (CAADAC) will include a LifeRing meeting. The group's annual conferences traditionally have featured 12-step meetings at the start or end of the day. This year a LifeRing meeting will also be offered, namely on Friday, October 2. The time: 7 a.m. The place: The Rancho Cordova Marriott in Rancho Cordova, suburb of Sacramento, California. You do not have to be registered for the conference to participate in this meeting.

A LifeRing exhibit table (paid for by supporters of LifeRing) will be at the conference also during meeting hours, 8:30 am to about 6 pm.

New LifeRing Canada Website

2009-09-03T22:16:00.000-07:00

Convenor and LifeRing Board Member Michael Walsh from Victoria BC has launched a prototype of the first LifeRing Canada website at http://liferingcanada.org.

Note among other things the nifty Canada version of the LifeRing logo, the bilingual organizational name on the Contacts page ("LifeRing -- societe canadienne de retablissement laique") and the printed local meeting schedule here -- the first printed local schedule outside Northern California.

A very nice start! Congratulations Michael and the whole Canada group who are making this possible. Credit especially local member Patrick who designed the site. We look forward to seeing LifeRing Canada grow in all the other provinces and territories. And, not coincidentally, note that the first LifeRing in Quebec is now under construction and will be opening its doors, it is hoped, very shortly.

Using Craigslist to Get the Word Out

2009-09-03T22:01:00.000-07:00

Convenor David F. in San Rafael California has been using Craigslist to get out the word about the LifeRing meetings in Marin County. Here is a PDF download of a recent item. Because Craigslist automatically deletes notices after seven days, you have to stay on top of it and repost the notice regularly.

Notice the introduction, describing what we do, what our basic philosophy is, key points of our meeting format, all in easy-to-understand language and in a few words. It concludes with links for the reader who wants to know more. Meeting locations are hyperlinked to maps for easy access.

This is a tool for helping meetings grow that can be used anywhere there's Craigslist. Does it work? Well, the meetings in Marin County have been growing. And it's free.

In Memoriam: Jason Kelly

2009-08-25T08:21:00.000-07:00

An email from Jason Kelly's sister, in Guelph, Ontario, Canada last week announced that Jason was dead. I was shocked and saddened by the news. I had been in correspondence with Jason only a few weeks ago when he was in Thailand. He had planned to start a LifeRing recovery meeting there, with a minimum one year commitment. Jason was the driving force behind our organization’s decision to hold our 2005 annual meeting in Guelph, and all of us who worked with Jason on that project admired his boundless energy and creativity. Thanks to Jason, many participants in our network grew in our awareness and appreciation of Canada. The Monday evening LifeRing meeting in Guelph, which Jason founded, continues to meet to this day.

I sent condolences on behalf of myself and on behalf of the entire LifeRing Secular Recovery network to the family. The Guelph Mercury newspaper covered the memorial service here.

Where do I start?

2009-08-14T14:35:00.000-07:00

This email came to the LifeRing Service Center today:

I live in Bend, Oregon, and to my knowledge there are no LifeRing groups locally. I would like to find out more about LifeRing and maybe get a group started in Bend. Currently, I do attend AA meetings but find all the emphasis on God unhelpful for me,though I enjoy the fellowship. Where do I start?

Thanks for writing. To get a meeting started, you need two main ingredients: people and a room. Assuming you have six months or more clean and sober, a good way to begin is to locate at least one other person who will partner with you in this project. You two can be the core group around which other people will cluster.

Try to get a room in a location that already has recovery traffic. A lot of treatment centers host support group meetings on their premises. Ask them first.

There's an extended discussion of how to get meetings started in the book, "How Was Your Week?," available from LifeRing Press ($15). The key chapter is available free online as a PDF file here.

There are ideas, materials, and resources on the Meeting Starter Page.

There is an email list for LifeRing meeting facilitators ("convenors"), here. You are welcome to join the list as a meeting starter. There are lots of experienced convenors there who can help you. And be sure to watch this blog!

As they say in the theater, "break a leg!"

Remembering Kay Rossi Ph.D.

2009-08-14T14:29:00.000-07:00

LifeRing convenor Carola Z. writes:

Kaye Rossi, PhD, was a psychologist and addiction counselor at the Center for Recovery at John Muir/Mt. Diablo Hospital in Concord. She passed away on June 16th. She was 52.

Kaye was pro-LifeRing and I actually first heard about Lifering through her. We once asked her to be on our Advisory Board. Some of you on this list may have known her, too.

I first met Kaye when I checked into the CFR alcohol recovery program 6 ½ years ago. She had a great impact on me and my recovery. I joined her after-care-group, however, I dropped out after a year since I thought I could recover on my own without any group support. I relapsed shortly after and called Kaye the very next day. “I’m glad you called…” she said and pointed me into the right direction – I rejoined her after-care-group and went to LifeRing meetings. Now, 5 ½ years later, I am a Board Member and lead weekly meetings where I often quote from Kaye’s insights. I would like to share this one:

In one of her group sessions, a young man who was going to go on a safari trip to Africa soon, expressed his concern about possibly being triggered to relapse when gathering around the campfire. “Use your cellphone and call somebody” was the advice he got from a group member and he replied: “At $3.00 per minute, that’s expensive!” Kaye simply asked him: “So, what’s it worth – your sobriety?” That stuck in my mind.

A couple of years later around dinner time, I got upset about my mother-in-law and while looking at our worn-out, hand-me-down rug under our dining room table that she had given us, I was seriously contemplating getting drunk. “What’s it worth – your sobriety?” I remembered and instead, I asked my daughter to come with me that evening to buy a new rug. We did.

I never buy on impulse, and this one cost me $450.00. Was it worth it? Absolutely, Kaye!

I will never forget her.

-Carola

Thank you, Carola. Outstanding treatment professionals like Kaye Rossi are priceless, and their loss is a blow to the whole community of recovering people. My sympathies to her family and to all her clients.

All the libraries in Dublin

2009-08-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

Dennis in Dublin writes:

Your book, Empowering Your Sober Self" is in all the libraries in Dublin County [Ireland]. Our new member is a librarian and took the book out at work. She then looked up the web site and found us. The meeting is now up to a stable 5 members.

Letter From a Faith-Based Treatment Program

2009-08-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

This email came to the LifeRing Service Center today:

I am the owner of a outpatient drug and alcohol treatment facility located in B___, NJ. Some of our clients are resistant to the disease concept of addiction and to the "powerlessness" suggested in the 1st step of AA. Our agency is faith based, however, we are open minded regarding providing treatment services that are secular for those who are not inclined to practice the 12 Step philosophy. Do you think LifeRing secular treatment would be beneficial? What is LifeRings philosophy/vision statement? Thank you for your response.

Dear Ms. _________:

You are not alone. I have spoken with dozens of treatment providers at all kinds of programs and heard the same message that you have expressed. The 12-step approach works well for some clients, but by no means for everyone. A program that has high professional standards will offer clients choices, so that more clients find something that fits and works for them.

LifeRing publishes a workbook, Recovery by Choice, that embodies the LifeRing approach. Its 300 pages in 14 chapters contain many dozens of worksheets and exercises that treatment providers find useful in a variety of settings, inpatient or out. There is easily enough content for a long-term program. For shorter interventions, the counselor is advised to select key items from each chapter, or from the chapters that are most applicable to the particular client.

The LifeRing approach in the most general terms is based on positive social reinforcement. It is, broadly speaking, a cognitive-behaviorist approach.

You can find out more from the following sources:

http://lifering.org/faq/index.htm -- a very short FAQ page

http://www.unhooked.com/lsr/three_s_philosophy.htm -- outline of the basic philosophy

http://www.unhooked.com/trxpro/index.htm -- Introduction for treatment professionals, with more resources

http://unhooked.com/lifering.org/index.htm -- About LifeRing, the organization

http://lifering.com/ -- Online bookstore, where you can order print and CD publications about LifeRing, including the workbook

I hope this is helpful and that we can be of assistance in offering your clients more pathways to recovery.

My neighbor V.

2009-08-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

LifeRing convenor Lorne from Montreal (see recent post about diehards) adds a P.S. to his message:

My neighbour V__ came over at 9 am already sloshed with a bottle of beer in his hand claiming all the while he wished he could stop. I showed him the Lifering brochure .... He started going to see a psychologist. He thinks beer is not "alcohol".

I really don't know how to help V__, he knows he has a problem, but can not take in the info. He doesn't think it's so easy to just stop cold turkey like that but is always asking me how does one live without the use of drugs. And I have to admit, between you and me that I find it hard to see V__'s "Sober Self", in fact I have rarely seen it when he is sober.

No, that is not true, V__'s Sober Self must be what I have seen on the rare occasions I've seen him sober, when he doesn't need anything from anyone else, much less company to cry in his beer with, on which occasions he definitely does not consider he has a problem!

It sure comes out different when you factor into the equation a real person you know, not "Sober Self", but V__'s Sober Self. I feel inadequate at not being able to see my neighbour's "Sober Self".

Am I blind? Because it is precisely for people like him that I want to start up Lifering here.

These are great questions. There's no doubt that learning to see the sober self, the S, in a person who is still actively drinking, is a cognitive challenge. We may well ask ourselves if we need new glasses, or if the whole theory is just a fantasy.

To begin with, if V is still alive -- and we know he is, because he is talking with Lorne -- then we can be sure that he has a sober self. If his inner addict self, his A, occupied 100 per cent of his psychic space, then Lorne would probably not be talking. The prime directive of the A is to drink and/or use drugs. The A knows no limits. Its thirst has no bounds. If a person is 100 per cent A, and is not locked up, then it's only a matter of time and money before they drink themselves to death or die of an overdose. Since V is drinking already in the morning, he is in considerable danger of sliding in that direction, and you would be quite right to assume that his S exercises very limited influence.

Still, V is alive. That means he stops drinking at certain points, and perhaps on certain days, and he limits himself (apparently) to beer, which means that he is less likely to fall into an alcoholic coma and suffer cardiac arrest than a person who drinks hard liquor. You can see the influence of the S, which is rooted in the survival instinct, in this choice of beverages. And, as Lorne observed, there are some days when V appears sober and somewhat rational. So there is an S.

We mustn’t assume that the sober self has already reached the stage where the person is able to articulate their sober strivings in a consistent way, and, even more, take decisive action such as to come to a meeting.

If you’re acquainted with the Prochaska/DiClemente Stages of Change model, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Neighbor V sounds like his S is in what Prochaska/DiClemente call the precontemplation stage. Or maybe V's sober self is already in the contemplation stage, since he’s seeing a counselor and talking with Lorne who, he knows, is alcohol-free and a recovery activist. V is "thinking" about quitting, but his thinking is still up in the purely verbal mode, really more of a pose than a real thought, and it doesn't have a solid connection to action.

In that stage Lorne will probably not have success getting the person to come to a meeting, except maybe once out of curiosity (to be followed by non-attendance). To the extent that you are able to engage in continuing dialogue with the person, which is very good for him, your method should be Socratic and your goals should be to stir up the thinking and questioning processes. In Motivational Interviewing they call this “developing discrepancy.” It means, to help the person become more aware of the contradictions between what they believe they are doing and what they are actually doing, between their professed goals and their current actions – in other words, between their S and their A. Eventually, in time, if other circumstances are favorable, the person’s S will progress to the action stage.

I personally would not build my strategy for creating LifeRing meetings on the hope of attracting and retaining people who are in that pre-action stage of development. Coming and returning to a meeting, any meeting, is an ACTION. Recovery support meetings are created and sustained by people whose S has reached the action stage.

Desperately Need LifeRing Partners Meetings

2009-08-09T15:48:00.000-07:00

This email came to the Service Center last week. It reflects exactly the content of a long string of telephone calls we have received from other people in different parts of the country.

Hello
I live in the Livermore area. I am a wife of an alcoholic who is currently in recovery with our Kaiser health plan. They do offer a family night once a week which I have attended, but after 12 weeks it starts over again. Do you have a support program for the spouses? I was not impressed with the Al-A-Non speaker we had at our group night, even the program directors apologized....it was just so far out there. I am looking for a support group without a religious factor, where I can go and discuss and learn from other folks in the same situation, how to live with a recovering alcoholic.
-- C.

We have numerous requests like this. We desperately need a convenor -- really, a lot of convenors -- to bring the LifeRing Partners concept down from the clouds and make it a reality on the ground. Where are you, you pioneering, enterprising, tenacious, creative people? Come forward!

LifeRing in Ireland

2009-08-09T15:40:00.000-07:00

Convenor Dennis S., who has been working to establish LifeRing in Dublin, writes:

Two LifeRing meetings are in the process of forming in Dublin, Ireland. They both should be running by the end of August. One is in the community and is in a hospital setting. If you have any interest in participating, contact lifering.dublin.irl@gmail.com. As soon as final details are confirmed, an e-mail will be sent confirming date, time and location of both meetings.

He adds that one of the meeting locations applied for is at St Patrick's Hospital, historically the site where the first AA meeting in Ireland was founded.

LifeRing for Veterans

2009-08-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

Dave R., a convenor who has been working to set up a LifeRing meeting at a Veterans Administration facility in San Francisco writes:

Before last week's meeting, [convenor] T__ and I had a 20-minute Q & A session with [program director] J__, a few VA staff members from departments connected with J__'s substance abuse program, and 2 resident interns.

All of these folks seemed genuinely interested in learning about LifeRing. T__ and I fielded a lot of questions about LifeRing as a whole, our approach to recovery, our meeting formats, and the similarities and differences between LifeRing and 12-step programs. Everyone seemed very engaged by what T__ and I had to say, and there wasn't a hint of (as AA puts it) "contempt prior to investigation".

The meeting itself went very well. The vets who attended (about 15 or so) were very enthusiastic about what LifeRing has to offer, to the point that they've already expressed the desire for a second weekly on-site meeting (J__ is also strongly supportive of this, and has already told me that she has a time slot or two where we could make that happen).

When I talked with J__ yesterday, she also said that one of the vets who attended our [VA facility meeting] had even made a point of getting himself over to one of our regular open S.F. meetings, liked what he found, and plans to go more often... and this guy is apparently a big 12-step advocate. Others had a lot of interest in the "outside" meetings as well; T__ and I will make sure to connect them with those resources.

One thing that became evident from the vets' questions, though: recovery plan-wise, they're probably looking for a bit more structure and guidance than the normal "how was your week" meeting format provides. Many of them wanted to know if we had anything similar to AA's Steps (and sponsorship), and in line with that, they expressed a lot of interest in what the workbook had to offer.

This might be one place where it would be helpful (if financially possible) to follow AA's lead and donate workbooks to the meeting. For one thing, most of these vets are essentially homeless and jobless, but the second consideration is that J__ did tell me that selling our workbooks in the [VA] facility may actually run afoul of some VA rules regarding "outside vendors".

And one final note: J__ said that she's planning to give a presentation on recovery options to one or more of the associated VA departments from which she gets treatment referrals. Her idea is to invite representatives from LifeRing, SMART, and AA, not as a debate type of thing, but rather an equal-time presentation of what each organization has to offer.
...
In any event- that's the news from the front! It's actually time for me to prepare for our second meeting this afternoon; I'll keep you posted!

It isn't surprising that LifeRing is getting a good reception from veterans. Several counselors from VA substance abuse programs in different parts of the country, whom I met at one or another professional conference in the past few years, have told me that combat experience drives people in different directions. Some become more religious and immerse themselves in religion like a hermetically sealed bubble. Others want nothing more to do with God stuff and look for realistic solutions that make sense.

When a government-run program like the VA pushes people into God-based treatment programs, it's a lawsuit waiting to happen. Federal courts have ruled repeately that the 12-step approaches are religious, for purposes of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and that government agencies have to give clients a choice between religious and secular programs. More info.

Notwithstanding the constitutional prohibition, government agencies have purchased trainloads of 12-step books and given them out free to substance abuse treatment clients. To the clients, it may seem that AA is giving the books away, but it's really the taxpayer's dime. We aren't privileged to see the ledgers of the publishing arm of AA World Services, but it's a fair estimate that a very substantial proportion of its revenues are from government subsidies.

LifeRing Press is a shoestring operation by comparison. There's no way that we can afford to give away books in quantity; not only the Press but the LifeRing Service Center as a whole would soon be out of business.

The best we can do right now is to start a special fund, Books for Vets. If you go to JustGive.org and make a donation, earmark it "Books for Vets," we'll credit it to the Vets' Book Fund, and we'll give free LifeRing books to vets that want it. Deal?

The San Francisco facility isn't the only place where LifeRing is connecting with veterans. Convenor Kevin B. writes:

Our Thursday afternoon meeting at the VA in San Bruno has been going well. It's not a huge facility and our most highly attended meeting had 10 people - we barely fit in the room. On the other hand we've had some great meetings with just 4 or 5 people. Instead of how was your week, we talked more about the deeper reasons why we drank or used or gambled. Dave, I know what you mean about the Vets being homeless and jobless. Coming to a meeting requires them to take a long bus ride, and they can barely scrape together the money for the fare. I've been trying to bring in the current military. They're a bit hesitant. They're young, they don't see angry drunken shenanigans as a problem and they're wary of the stigma of going to a meeting. Usually they'll only attend if they have to. Anyway, I'm continuing to put the word out and we're happy to have a slot at the VA.

This is all very good news. A few years ago, at the request of some veterans down on the Peninsula, we applied to the powers that be to start a LifeRing meeting at the VA facility in Palo Alto. They stonewalled us. Wouldn't answer letters or phone calls. Now the doors have opened a crack.

LifeRing in Marin County

2009-08-09T13:18:00.000-07:00

Marin County, the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, has the highest per-capita income in California. Getting LifeRing started here has been a long, slow, pull. For years, we struggled to get and keep a foothold here.

Recently, something changed. Nobody really knows what. Maybe it's sunspots. In any event, this email came in from LifeRing convenor David F. last week:

Our three meetings have been getting larger and larger, so:

I have gotten another new meeting ready to start tomorrow and run on Tuesdays at the same location and time as our Wednesday meeting:

Kaiser Trailer 4
99 Montecillo Dr.
San Rafael, CA
Tuesdays
6:30 pm
David Frey, convenor
415.457-6585
wheelchair accessible
"How Was Your Week"

It's great news. Congratulations to the LifeRing convenors who have been facilitating the existing meetings. They must be doing something right. The word is spreading. Keep up the good work, folks!

Even the diehards long for something ...

2009-08-09T12:44:00.000-07:00

A friend from Montreal writes:

Now I have received a phone call from D___ who is responsible for community activities such as the substance abuse program at the C___ who has arranged an "interview" on August 31 when she and other management personnel return from vacation. At that point I would be expected to explain LifeRing to the health professionals at the Quebec government run C___.

D ___ is already very impressed with the brochure and says I don't need to bring any other materials, she would very much like to have LifeRing at the C______ and finds it all the more interesting in that it would be new to Montreal. That's what she said when I told her somewhat sheepishly, that, well, I've never experienced LifeRing, personally, yet....except for that first rush of self-empowerment.

I have discussed the matter with 3 other friends from N.A. Virtually everyone who has read the brochure (the same one I was criticizing and picking apart) falls in love with LifeRing and asks me "where's the meeting, when's the meeting?" One of these friends requested more LifeRing literature, he's thirsty for more LifeRing literature. ...

Others suggest it would be quicker to just find some other venue, like some church basement somewhere. But I had it in mind to put down some solid roots. If it gets approval at the C___ I intend to approach the Referral Centre of Greater Montreal (which is funded by Centraide, sort of like Red Feather or United Appeal). To get a listing on the CRGM would mean there would finally be an alternative offered to people calling up there (I was referered to N.A. through the CRGM).

Marty, I need to know, what am I supposed to be doing now? Go on a convenor's blog? Wait until the final nod which won't be until the first week of September. (After D___, it goes to management).

So there are no less than 3 friends from N.A. my sponsor, and at least 3 employees of the C___ who are interested in attending the first LifeRing meeting. Not counting myself.

By the way my sponsor phoned up California and put me on the phone with Bob B., the oldest surviving member of N.A. whose own sponsor was Jimmy K. the founder of N.A. and I told Bob B. that I believed that freedom from the disease concept of addiction and self-empowerment were the wave of the future and he said "Make the most of what you have".

I somehow had the feeling that even diehards long for something unnamable that is out there.....that can't quite put their finger on it. By the way virtually all of these N.A. members, unlike myself have no gripes whatever with N.A., don't feel like 5th wheels everywhere, but are impressed with LifeRing just the same.

So I have to establish a time-line and start figuring out who does what. One of these people offered support and even to accompany me to the interview if this is a good idea. So, is it a good idea? He doesn't have access to the internet.

Any input would be appreciated as I have felt alone with all this "pipe dream" for a while now, and now it looks pretty close to getting done. The first meeting would be in English, from what I can see.

I've boldfaced the line, "even diehards long for something unnamable that is out there," because it expresses something that I'm hearing from other people in other places as well. I've mentioned in the previous blog post the phone call I got from a 20+ year AA member who read Empowering Your Sober Self and felt stirred to call up and get a LifeRing meeting started. This past week I got an almost identical phone call from the same state, same county. This caller had got Empowering Your Sober Self from his local library. He has spent the past four years in AA, and he was so motivated by his reading that he phoned to see if there was a LifeRing meeting nearby and, on being told there was not yet, enthusiastically volunteered to help get one started.

Listening to these voices, I get the impression that they feel a certain emptiness at the core of the 12-step approach, and although this feeling is unauthorized and implicitly subversive, and therefore must be repressed from consciousness, it nevertheless erupts to the surface, irrepressibly, in certain times and places.

As for the nuts-and-bolts questions of what to do until September -- well, September will be here very soon. There is quite a bit of reading that could be done in the interim. If people are in the mood, they could get together in a coffee shop and discuss the readings, and become acquainted with the LifeRing concept and format, so that by the time the flag is formally raised and the doors open to the public, there will be the beginnings of a core group.

Should you take another person to the interview? If the person is familiar with the LifeRing approach from reading, and makes a presentable impression, then by all means take them. Whenever possible, I always try to take at least one other person along when I go to an interview or give a talk; it helps me evaluate the session afterward, and it helps the person get familiar with the subject matter and become comfortable giving the talk next time, when called upon.

Interesting Phone Call

2009-05-31T18:09:00.001-07:00

The caller on the LifeRing 800 line identified himself as a 25-year member of AA, and one of the best-known speakers on the West Coast AA circuit. He said he happened to be in a recovery bookstore and my book (Empowering Your Sober Self) "jumped out at him" and be bought it and, over the next 24 hours, read it straight through. "I want to start a LifeRing meeting," he said. "I've been reading recovery literature for 30 years and I've never picked up the phone and called before."

He's going to contact some of the people he knows at local treatment centers to see about getting a room and referrals. I advised him he might run into some resistance with some of his AA friends. He said he is ready for a new challenge. We'll talk some more. He's aiming to open the doors of a new LifeRing meeting in September.

PS For a follow-up on this, see my post "They laughed at him" in the New Recovery blog.

And now, Liability Insurance

2009-05-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

LifeRing Treasurer Robert Stump reports that the whole LifeRing network is now covered by a general commercial liability policy.

We now have a NIAC Commercial General Liability Insurance Policy covering the fifty states and Canada. It became effective 5/11/09 and will last one year. This policy will cover any liability and/or property damage that might occur at any of your weekly LifeRing meetings. Personal injury and property damage are up to the limits of the policy stated here.
The following is a highlight of some of the coverage:
General Aggregate                                           $2,000,000
Products-Completed Operation Aggregate           2,000,000
Personal & Advertising                                       1,000,000
Each Occurrence Limit                                      1,000,000
Fire Damage (Any One Fire)                             500,000
Medical Expense (Any One Person)     20,000

The insurance policy will be on file at the Service Center in Oakland. For any questions please contact the Service Center, service@lifering.org or me, Robert Stump at CFO@lifering.org

This policy won't make any difference to most LifeRing convenors, because we've never had a claim or are likely to ever have a claim, but in a few cases it will make the difference between having a meeting or not having it. Some churches and other meeting room providers absolutely require organizations to have such insurance. Well, now we have it. If you are a convenor for whom this is an issue, you will need a copy of the Declarations Page to show the meeting room provider. Contact Robert at CFO@lifering.org for a copy.

This policy is also another part of the answer to the question sometimes asked: what happens to the money we send in to the Service Center.

His Excellent Adventure

2009-05-20T21:22:00.000-07:00

The LifeRing Expo May 9-10 is already fading into memory. You can read the quasi-'official' wrap-up I wrote on the lifering.org (aka unhooked.com) website, with some photos by Karen Ivy, here. But to really get the flavor of the event, particularly for a traveler who came a considerable distance, you have to read "My Excellent Expo Adventure," by Craig Whalley, here. Craig's account is all the more interesting because he is mainly an online participant -- he is listmeister of two lists and online contact for a third -- and does not have a face-to-face meeting he can go to. What's it like when online participants meet face to face for the first time? Craig writes well, and has a good eye for the quirks and foibles that make people human and lovable. Worth reading. It would be good if more people followed Craig's example and wrote such journals.

Partners: Push/Pull

2009-05-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

Some of the calls to the LifeRing 800 line are from people who are on the edge of their sanity. I try to make it clear at the outset, gently but firmly, that this is not a crisis hotline and that I'm not a counselor or a doctor, and have no qualifications to offer advice.

This gentleman was talking through tears and sobs. What was the problem? He has a friend, a very good friend, a wonderful person (when he's sober) who broke up with his wife, got drunk and high on pot, and came over to the caller's house and did more drinking and pot smoking there, and invited the caller to go for a drive with him. The caller had made it very clear to the friend that he did not allow drinking and pot smoking in his house, and that he was absolutely not going to get in the car with the friend driving under the influence. But the friend had completely disrespected the caller's wishes, and now the friend was angry at the caller for his 'negative attitude.' Hence the tears.

After repeating that I had no qualifications to offer advice, I told the caller that I was not surprised at his friend's behavior, that I had done similar things when I was in my addiction, and that (now that I was sober) I also kept my house free of alcohol or drugs and I also would never get into a car driven by somebody under the influence. The caller had done exactly what I would have done under the circumstances.

Still, the caller was not consoled. He loved this friend and was terribly upset at the thought of losing this friendship. This was really a wonderful person when sober. What should he do?

After repeating a third time that I had no qualifications to give advice, I suggested that the caller might adopt a push-pull attitude toward his friend. When the friend is sober, pull. Engage him, involve him, enjoy him. But when the friend is drinking/using, push. Firmly maintain the wall between yourself and him, disengage, disinvolve, stay cold, stay away. Don't attack him, don't give him advice (except in the most passing, casual, matter-of-fact way), don't try to change him or convert him. Eventually, when you have been consistent, your policy may work some changes in him. You may reinforce, with your "pull," the sober part within him, the wonderful person that he is when sober. You may disempower, with your "push," the other him, the part of him that is in love with alcohol and other drugs.

Or, you may lose him as a friend. That happens. Prepare yourself for that possibility by looking around, even now, at the other people in your life that you could be friends with.

Somehow, that made sense to the caller. It offered a way forward. He stopped crying, his voice returned to normal. I concluded by reminding him that my advice was worth exactly what he paid for it. He gave a little laugh, and we ended the conversation.

Another door opens by a crack

2009-05-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, as I reported elsewhere, I was invited to speak about LifeRing at Mountain Vista Farm, one of the oldest rural inpatient treatment programs in California. Mountain Vista's reputation is that of a citadel of the 12-step approach. Yet there was genuine interest in hearing about the LifeRing approach, and my presentation appeared to resonate with quite a few of the counselors in attendance.

Now comes an invitation to speak about LifeRing at another well-known bastion of the 12-step approach, the Henry Ohloff program in San Francisco. I will be addressing staff at the outpatient center on June 2. Like Mountain Vista, this program is not ready to host a LifeRing meeting, and it may be quite a while before the treatment protocol opens up to the reality that there are many roads to recovery. But meanwhile, there are staff members in these tradition-bound programs who have their eyes and ears open for new developments that may help some of their clients.

This is certainly a welcome sign. If I ask why it is occurring, the answer is that patients/clients are driving it. In at least 80 per cent of the cases where we are contacted by a treatment professional and asked for more information about LifeRing, a patient or client was the driver. A patient or client introduced the professional to LifeRing literature or the LifeRing web presence, or informed the professional that he/she was attending LifeRing and that it was helping.

And even when an individual patient or client is not directly the driver, in the sense that he or she located LifeRing and put LifeRing on the professional's radar screen, it is still patients/clients who drive the process passively, by voting with their feet when the professionals only offer an approach that does not work for them. A treatment program that only offers the 12 steps and nothing else is going to experience, sooner or later, the reality that 80 per cent of newcomers to AA walk away within 30 days (and 95 per cent within a year).

While few treatment programs retain a patient as long as a full 30 days -- the average stay at one nominally 28-day program I know is around 10 days -- the client resistance to 12-step may well show up from Day One of treatment. If the program has nothing else to offer, it's going to lose clients earlier than if it offered choices. Monomodal treatment translates into high patient turnover. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out.

And so, the wheels turn, and sooner or later a call goes out to LifeRing, or another alternative approach. Quite a few LifeRing convenors now have had the experience of explaining LifeRing before audiences in treatment programs. To be sure, it's far too early to proclaim a tsunami, but if we compare the interest in LifeRing from treatment programs ten years ago and now, we're almost in a new era. Ten years ago, most minds were closed and we couldn't get in the door. Today, we're frequently in the embarassing situation of getting requests from a program director to start a meeting, and not having a convenor to take the room. It's a problem, but it's a better problem to have.

Where are those Documents When You Need Them?

2009-02-10T15:13:00.000-08:00

The convenor of a LifeRing meeting at a nearby hospital called in a voice filled with anxiety:

"The facilities coordinator has kicked us out of our meeting room because we haven't filed an application to renew our room permission. I didn't even know we had to do that! Now they want a bunch of documents about LifeRing -- a mission statement, and a 501-c-3. What are they? Do we have that?"

Yes, we have that.

We have our Mission Statement in two formats. One is the Meeting Charter (every meeting should have one) that you can download from the website here. That's a simple, one-page statement in a decorative format suitable for posting, should you wish to. If that doesn't impress the facilities czar sufficiently, you can hand them a copy of the LifeRing corporate charter, downloadable from here. That's an official State of California document with the state seal, showing that we're chartered as a nonprofit public benefit corporation.

The "501-c-3" is a document from the federal tax people, the IRS, certifying that LifeRing is a charitable entity, so that donors who make gifts to LifeRing are entitled to deduct the gifts from their income taxes as charitable contributions. The document comes in the form of two letters from the IRS. The first is our initial determination letter, saying that we're classified as a charity provisionally for four years. The second is the renewal letter, saying that our charity classification is now permanent. You can download the first letter here, the second letter here.

In case you lose this blog post with its links, you can find this set of papers again easily by going to the home page of the LifeRing website, and in the menu on the left, click "About LifeRing" (near the bottom). On the "About" page submenu, click on "LifeRing Documents." Bingo!

Choices Abound -- but let's get it right

2009-01-11T14:21:00.000-08:00

"Choices abound to help you stay on the path to recovery" is the upbeat title on a Jan. 7 story by Jodi Mailander Farrell, posted on the Sober24 blog. She leads off with that wonderful 1944 quote by Bill Wilson that's also a tagline on www.unhooked.com: "The roads to recovery are many."

Another nice quote is: "There are not just 12-step programs anymore," spoken by Pat Taylor, executive director of Faces & Voices in Recovery. F&VR is an advocate of the new recovery model charted by William L. White and others, reviewed here and in my New Recovery blog, and it's a good sign to hear Taylor say it. Was the echo of Dorothy's line, "We're not in Kansas anymore" intentional?

Among the options Farrell includes is peer-to-peer counseling at recovery centers, pharmacological treatment, and non-religious groups. I was naturally very pleased that, under this last heading, Farrell cites LifeRing. But I was dismayed to read the next sentence:

"LifeRing Secular Recovery, a California-based nonprofit, bills itself as the anti-12-Step approach."

That's just flat wrong. Farrell must have us confused with some other group. We have never "billed ourselves" as "anti'" any other recovery approach. Although our approach differs in some fundamental ways from 12-step, we are not "anti" 12-step or anti-anything else that helps some people get sober. We specifically bar attacks on any other recovery approach during our meeting hours. About a third of our membership also participates in 12-step groups, and that's fine. We are not about negating other approaches. We are about adding to the range of choices available to the recovering person.

In my forthcoming book, Empowering Your Sober Self: The LifeRing Approach to Addiction Recovery, I begin by taking note of a central fact that emerges from solid statistics and from widespread clinical experience: only a small minority of people who start in AA stick with it. (At the end of one year only five per cent are still attending, and not all of those are sober.) I then go on to outline the LifeRing approach , suggesting that more people will get sober if there are more different roads for them to walk on. Much later in the book (Ch. 5 of 7) I ask why so many people walk away from AA after trying it, and I suggest that one big turnoff is the doctrine of powerlessness, which derives from one particular and widely rejected stripe of theology. I also criticize some versions of the disease concept and an exaggerated emphasis on genetics. But to criticize some of the theoretical foundations of the 12-step approach in a book is not to become "anti" the whole organized 12-step effort. No matter how wrong-headed I think some of the 12-step theory is, the 12-step organizations remain social groupings where (mostly) sober people gather, and it's fundamental to my understanding of recovery that any gathering of sober people is a good thing and deserves support.

Unfortunately the blog post where Farrell's story appears doesn't allow for reader comments. So I've posted my remarks to Farrell's Facebook page (incidentally, I had to join Facebook to do so (groan, more computer time)) and I've asked her to please post a correction.

Farrell's paragraph on LifeRing goes on to say:

The group’s meetings encourage give-and-take dialogue with no religious overtones, as opposed to the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) practice of uninterrupted monologue.

That's true enough, but again the phrase "as opposed to" puts an unnecessary edge on things. There are people who like "uninterrupted monologue" and it works for them, and they also like LifeRing meetings, where we have dialogue. It's not necessarily either-or, it's both-and. The point is not to knock one thing down, but to broaden the range of choices available.

P.S. Farrell responded to my email with surprise that this item of hers was picked up just now; she wrote it a long time ago and "It's been out for a long, long time...I'm sure some of it is outdated."

Recovering from opiate use in LifeRing

2009-01-11T14:15:00.000-08:00

A blogger who focuses on recovery from opiate addiction observes that there are now recovery options besides 12-step, including LifeRing, but wants to talk with people who use them to find out what it does for them.

If you are recovering from opiate use in LifeRing, you might want to sign onto that blog and share your experiences.

LifeRing at the National Association of Addiction Professionals' Conference

2008-09-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

From Andy Ross, who represented LifeRing at the annual meeting of the National Addiction Professionals' Association (NAADAC) in Kansas City:

I'm back in Wichita from the National Conference of NAADAC, the National Association of Alcohol and Drug Counselors; combined with the annual conference of KAAP, the Kansas Association of Addiction Counselors; and NALGAP, the National Association of Lesbian and Gay Addiction Professional, which was held last weekend in Overland Park, Kansas. I do not have a count of how many attended though it seemed to me to be not a great many more than attended the last KAAP conference I went to a couple of years ago.

Perhaps the increased cost of travel, the date being the Labor Day holiday weekend or the fact that somehow Overland Park has escaped the world's notice as a premier "destination" city contributed to a turnout that was a bit lower than I expected. Nonetheless, there were several hundred attendees, many from Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri and nearby states but also representatives from all of the regional centers in the nation and a few international members.

I arrived at the Overland Sheraton Wednesday, August 27th, around 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. and found the exhibit hall about half full of exhibitors booths already set up or being set up and, with a little fumbling on my part, was able to get the LifeRing booth set up properly. There were perhaps 40 - 45 other exhibitors, ranging from SAMHSA, NIDA and a few other government agency reps; to a Narcotics Anonymous booth, Hazelden (the Minnesota based treatment program and publishing house), providers of urinalysis and drug testing kits, nutritionists, meditation music and literature providers; really, a whole gamut of services. The government booths, especially, provided a plethora of free literature and information.

The exhibitor's hall was open Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 a.m. and just about everyone attending hit the hall each morning bright and early as that was also where the free continental breakfast, juice and coffee were served each day prior to the beginning of workshops and plenary sessions. Again, as to the total number of attendees, I can only make a guess but the most I saw, based on a quick guesstimate-headcount at a plenary session, was about 175. I believe quite a few attendees, especially from Kansas and Missouri, came for only a part of the conference and returned home and they were coming and going throughout the weekend.

Our booth was at a junction of two aisles of exhibitors and directly across from the coffee tables so we had excellent traffic flow past the booth and many people stopped and chatted with me about LifeRing's philosophy and about the nuts-and-bolts aspects of how we operate. The one pamphlet I wish now I had thought to request more of, specifically, was the LSR Online booklet. Because the majority of attendees were from the middle of the country, where LifeRing has few face-to-face meetings, our online presence particularly interested many.

Attendance in the exhibitors' hall was pretty spotty and sparse whenever workshops and meetings were in session which gave me time to browse the other booths and to attend some workshops myself. LifeRing got an unexpected and unsolicited plug at the workshop of Gary Blanchard, MA, LADC1, whose presentation focused on his book, Success Centered Addiction Recovery Facilitation. Mr. Blanchard had been by the booth and picked up pamphlets and spoken to me and he was very impressed with LifeRing's approach, which neatly dovetailed with his own "non-traditional" philosophy of addiction treatment. He urged everyone at the workshop to check out our booth and I spoke with most of those in his workshop later in the day as they came by to see what we were about.

Thursday was the busiest day at the booth and Friday morning was a continuation of that but the traffic tapered off by late afternoon. Saturday, by contrast, was quite light and by early afternoon a number of the other exhibitors were already breaking down their booths or leaving them largely unattended. In retrospect I wish I had kept a log of how many came by and perhaps taken notes as Marty did in Nashville. I'll know to do so in the future! Trusting to memory proved to be a less than adequate method of tracking contacts. Everyone I met expressed interest in alternatives to traditional recovery support and also acknowledged the very great desirability of such alternatives.

Just from memory I did meet with counselors from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Nebraska, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, W. Virginia, Kentucky, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Vermont, New Hampshire and Minnesota as well as a man from Kenya and three counselors from Reykjavic, Iceland. It was an exhausting weekend from which I am still not quite feeling fully recovered; but tremendously rewarding and well worth the time and effort. I encourage anyone who has the chance to attend similar events to do so and represent LifeRing to the people best placed to refer newcomers to recovery to our philosophy and support!

LifeRing at the APA in Boston

2008-08-20T22:52:00.001-07:00

From Kathleen Gargan, who represented LifeRing at the American Psychological Association Conference in Boston:

I'm back from the 2008 American Psychological Association Conference in Boston. This was a fascinating, if exhausting, experience. The exhibition Hall was open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and from 9;00 a.m. to noon on Sunday.

On Thursday and Friday, I handed out 317 "Welcome to LifeRing" pamphlets, and repeated my "In a Nutshell" description of LifeRing: "Can I tell you about LifeRing? LifeRing is a non-profit, secular alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous for people who don't relate to the spiritual or religious focus of the 12 step approach."

I learned quickly how important it was to get the word "nonprofit" out of my mouth as soon as possible, since most of the other booths were there to sell something. On Saturday and Sunday, traffic was much lighter and I gave out 75 pamphlets and visited exhibit booths of treatment centers, as well as academics who were giving papers on addiction related topics.

I also visited the AA and NA booths and was received cordially in each case. By far, most of the people I talked to were very positive about LifeRing. No one wanted to argue about The One True Way to get clean and sober.

One man asked if AA was "threatened" by our group. I told him that it certainly doesn't need to be, and asked him what made him ask such an interesting question. He laughed and said something about territoriality.

Even people I interrupted as they walked by very quickly with the "my destination is more important than anything you could possibly tell me" vibe thanked me for stopping them when they heard about LifeRing.

Several people wanted to know if we had studies to show the effectiveness of LifeRing; some asked if we were related to Rational Recovery, and many people expressed surprise to hear that such a thing as a secular recovery program could exist!

Therapists from Oregon, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Massachusetts and Utah wanted to know if there were face-to-face meetings in their area. Psychologists and students from Kuwait, Egypt, Spain, the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico now know about LifeRing.

I collected cards from several people who want more info One author from Pennsylvania expressed interest in doing an article about non 12 step recovery programs for the state Psychologists' journal. I plan to follow up with an email to each one. It was wonderful to hear so many people say that there is a great need for a secular alternative to 12 step programs.

It seems to me that having a presence at this event automatically gave LifeRing a certain gravity; as if we should be taken seriously as a resource for recovery. There were no representatives from Women for Sobriety, Smart Recovery or S.O.S. Likely this is because it is expensive to participate. (I learned when I arrived that we were

required to rent 10 square ft of carpet, $218.00 for 3 & 1/2 days,

and if we wanted a table and chair, we would need to rent them as well, and for equally appalling amounts)

I also feel that it would be helpful to have more than one person "personning" the booth. Sometimes as I was talking to someone, I noticed 4 more people walking by. Also, as time went on, I found I had less energy to approach people. I would have helped to have had at least one other person there to reach more people and to trade off with. Of course this will not always be possible, but it's something to think about for future conferences.

All in all, I'm very glad I got to do this gig, and I recommend to all!

I'm sure there is pertinent information I am leaving out. Please ask me questions if you want to know more!

-- Kathleen

Letter to Dr. Davis from an Audience Member

2008-06-05T23:10:00.000-07:00

[Note: Dr. B.J. Davis, Clinical Director of Strategies for Change in Sacramento, was guest keynote speaker at the 2008 LifeRing Congress in Berkeley May 31 2008. See Congress review page. After his talk, which was met with a standing ovation, Dr. Davis received the following letter from an audience member.]

Dear Dr. Davis:
I attended your presentation at the LifeRing Congress yesterday. I am passing on a monumental and heartfelt thank you for offering me something that you may very well not be aware of. Your efforts helped me release something that although I was not fully conscious of, I have been holding onto for several years now. I struggled with binge drinking, starting in 1998 and came close to death on a few occasions. I was admitted into Clearbrook - a 28 day, 12 step program in Pennsylvania in 2002. I had attended AA meetings prior to that time and it never resonated with me. In fact, the bulk of that which AA stands for always felt completely contradictory to who I am and what I believe.

Quite frankly I found the whole thing offensive, short sighted, and erroneous. At the same time, the aggressive, hostile, shame-inducing, punitive, thoughtless, deeply insensitive, and invalidating tactics of the 12-step treatment center made AA, on its own, seem light-weight, in terms of harm. My time in treatment is truly one of my most disturbing memories - in my adult life, anyway. I hesitate to go too deeply into it because firstly, it would require dozens of pages, but more importantly, I believe that to whatever extent I hold the responsibility for having created the circumstances for which I ended up in treatment, I am also able to create and put for my solution to the same extent. I like that the solutions to all of my life challenges remain in my hands.

Since years have passed since my treatment, I felt that for the most part I had moved beyond my negative and enormously frustrating feelings as well as the deep conflict that I endured during my 28 days. During your presentation, it became apparent that I had not fully let go of that experience and its impact, until today. As I heard you speak the very essence of what I have felt, believed and attempted to express on countless occasions -- during and subsequent to my treatment, I realized that there were still pockets of stored sadness, desolation, deep frustration, and even fear -- fear of once again being misunderstood, or being accused of having a sick-mind, even though I knew (ironically, in my mind) that my mind was precisely the very part of me that held my solution. If my mind had guided my decisions, I never would have had a drink. I was always clear that my poor choices and decisions were directed by emotional conflict, pain, etc. and my mind at those times was abandoned.

To hear you speak so confidently and knowingly of the very things that I too have known, yet have failed to successfully communicate and in some ways, fully embrace, proved to be quite a profound experience for me. Therefore, I have to point out your one inaccuracy, which is that you said at the beginning of your presentation that you did not have anything profound to offer. That proved to be unquestionably false for me. As I heard your wise and insightful words combined with your compassion, understanding, and alignment with universal truths that transcend any short-sighted concepts and beliefs espoused by AA (and other organizations), I somehow felt compelled and safe to release whatever was left inside of me that once felt so hurtful.

Without sounding too dramatic here, I came close to leaving the room during your presentation, because I actually got teary eyed and was fearful I might just burst into heavier tears. Yet my tears did not reflect any current sadness, but rather a release of old sadness, replaced with a renewed feeling of freedom and hope that I had neatly tucked away and fiercely protected. Thank you so much for offering me the segue between having shut myself down and feeling safe and free to re-open certain places in my heart and mind.

Again, I may be treading dangerously close to drama here, but after treatment, I felt much like I imagine a little boy would feel after being punished for doing something wrong that in reality he didn't do at all. Or better stated, being accused and punished for doing something wrong and bad in the face of attempting to do something quite pure, innocent and good. Your insights touched me similarly to how a boy would have felt if a parent believed him for the first time after years of carrying around the guilt and shame for something he never did. That pretty much sums it up for me.

Truly, thanks so much for your courageous efforts, your big heart and your wise mind. I personally think you should have an endless supply of Ben n Jerry's and anything else your heart desires..... and so it shall be.

Sincerely,
(Name Withheld)

The Recovery Skills Format

2008-04-16T21:23:00.000-07:00

As noted on the bulletin board, the Ontario (Canada) based group Addictions are Us recently affiliated with LifeRing. Addictions are Us brings their own "Recovery Stills" format where meetings consist of three parts, an open discussion (much like How Was Your Week), a directed topical discussion (like one section of a Recovery By Choice Workbook group), and a carry-over of a past discussion. The group's new brochure describes the format in more detail. Take a look at it here.

What may be of most interest to LifeRing convenors is the rotating topics list for the second section. Most are topics that appear in Recovery by Choice. Some are not. Some convenors may have a list like this – plus topics of local interest – handy for times when their group wants to do something a little different.

Cravings & Triggers
Daily Program
Trust – Using it and re-building it.
Dreams About Using
Setting Goals
How to Handle New Free Time
Expectations
Communication
Importance of Diet
Importance of Exercise
Problem Solving
Small Steps – Large Changes
Journalizing
Anger Management
Identifying Feelings
Allowing for Change in Yourself
Alternative Sources of Support
Cycles in Mood
Stress Management
Helpful Criticism – How to deal with it.
Substitute compulsions / addictions
Dealing with loss
Holidays – Extra plan for handling those special functions
Post Acute Withdrawal symptoms

Convenors seeking to make their own brochures may also find Southern Ontario example illustrative.

Draft of new brochure, for comment

2008-03-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

This past week I've given LifeRing presentations to two groups of lawyers, one in Hayward and another one here in Oakland, today. At the Oakland talk a number of social workers were also in the audience. There were expressions of surprise both from the lawyers and from the social workers when I mentioned the recent federal court case that said 12-step groups are religious and that a government official cannot refer a client exclusively to 12-step groups. I was surprised they were surprised -- I kind of thought that maybe lawyers would know this stuff and that social workers would have been told by their employers. Am I naive, or what! Sooo, right after the noontime talk today I drafted up a new LifeRing brochure, called "Choice of Support Groups: It's the Law," and I would appreciate it if those of you concerned with this issue would have a look at it and give me the benefit of your comments on the brochure. The draft is posted for your download here. Please post comments on the brochure here.

The text of the brochure is drawn largely from my earlier blog post about this court case, there. Please post comments about the court decision there. Thank you.

Confrontation Therapy, R.I.P.

2008-02-19T23:04:00.000-08:00

Two of my favorite scholars have combined to write a powerhouse of an article that everyone interested in addiction treatment will want to read. William R. Miller, co-author of the Handbook of Alcoholism Treatment Approaches (reviewed here), and William L. White, author of the monumental history Slaying the Dragon (reviewed here), have written what hopefully will be an obituary for an era, entitled "Confrontation in Addiction Treatment." It's in Counselor Magazine.

I've posted excerpts and a short comment in the New Recovery Blog; go there.

Email from a Treatment Professional

2008-02-05T23:19:00.000-08:00

The head of a hospital-based treatment program where LifeRing meetings started last year sent this email to the LifeRing convenor who had asked to move the LifeRing meeting to a larger room on a different evening:

"All the newest scientific literature in recovery says "one size does not fit all - and should not" implying people should have choices that will keep them coming, as it is difficult to affect change when the patient does not attend. Historically, we have viewed resistance to 12-step programs as "denial". We are moving away from that dogmatic approach to substance abuse counseling. This is my long-winded way of attempting to say I no longer view LifeRing as "competition" to [12-step], especially given the extraordinary acceptance it has had among our IOP patients who would not have otherwise attended AA or NA.

Consequently, I suggest you move the meeting to whatever date and time you wish.... Given what we are learning about substance abuse treatment, disallowing to the change would not be in the best interest of the patients wishing to attend, and therefore hard to justify. ...

So, in summary, I say move the meeting on your own.... Again, congratulations on a very popular treatment alternative that has meant the difference between attending or not attending self-help groups for a large number of our patients."

2008 Congress Coordinator Steps In

2008-01-21T19:53:00.000-08:00

I'm delighted to be able to announce that Gillian Ellenby has accepted the position of 2008 Congress Coordinator, effective immediately.

Gillian is a former member of the LifeRing Board of Directors and the former Secretary of LifeRing. She is an active and experienced LifeRing convenor, and has participated in LifeRing Congresses going back to 2002, when she was one of the presenters. She has been involved in all aspects of Congress organizing in the past.

Gillian will be the central go-to person for all 2008 Congress issues. Please contact her at Gillian@ellenby.com.

Education level of CA counselors

2008-01-07T18:36:00.001-08:00

CAADAC, one of the California addiction professionals' organizations, has released a membership survey showing, among other things, the highest educational level reached by its membership. It shows that 29 per cent, the largest single category, do not have a junior college certificate or college degree; they have completed unspecified drug/alcohol studies only. Another 18 per cent have a junior college degree. Twenty-eight per cent have a B.A. as their highest degree; 20 per cent have an M.A., and 5 per cent have a Ph.D. Altogether, 47 per cent don't have a college degree; 53 per cent do. The association's membership includes counselors and program administrators. Source.

Get well soon, John G.!

2008-01-06T12:48:00.000-08:00

We've received a terrible medical bulletin from John G., the convenor of the LifeRing meeting in Brampton, outside of Toronto. He is going to be starting radiation therapy soon and will have to reduce his activity. If you would like to send him a get-well wish, please address it to John at lifering_recovery@yahoo.ca

Thanks. -- Marty N.

Another professional discovers LifeRing

2007-12-29T18:13:00.000-08:00

Received at the LifeRing Service Center today:

I am thrilled to learn of the existence of your organization. I am a Treatment professional that deals every day with patients who have been failed by "old-school" treatment modalities, and completely alienated by 12-step groups. Many of them are legally mandated to attend "sobriety-based self-help groups" but have no options other than AA, etc. or some extremely fundamentalist religious groups. There are a few SMART recovery groups around, but not enough. My particular position allows me to specialize in one-on-one counseling with patients who come through emergency room interventions and might not otherwise access help. I utilize a totally strength-based counseling method, which is obviously completely in alignment with your philosophy.

I would like to get my free copy of "Presenting Lifering" so I can begin to distribute it among my colleagues and possibly support some of my successful patients in forming a group of their own.

My Agency is called [...]. I will be looking at solutions to get my company to invest in a full complement of your literature as a healthy alternative to AA. [...]
Thanks so much. I am excited to get started in expanding Lifering.

Learning from educators: "The Virtues Project"

2007-12-24T14:27:00.000-08:00

Teaching kids who have got in trouble with the law and are booted out of the regular schools into alternative schools is a challenging educational assignment. You might think that with these "bad kids," teachers have to be super-authoritarian, try to take the kids' power away, and get them to surrender. Guess what, that doesn't work. By contrast, a highly successful approach in use at the Sacramento County Boys' Ranch begins with The Virtues Project. The secretary who handles the kids' enrollment asks:

Do you know what virtues are? Then she launches into how virtues are the 'good seeds' in us which make up our character. Usually, the student is momentarily dazed, first by an adult in an institution asking him personal questions that aren't tied to his criminal or school history, and secondly, by the word itself -- 'virtue.' Given a few examples, the student then looks over a giant poster listing 52 Virtues and selects -- often with encouragement -- one or two that he feels are his 'strength virtues' and explains why. .... Teachers recognize, acknowledge and reinforce the virtues of students, which forges a vital link and connects with them on a level beyond the stereo-typical teacher-student superior-subordinate relationship. A whole new world of significance is opened up for both teacher and student ... which creates greater student buy-in.

("Forging Vital Links with Students in Alternative Schools," by Brett Loring, in The Journal of Juvenile Court, Community, and Alternative School Administrators of California," Spring 2007, p. 10.) Since adult alcoholics and addicts have so much in common with these "bad kids," I thought that educators' experience with these kids might be relevant somehow ....
.

Once again on the AA dropout rate

2007-12-21T20:42:00.000-08:00

Many people are now aware of the statistic that 95 per cent of newcomers in AA drop out during the first year. Out of one hundred who start, at the end of one year, only five are left.

I first learned this statistic from the Bufe volume, reviewed here. Bufe attributed it to AA's own Membership Surveys. However, I drew a blank -- and some hostile looks -- when I visited the AA library up on Riverside Drive in 2005 and asked to see the original survey reports. Since Bufe might be accused of anti-AA bias, I wanted a less impeachable source. Thanks to a very knowledgeable psychology Ph.D., I now have it, and it's very interesting.

Don McIntire of Burbank CA was given access to the AA membership surveys from 1968 through 1996. He is a staunch defender of AA and cannot be accused of negative bias. His article "How Well Does A.A. Work? An Analysis of Published A.A. Surveys (1968-1996) and Related Analyses/Comments" in the Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly (Vol 18, No. 4, 2000) centers on the 5 per cent one-year retention rate and attempts to explain it.

The 95 per cent dropout rate is anything but a statistical fluke. AA's own membership surveys demonstrated the identical pattern, give or take trivial variations, in five successive triennial data collections spanning twelve years. McIntire depicted the trends in a graph (inset) showing a fairly tight braid whose strands are the data sets from different years. The five per cent figure is the average of the five studies.

Most of the attrition, McIntire's analysis shows, comes during the first 30 days. This is not obvious from the graph. The graph begins at 30 days. If you can read the tiny numbers on the x axis, you will see that the bundle of line graphs begins at around the 20 per cent mark. If the graph began at Day One and 100 per cent, the lines would drop almost like a rock.

McIntire found that an average of 81 per cent of AA first-time attendees dropped out during the first 30 days.

At the end of 90 days, 90 per cent of newcomers have dropped out; only ten per cent are left. (This gives a new dimension altogether to the "90 in 90" slogan, doesn't it?)

The attrition curve from 90 days to a full year is, by comparison, rather gentle: from ten per cent to five percent, a relative loss of "only" fifty per cent.

McIntire, who (as I said) is a staunch defender of AA, argues that the attrition during the first 90 days should just be ignored, and that AA should claim a 50 per cent success rate based on the trend from 91 days to one year.

The author's apologetic argument is that the FTA's (first time attendees) who drop out quickly aren't really alcoholics, or aren't really trying to get sober, and so they shouldn't count. Although that has a ring of plausibility for some cases, the author presents no data as to percentages.

AA co-founder Bill W., looking at numbers of this type, asked "What happened to the 600,000 who approached AA and left?" (Reported in White, Slaying the Dragon, p. 139) Despite Wilson's concern, apparently nobody in AA has ever, yet, bothered to try to contact any of the 95 per cent to try to find out their reasons for leaving.

We know from other data that alcoholics who don't do AA can nevertheless succeed in achieving long-term sobriety. In fact, the AA Grapevine has conceded that the majority of alcoholics who achieve the milestone five-year mark do it without using AA. (Vaillant., 1996, 2001)

Consequently, it's extremely unlikely that lack of motivation to get sober accounts for the 95 per cent AA dropout rate. Lack of desire to get sober is undoubtedly a part of the picture, but there has to also be a healthy percentage of the 95 per cent dropouts -- perhaps a majority -- who want to get sober but drop out of AA for other reasons.

McIntire's article never looks at this bigger picture. To do so would be to confront the reality that AA is driving people away who have a sincere desire to get sober (and many of whom will achieve that aim).

Letter to a columnist

2007-12-20T11:41:00.000-08:00

The letter below is by Michael Walsh, convenor of the soon-to-be-started LifeRing meeting in Victoria BC Canada. He addresses it to Sharon Kirkey, a columnist who penned an article on alcoholism read throughout Canada, that mentions only AA as a resource.

Dear Sharon,

I am happy to see your latest writings on alcohol however I am dismayed to see that the only choice you provide alcoholics is AA. I have been in recovery for six years, five of which I have been completely clean and sober. I did use AA for the first three years but the religious aspect of the program does not sit well with me and does not sit well for thousands of others. Please see how many times God is used in the steps below. You also say AA is a self-help program which it is absolutely not. The old timers of AA would read that and scoff because they know (in their AA washed minds) that you cannot do anything without God. You are seen as a powerless soul and that your best thinking got you into the rooms of AA.

I know Dr. Cunningham as well as I went through Homewood Health Center myself and was provided an excellent experience.
Sharon, I am not knocking AA right off of it’s mantle but even AA head office in NYC will tell you that their retention rate is only five percent in the first year of one’s recovery. Further, sixty percent of people who go into recovery do so without the use of AA. Bill W is quoted as saying that there are many paths to recovery.

There are many ways in which people recover and I would really like to see people who are going to write a column in which tens of thousands of people read do more research and provide more than one route. It is like Starbucks or Tim Horton’s.

Treatment facilities, drug and alcohol counselors and medical/mental health professionals are actively looking for alternatives for their clients because many do not want to go the AA route or they stop going. Any counselor should tell you that a recovery program is different for everyone and AA is definitely not for everyone. Does anyone ever look into and talk about the failure rate of AA? No!

One such viable alternative group is called LifeRing out of California. It is slowly starting to get the recognition it deserves as major treatment centers in the USA are starting to buy into it’s program. Their website is www.unhooked.com. I am about to start a meeting here in Victoria next month. Vancouver Coastal Health Authority has bought into LifeRing as of late also.

Sharon, you would be doing readers a great service by providing them with more than one choice in recovery. I will also add that Bill W and his partner both died of lung cancer due to smoking cigarettes. Bill W’s last speech showed him being rolled up in a wheel chair with oxygen tank in hand. There is so much tobacco use at AA meetings which is another reason why I do not go.

Thanks for listening and I implore and beg you to please issue a column related to my e-mail to you today. Many people will thank you for that.

Happy season to you.

Michael Walsh

310 – 283 Michigan Street

Victoria, BC

V8V 1R4

250.920.2095

Step 1 - We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable
Step 2 - Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
Step 3 - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God
Step 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
Step 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
Step 6 - Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
Step 7 - Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings
Step 8 - Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
Step 9 - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
Step 10 - Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
Step 11 - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out
Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

Empowerment in Two Minutes

2007-12-14T18:37:00.000-08:00

I sat in on a LifeRing meeting the other day with 29 people in it. That's considerably larger than the average LifeRing meeting, but it's normal for this particular group. It convenes during lunch hour at a treatment center. There's a treatment group session immediately afterward in the same room. There's no way to stretch the meeting time. Bottom line, if people are going to get their sober self empowered in this meeting, they each have an average of two minutes for it to happen.

There were times when the meeting was sparkling. The face of the person speaking was animated with feeling. People's eyes were focused on the speaker. There was quick, positive feedback. The convenor added a few choice words. The group gave the speaker an enthusiastic round of applause.

At other times the meeting was flat. The speaker's face was a mask, and their recital was unrevealing. People looked away. There was no response. There was perfunctory applause. The convenor gestured to the next person to go.

I wondered, can we define what makes a good check-in under these circumstances, when time is at a premium? Can we, as convenors, deftly intervene so that the meeting enjoys a larger proportion of the sparkling contributions, and fewer of the flat?

Here's the basic elements of a participant's check-in:

(1) Introduction. (a) Name: "My name is ___________." In many settings, this may be followed by (b) Label: "I'm an alcoholic/addict" and by (c) Time: "I have _______ days clean and sober."

(2) Story. "My week was _________."

(3) Feedback from other participants. "I had a similar experience .... (etc.)"

(4) Conclusion, and transition to next person.

Four simple elements, usually present in any check-in, no matter the length. How can we handle them so that something useful happens in an average of two minutes? Let's see.

(1) Introduction.

(a) Name. If the person forgets to say their (first) name, that's not good. The convenor or someone should ask them to say it. It's good for people to put their names out. Saying your name is a way of declaring membership in the circle, of connecting with the group dynamic. It's a friendly thing.

(b) Label. Whether a person then labels themselves ("I'm an alcoholic/addict") is optional in LifeRing. It's mandatory in some treatment settings and in many 12-step settings, but not here. The glue in LifeRing is the commitment to a common behavior -- abstinence -- and not to any particular label, diagnosis, or theory about what's wrong with us. Research suggests that on the average, people can stay clean and sober whether they label themselves or not. Moreover, in LifeRing it doesn't make any difference whether your "drug of choice" was alcohol or meth or whatever, so there's no need for people to declare whether they qualify for this meeting (alcoholic if AA, heroin addict if NA, etc.). Everybody is welcome. Bottom line, if the convenor senses that people in the meeting are labeling themselves because they think it's required of them, or because they mistakenly think they're in a 12-step meeting, it may be wise to say a few words to indicate to people that it's optional. "In our LifeRing format all we ask is that you say your name; the rest is optional." Save a few seconds; it all adds up.

(c) Time. Many treatment centers and 12-step groups require people to declare, in their introduction, how much clean and sober time they have. In LifeRing, it's definitely optional. In the particular session I observed, the treatment center's format had penetrated into and become part of the LifeRing meeting's format. Each person said their time ("I have 11 days"), and the room gave each person a round of applause for it. After a while that ritual started to feel repetitive, and the applause tapered. A person early in the hour with 5 days would get twice as much applause as a person later in the hour with 10 days. When I convene this kind of short-format meeting, I try to shift these time declarations to the end of their story. True, it's empowering to receive applause for your time. But it's much more empowering for you, and more instructive for the rest of the group, to receive applause for some specific victory you won that got you to this count of sober days. This brings us to the main element of a person's two-minute share, the content or story.

(2) Story. "My week was _________." The dullest, flattest shares here consisted of nothing but an adjective or two: "My week was fine." "My week was bad, but I made it." An adjective or a string of adjectives don't amount to a story. The person who tries to get by with this contribution is not participating. They're not revealing anything about themselves. They're not putting anything out that other people can relate to. The convenor now has to make a quick decision: is this person unclear about what's expected, or is this person refusing to participate? Everyone has a right to refuse to participate, and if that's the case, the convenor and the group have to respect it and go on to the next person. However, it's very rare for a person in a LifeRing meeting to refuse to participate. After all, we're not asking for the story of their life or their innermost secrets or their opinions about some book passage that they haven't read. We're just asking, "How was your week?" The convenor who runs into a participant who says "My week was fine" and then looks to the next person, needs to nudge a little. "So what was the finest thing that happened to you?" "What were your highlights and heartaches?"

LifeRing meetings don't revolve around the recital of life stories, but that doesn't mean the abandonment of stories as such. On the contrary, stories are the heart and soul of the check-in. "How was your week?" is precisely a request for a story.

A hundred years ago, asking for a story probably meant settling in for a half hour or more. Today, people have sat through tens of thousands of stories each told in 30 seconds or a minute. TV and radio commercials are miniature narratives that assume the audience has a limited attention span, and they probably over time generate ADHD-like symptoms in the brains of those who spend much time watching TV. Zillions of amateur videos posted on You-Tube tell their tales in less than two minutes. Bottom line: in our culture, asking people to present a story inside of two minutes or less in a LifeRing meeting is not an unreasonable request. It can be done and it's done all the time.

And what stories people tell! How was my week? My boss assigned me to ladle out the rum punch at the office party, and I did it and I didn't drink. -- I got together with my sober buddy and we watched the Raiders game and didn't drink, for the first time I can remember. -- I drove home and there were my parents in the living room smoking crack. I ran out of the house and got back in my truck and peeled out of there. -- My sister and I talked and hugged each other for the first time since my daughter killed her daughter in a car accident when she was drunk, following in my footsteps. Now that I'm sober, we're talking again. -- I have no money now, nothing at all, and I went to my mom and asked her if I could move back home, and we cried. -- The week has been a roller coaster of feelings. Sometimes I felt ecstatic, other times I thought I was going insane. -- Today is my birthday, and if I make it to bed sober it'll be my first sober birthday since middle school. -- And so on, in infinite variety.

Stories like these, which can be spun in a few sentences, have a three-dimensional vividness that many people in the meeting can resonate with. Mere adjectives -- "my week was fine"-- are barricades. Narratives told from real life are doors and windows that invite people in and create emotional relationships. I feel an emotional bond with a person who tells me a story from their week, even if nothing remotely like the same incident has happened to me; just the fact that they opened themselves up and shared it with me inclines me to view them with respect and attachment. And if I have experienced something similar, the affinity bonds can be quite strong and lasting.

In the brochure "Self-Help Is What We Do" and in other LifeRing publications, there are diagrams showing arrows going between the "S" and the "S" in two people -- reinforcing connections that strengthen the Sober Selves. It's in the telling of real-life stories that these arrows of empowerment issue out of the narrator, fly across the room, and hit their targets in the viscera of the listeners. The LifeRing slogan, "Empower Your Sober Self," has a very broad set of meanings; but in the specific context of a 30-person 60-minute meeting, the process of empowering the sober self flies on the wings of personal narratives, stories.

(3) Crosstalk. Can there be crosstalk in meetings where the average time available is two minutes? My experience is that there can be and should be. When the person has finished their story, if I am the convenor I always look around the room and ask: "Comments? Feedback?" Sometimes no one has anything to say, but often there is one hand, or two, and then more, and webs of connections get spun across the room in several directions. True, with crosstalk, the time allotted to this person may go well over two minutes; but if the topic is interesting and animates the group, that's worth doing. Other speakers will finish in a shorter time and stimulate no crosstalk at all. Two minutes is an average, not a rigid mold. We don't keep an egg timer, an oven timer, or a stopwatch with a bell. As the convenor gains experience, you develop a gut feeling for when to allow a dialogue to go on, and when to cut it off and move to the next person. Frequently the feet of the participants will tell you; if a lot of feet twitch, tap, and twist, it's time to move it.

(4) Conclusion. Psychologists have found that the opening and the ending of a presentation are the most memorable parts, and of these two, the more memorable is the ending. The speaker's vivid narrative generated flashes of sober empowerment all around, but to engrave that experience more permanently in memory, a strong and positive conclusion is necessary. It's here at the end, more than in the speaker's introductory recital of their sober time, that a solid note of applause is called for.

In a two-minute presentation, sometimes the speaker will end on a note that draws a strong audience response. Sometimes a crosstalk contributor will supply the cue for a round of applause in support of the speaker -- for example, "You WILL have a sober birthday today! I'm rooting for you!" If that doesn't happen, the convenor can do a lot of important work here with just a few words. The goal is to frame the speaker's story in empowering terms, as a sober victory. For example, to follow along with the illustrative stories outlined in an earlier paragraph:

"Shame on your boss for making you serve the rum punch. Congratulations to you for surviving that experience clean and sober! You deserve a hand!" -- "That was smart, to get a sober buddy to watch the Raiders game with! And it worked -- the Raiders won!" (Laughter). -- "That's hard, coming home to parents who are smoking crack. I would have done the same as you -- peeled out of there! Let's give him a hand!" -- "I feel really moved by how your family is coming back together thanks to your sobriety. That is so inspiring!" (Applause) -- "Moving back home is hard. But now you have a second chance, a new start. Good for you!" (Applause) -- "You stayed sober even though you were riding an emotional roller coaster. That is awesome!" (Applause) -- "You WILL stay sober on your birthday today, we're all pulling for you!" (Applause)

What is being done here? The convenor is taking the gist of the speaker's story and defining it as a sober victory, as a gain in the power of the speaker's sober self. Sometimes the speaker is aware that her story is a victory, but often she isn't. She may, in fact, begin by feeling distressed; for example, by the emotional roller-coaster ride. Someone in cross-talk may have reassured her that this is a common experience. The convenor can go further and compliment her on sticking to her sobriety despite the distress that she felt; if she can stay clean and sober through this kind of extreme experience, most likely she will do very well with time, when the emotional swings become milder, as they typically will. The convenor is reframing her story in way that builds her confidence.

Reframing for the positive works even if the speaker has just had a disastrous relapse. "I don't have any days clean and sober -- I only have hours." -- "I admire you for your decision to come back into recovery and for being here at the meeting; that wasn't easy. Let's give her a round of applause for that!"

Positive reframing is possible 99 per cent of the time, but not always. In a recent meeting I convened, one person said they were there on a DUI and just had the bad luck to be caught, but they had no problem with alcohol and considered it just another food choice. I probed, optimistically: "So, have you decided that because of the trouble drinking has got you into, you want to give abstinence a try?" The answer was, "No, I have no problem with alcohol and I intend to keep using it." My instant response: "Next person, please; how was your week?"

Note that positive reframing isn't dispensing advice ("You should ____") or otherwise telling the speaker what to do. The convenor is not playing therapist, doctor, or sponsor. All that the convenor is doing is to summarize the speaker's own story in such a way that a sober empowering element in the speaker's own story becomes more visible and more memorable, both to the speaker and to the group. The ownership of the positive element always remains with the speaker.

Ending on a positive note is, of course, the necessary platform for the group's applause. I'm a strong believer in the power of group applause for an individual's sober victories, no matter how small. I watch the faces of people who are being applauded, and most of the time, what shows is genuine happiness. Happiness about one's own recovery is the vital fuel of of progress. Moments of happiness, a few seconds long, may give people the courage to keep going for days or weeks. Sober happiness powerfully expands the sober self and shrivels the addict self inside. So, in this LifeRing meeting with 30 people in recovery (not counting the one misplaced DUI parolee), the group will applaud at least 30 times. Because frequent applause can eventually lead to fatigue, in a meeting of that size I may discourage people from mentioning their sober time at the beginning of their check-in, the usual cue for applause in this environment (see section 1 (c) above). Applauding the count of sober days is good, especially if there's nothing else of substance to applaud ("My week was fine"), but applauding a vivid short narrative is much, much more empowering, both for the speaker and for the group.

At the end of the ring, I will ask the group for one more round of applause, for everyone present, as in the usual LifeRing meeting format. Because of all this clapping, LifeRing hours with 30 people tend to sound more like a pep rally than like group therapy. No doubt, participants in smaller LifeRing meetings -- a comfortable size is 8 - 12 -- have more opportunity to explore their issues in depth. But circumstances don't always permit the small group format. Luckily, the LifeRing process is flexible and scalable. The buzz after the 30-person 60-minute meeting I convened was clear: "Great meeting!" "Really enjoyed that." "Got a lot out of it." "Glad to be here." And they come back. If we pay attention to the basics of the LifeRing process, we can deliver sober self-empowerment in two-minute packages.

I have even experienced the LifeRing format further compressed to serve rooms with 45 - 50 people inside of an hour. LifeRing convenor Henry S., who leads the Thursday evening meeting at the Oakland CA Kaiser CDRP, has honed the short format to a fine art. From down the hall, this meeting sounds like a basketball game: every minute or so, there's loud cheers and applause. It may not be a place for deep, meditative reflection, but it's sober, it's secular, and it's self-help. Moreover, it's consistently popular. As LifeRing grows, we're going to gain more and more experience with participatory formats for larger gatherings.

They found each other in chat

2007-11-25T09:49:00.000-08:00

From the convenor of a meeting in Northern CA:

The coolest thing happened at our meeting a couple of weeks ago. One Saturday morning two women who had never attemped recovery, who had never been in a chat room before both found the LifeRing website on Google and both went in the chat room on unhooked.com. They realized they both lived near [our meeting] and decided to come to the meeting and meet. That was day one for them. They have now been to three meetings and both have three weeks of sobriety and are great friends. It 's an inspiration to us all!

More Help from Professionals

2007-11-25T09:39:00.000-08:00

This email came to the LifeRing Service Center a couple of days ago:

Hello LifeRing;

I am researching LifeRing and seriously considering getting a meeting started here in ______. ... I am looking for some guidance on how to become a convenor and start a meeting. ... I have 19 months sobriety this time around, almost exclusively without a 12 step program. I'm a participant at my CDRP at Kaiser Permanente. In fact, it is my therapist who suggested looking into starting a meeting.

I am very impressed with what I've discovered so far about LifeRing. I just finished listening to LifeRing 101 on my computer. I just ordered the workbook and "How's your week" from the website. ...

Any help you can give is greatly appreciated.
[Signature]

Note the line, "it is my therapist who suggested looking into starting a meeting." A very similar thing happened a few weeks ago in another city hundreds of miles away from the above: a counselor not only suggested that the client start a LifeRing meeting but set up the room and the time slot.

Another Professional Seeks LifeRing

2007-11-25T09:17:00.000-08:00

Received yesterday at the LifeRing Service Center:

This is ___________ the owner of [Treatment Program]. I have space and would like to have an onsite LifeRing meeting on Friday evenings at our site. The ideal time frame for this meeting to start would be at 6pm and end at whatever the typical time frame is for meetings. We can however be flexible about the time if something else works better.

So, I need a facilitator and help getting it set up and listed. I will do anything you want me to do to help with this process. People being treated at our program would be encouraged to attend as well as it being open to the public. There would be no charge for the use of the space, we just want to offer the support group to our clients and the community.

Our only request would be that the room is cleaned up, materials put away, and that the building is locked up when finished.

Please let me know if this is doable and what are next steps. Thank you advance for considering us to provide this important service.

[Signed]

Choice philosophy gets boost

2007-11-07T23:51:00.001-08:00

The choice philosophy that LifeRing advocates, and that forms the core of the Recovery by Choice workbook, has received a major boost from two recent publications by well-known treatment professionals.

The first publication, the report of a 2005 recovery conference under the auspices of SAMHSA, the federal agency, contains a summary of recovery principles beginning with the important basic truth that there are many roads to recovery. An excerpt containing the entire summary is in my New Recovery blog here.

The second is a new monograph titled Recovery: Linking Addiction Treatment & Communities of Recovery: A Primer for Addiction Counselors and Recovery Coaches, by William White, MA and Ernest Kurtz, Ph.D. A PDF copy of the whole 80-page essay is here. It's published by the Addiction Technology Transfer Center, a SAMHSA project.

The Preface, by Charles Bishop and Michael Flaherty, summarizes the main point in these words:

This paper’s most important focus is on recovery and the suffering addict’s (client) needs and perspectives as the most important throughout the entire recovery process. This paper emphasizes how each person has both the responsibility for and a philosophy of choice in his/her recovery. Thus, the counselor and clinical treatment system staff become supporting partners along with a rainbow of community-based, non-professional mutual aid recovery fellowships, all working to help the addict. (emphasis added).

Anyone familiar with modern medicine may be tempted to yawn here, because the concept of patient choice and responsibility is by now entrenched and familiar there (source). But much of addiction recovery is still in the Middle Ages, so the notion that the patient has a choice in recovery -- and that this is to be recognized and supported -- is nothing less than revolutionary. What's even more significant is that this recognition comes from two heavyweight authors with solid-gold credentials in the 12-step universe. White is the author of the definitive history of addiction treatment in America, Slaying the Dragon, reviewed here; and Kurtz's Ph.D. thesis, Not God, is one of the classic texts in AA history.

The authors zero in on the subject of choice on p. 19. After a preface that takes note, without comment, of widespread allegations that the 12-step approach does not work for everyone -- a point that virtually every front-line treatment professional would readily concede -- the authors "recommend promoting a choice philosophy and monitoring each client’s ongoing responses to recovery support group participation."

The Choice Philosophy: A choice philosophy is based on the recognition of multiple pathways and styles of long-term recovery and the recognition of the right of each person to select a pathway and style of recovery that represents the individual’s personal and aspirational values. (emphasis added)

Here's what a choice philosophy would look like in the practice of a treatment center:

■ Professional counselors, recovery coaches and volunteers represent the diversity of pathways and styles of recovery.

■ Professional counselors and recovery coaches are knowledgeable about the full spectrum of religious, spiritual and secular recovery support groups and can fluently express the catalytic ideas used within each of these frameworks.

■ Professional counselors and recovery coaches are aware of patterns of co-attendance (concurrent or sequential participation in two or more recovery support structures, e.g., co-attendance at WFS and A.A. meetings, N.A. participation with later transitioning to A.A. as one’s primary recovery support structure).

■ Individuals and their families are educated about the variety of recovery experiences and the legitimacy of multiple pathways and styles of recovery.

■ Informational materials, lectures and structured exercises that people receive represent the scope of recovery support options, e.g., posting all local recovery support meeting schedules on the treatment agency website and facility bulletin boards, giving each client a wallet card with the central contact numbers of local recovery support groups, profiling local recovery support groups in agency/alumni newsletters.

■ Individual choice is respected; individuals receiving services are not demeaned or disrespected for the recovery support strategies they choose; clinical strategies involve motivational interviewing principles and techniques rather than coercion and confrontation.

■ Professional counselors and recovery coaches are encouraged to self-identify and bring to supervision negative feelings they may have about a particular pathway of recovery chosen by a client.

This is an excellent, useful list. Persons shopping for treatment programs might print it out and ask marketing reps to what extent their facility matches this picture. Patients currently enrolled in programs might use the list to advocate for reforms in the way programs are operated. Staff members could bring up points from the list at staff meetings to suggest improvements in patient services. Program administrators could circulate the list for discussion at staff retreats.

The authors go on to raise some of the central theoretical and practical issues in choice philosophy:

Choice and the Stages of Recovery: To implement a choice philosophy, addictions counselors and recovery coaches must reconcile the philosophical and therapeutic value of choice with the growing evidence of how neurological impairments can impair the choice-making abilities of individuals in active addiction and early recovery (Dackis & O’Brien, 2005). The challenge for the addictions counselor or recovery coach is distinguishing authentic choice from what A.A. calls “stinkin’ thinkin,’” what Rational Recovery calls the addictive voice or “Beast,” what Secular Organization for Sobriety refers to as the “lizard brain,” what LifeRing Secular Recovery calls the “addict self” (versus the “sober self”), and what Christian recovery groups refer to as the “voice of the Devil.” Given the dichotomy between the sober self and the addicted self, the question becomes “Who’s really choosing: Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde?” Some would frame this as separating what each client wants/needs from what his or her disease wants/needs.

One way to partially reconcile this dilemma is to view recovery as a progressive rehabilitation of the will—the power to reclaim personal choice (Smith, 2005). At a practical level, this means that the first day of detox may not be the best time to rely exclusively on client choice. Without rehabilitation of the power to choose and an encouragement of choice, we get, not sustainable recovery, but superficial treatment compliance. To effectively apply a philosophy of choice will require discretion and skill where immaturity, acute psychiatric symptoms, drug impairment and impaired ability to read social cues severely limit choice generation, choice analysis and capacity to stick with any personal resolution. In such cases, we must carefully plot a path between complete autonomy (total choice and clinical abandonment) and paternalism (no choice). Scientific confirmation of this stance is found in a study in which people with severe alcohol problems, recognizing their impaired decision-making capacities, preferred therapist—set goals in treatment; whereas those with less severe problems preferred self-set goals (Sobell, Sobell, Bogardis, Leo & Skinner, 1992).

Creating Informed Consumers: A philosophy of choice is viable only with persons who have the neurological capacity for decision-making, who believe they have the right to make their own choices and who are aware of and can evaluate available service and support options. Creating informed, assertive consumers of addiction treatment and recovery support services can be enhanced by: 1) affirming the service consumer’s right to choose, 2) distributing and reviewing consumer guides on treatment and recovery support services published by recovery advocacy organizations, 3) teaching service consumers how to recognize quality services, 4) encouraging consumers to visit service options before making a decision (versus taking whatever is offered them), and 5) defining the criteria by which the client and service specialist will know if participation in a particular group is working or not working (Bev Haberle, personal communication). Similar considerations need to be extended to educate the family members of those needing or seeking recovery.

There's a lot here, more than will fit into one blog commentary. The authors clearly see the main issues. They have framed the topic in a way that can lead to useful discussion and to therapeutically important program reforms. LifeRing convenors, who have been facilitating the practice of choice philosophy in recovery for a considerable period of time, will have much experience to contribute to this discussion. It is gratifying to those of us who believe that recovery by choice is the wave of the future that these concepts are now being understood, formulated, and endorsed by respected and learned voices in the addiction treatment profession.

LifeRing at CAADAC '07

2007-10-08T01:45:00.000-07:00

My plan was to leave home at 6 a.m. and arrive at the conference hotel when the Exhibit Hall opened at 7:30, but I overslept my PDA’s alarm and didn’t arrive at the Marriott in Rancho Cordoba, a suburb of Sacramento, until 8:30. That turned out to be fine. The volunteer at the registration desk quickly found my name tag and I as quickly found the LifeRing table in the Exhibit Hall. The exhibit tables were crammed into the hall like sardines, and there was only room for two of our three pop-up displays. Setup took only a few minutes, and – there being no one in the Exhibit Hall but other exhibitors – I dropped in on the plenary opening session in the large ballroom next door.

There, the keynote speaker, a Dr. Kevin McCauley, a former Navy surgeon now running a private addiction practice in Salt Lake City, was holding forth with a PowerPoint slide show on the disease model of addiction. CAADAC is the California Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors, and had chosen a speaker from Utah to kick off its annual event. Dr. McCauley’s talk impressed me with the positive attitude he showed toward addicted people. It was refreshing to hear a treatment professional speak of the good qualities of alcoholics and other addicts, not just of their character defects. He said, for example, that the heroin addicts he knew were “sweet, affectionate” persons, and that addicted persons generally shared character traits of great sensitivity and empathy – traits that they used addictive substances to mask and obliterate. Other aspects of Dr. McCauley’s talk impressed me less. His model of brain functions in addiction was so crude as to be a caricature. He worked the issue of sexuality for laughs like in a sit-com script for a teen audience. He delivered a number of opinions that may have been popular with many in the crowd but were blessed with little in the way of supporting evidence – for example, that author James Frey (A Million Little Pieces) was a “sociopath,” or that people who recovered without treatment were not really “alcoholics." I got the uncomfortable sensation that the doctor was catering to the lowest common denominator – an impression that was shared, it appears, by others with whom I spoke later in the conference. As a keynote presentation, to my mind, it set the bar low.

At the first coffee break I was back at the LifeRing exhibit table. The aisles between the tables were so narrow that traffic was discouraged, and if one person stopped to chat, the aisle was nearly blocked. Nevertheless, people came; and all of them were drug and alcohol counselors.

As I had done at the NAADAC and the APA conferences, I buttonholed people, saying “Let me tell you about LifeRing. LifeRing is an answer to the question, ‘What do I do with clients who are willing to give recovery a shot, but they tell you that 12-step is not their cup of tea.’ Do you have clients like that?”

Not a single person answered in the negative. Some said, “A few.” Many said, “I have a lot of those.” A few counselors said, “Practically all of them.”

“What you can do with those clients,” I continued, “is send them to LifeRing.” While listening for and responding to the customer’s questions, I gathered up a bundle of LifeRing literature and put it in their hands. The LifeRing “magazine” that we published last year was still new to nearly everyone with whom I spoke. The great majority of people who stopped at the table had not heard of LifeRing before, but it seemed to me that the minority who knew our name was a bit greater than at last years’ event in Burbank.

Very gratifying was to hear the number of enthusiastic responses to the presence of LifeRing. A program director from Bakersfield gave me her card and said her facility had available meeting rooms that we could use for a LifeRing meeting, for the asking. A Sacramento program director offered assistance in starting LifeRing meetings there. The owner of an inpatient facility on the coast near Monterey offered to host a LifeRing meeting on their site. Quite a few professionals from Southern California expressed interest in learning about future LifeRing meetings and activities in their area. Several members of the CAADAC board of directors and the organization’s Executive Director, Rhonda Messamore, stopped by the LifeRing table and spoke words of appreciation for our participation.

After the coffee break I had the good fortune to attend a workshop on “What is Recovery and How Do You Measure It” by B.J. Davis, Psy.D., Clinical Director of Strategies for Change, a large outpatient facility in Sacramento. Dr. Davis quoted extensively from published research on treatment outcomes, and supplemented the findings with research projects he had undertaken personally at his facility and in his prior academic positions. The most powerful factor in bringing about successful outcomes, he reported, was the counselor’s ability to forge a therapeutic alliance with the client. The specific counseling ideology, by contrast, was a very minor factor. Accordingly, Dr. Davis said, the counselor’s ability to empathize with and to work out a treatment plan collaboratively with the client was a key to success. The most effective treatment is that which the client is motivated to follow, whatever it may be. The use of positive reinforcement is highly effective, whereas negative reinforcement – punishment – usually fails. Dr. Davis criticized treatment strategies that rely on control. Too many counselors think that treatment is about imposing their program on the client, thus rendering the client even more powerless than before. Treatment should be about empowering the client and working collaboratively. Too many counselors are lazy; they have only one treatment plan for everyone: “get a sponsor, work the steps.” They know nothing else. What would we say to a doctor that handed out Prozac to every patient, regardless of their individual profile? We would consider it malpractice. Yet we do the same kind of thing all the time in drug abuse treatment. Counselors are well-intentioned but good intentions aren’t enough. In conclusion, Dr. Davis presented a number of instruments for measuring the Quality of Life in recovery – based on the profound truth that clients will have difficulty maintaining sobriety unless they achieve a subjectively satisfactory quality of life in their recovery.

Dr. Davis was not only a well-informed but also a powerful speaker, charismatic and humorous, who led his audience forward and upward, even if this meant entering a discomfort zone. The Association would have done well to have selected Dr. Davis as its plenary keynote speaker.

Lunch this day was a two-hour membership meeting, featuring reports by the various officers and committees. I have been a CAADAC member for several years and attended with voting rights, symbolized by a green plastic wristband. I learned among other things that CAADAC has 1,678 full members, plus about 1500 student members and about 1700 “recovery workers” (aides), and that CAADAC is one of nine competing organizations of addiction counselors in California. The highlight of the session was a report from a CAADAC-affiliated project at San Quentin prison, initiated by prisoners, designed to train the inmates as fully qualified addiction counselors on their release. Nine of the eleven inmates who took the test for CAADAC certification passed it. One of the recently released prisoners, Brian Smith, spoke briefly and received a standing ovation. When that was done, there was no time left over for membership Q and A or for floor debate on motions presented, and the session closed without anyone having the opportunity to use the green wristband symbolizing their voting rights.

I spent the afternoon in conversations with visitors at the LifeRing exhibit table and with other exhibitors. Among others, I chatted with the woman at the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs about the impact of the recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision affirming that AA/NA were religious. She was only vaguely aware of the decision. She did not believe that people were coerced into attending 12-step programs, or that they should have the right to sue if they were. She believed that secular alternatives existed everywhere, if the client asked for them. She did promise to take the LifeRing literature I gave her to her supervisor. I also ambled over and had a friendly chat with one of the fellows at the Narcotics Anonymous exhibit table. He told me that NA was able to use the 12-step program and other literature of AA free of charge, whereas all the other “Anonymous” organizations had to pay AA royalties. I explained LifeRing to him and he listened. We had a friendly chat. I cruised some of the exhibit tables representing inpatient treatment programs. One program had only four beds, yet turned a profit. Another did very well with ten beds, even at 80 per cent occupancy. Three of the larger programs occupied adjacent booths and I learned that they were owned by the same company, which owns more than 240 separate treatment facilities nationwide. I met a new hire whose sole job was marketing for one of these programs. I got the impression that there is some serious money being made in the private for-profit treatment industry, even in this difficult economy.

The next morning’s plenary presentation centered on workforce development in the addiction profession. The presenters discussed an ongoing survey of addiction workers, with considerable detail about the questions asked, but little in the way of results, as they had not yet evaluated the answers. Much of the ongoing survey dealt with addiction workers in the public sector (those working for counties, cities, and the criminal justice system). Fortunately there was time for questions. I raised my hand, was recognized, and asked what plans the Association had to help its members working in the public sector in the wake of the recent Ninth Circuit ruling that AA/NA are religious. A counselor in the public sector who gives a client only the choice of “get-a-sponsor-work-the-steps or go to jail” can be sued. What is being done to make secular treatment options and secular support group options more widely available?

After a few clarifying exchanges -- the speaker was not familiar with the decision – the reply was denial that people are coerced into 12-step programs. The speaker thought that secular treatment alternatives were available practically everywhere. He did, however, promise to give the topic further study.

I had unusually heavy traffic at the LifeRing table immediately afterward from people thanking me for asking that question and expressing their frustration at the speaker’s denial that 12-step coercion occurs. It occurs all the time. People shook my hand and smilingly called me a troublemaker, sh*t-stirrer, and similar compliments.

Minutes later the hairy beast was in full evidence. I attended a workshop on “Therapy in Conjunction with Adult Drug Court” – Drug Court being one of the main settings where clients risk being coerced into 12-step programs – and the presenter provided a five-page handout containing on its last page a copy of the 12 steps.

During an early question break, I asked: “I see from your handout that working the 12 steps is part of your Drug Court treatment program.” -- “Yes, that’s right.” -- “And if the client is not compliant with the treatment program, they go to jail, correct?” -- “Yes, that’s right.”

I then explained the Ninth Circuit decision in a few words. The speaker had apparently not heard of it, and manifested some trouble wrapping his mind around the concept of client choice, but with some prompting from others in the audience, he eventually got it. He then retreated into the same denial as I had seen earlier. “Oh well, if the client brings in some other program they want to do, if they’re not just playing games, the court evaluators will certainly look at it.” And, “the county has secular programs available.”

A woman behind me muttered something hostile about “judges legislating from the bench,” and the session showed signs of flying off the rails, but I backed off and the speaker resumed the droning exposition of his counseling approach. After a while I had to leave or risk falling off my chair with boredom. In retrospect I blame myself for not making a bigger fuss over the issue; it might have been a healthy thing, a spur to positive change, not to mention a relief from tedium, for this workshop to blow up in a floor fight over the First Amendment issue.

An excellent workshop followed lunch, titled “The Ethical Issues of Nicotine Use by Care Providers.” The presenter, Steve Sarian, is director of the U.S. Navy’s Drug and Alcohol Counselor School, an ordained Buddhist priest, and a hospice chaplain. He conducted the session in a highly interactive way, which made for a lively time. Sarian was eloquent in showing that nicotine is a mood-altering addictive drug, and that counselors in addiction treatment programs face ethical issues if they are nicotine users. He also cited research showing that alcoholic smokers are more successful in achieving durable abstinence from alcohol if they also quit smoking. Sarian used a light touch in outlining the issues surrounding nicotine use, an approach that was highly effective in stimulating participation and mental processing in the audience. I gave him very high marks.

After a final afternoon session at the LifeRing exhibit table, during which I sold the remainder of the workbooks I had brought, I packed up the displays, left a few brochures and magazines on the table for tomorrow’s session, and hit the road. The big awards dinner in the evening, if it was anything like last year’s, was eminently missable – a round of Good Ole Boys giving each other wall ornaments. The conference program had half a day to run on Sunday, but traffic at the exhibit tables typically would be very light, and several other exhibitors were also packing as I left.

In looking back over this experience, several thoughts occur to me.

(1) It was good to be able to combine the role of exhibitor with the role of meeting participant. Many of the other exhibitors merely sat in the cramped exhibit hall talking to one another or playing games on their PDAs between coffee breaks. Boring. By participating in the workshops I learned things, and I was able on a couple of occasions to ask questions and to raise issues that will in the long term help LifeRing to penetrate the secular market niche where we belong. Being an active participant was also a lot more fun.
(2) The CAADAC organization has a long way to go before it becomes an effective advocate for the addiction profession. Its main problem is that its wheels are stuck in the 12-step rut. Content-wise, the 12-step approach is dead. It cannot be developed further. One can only repeat it as an article of faith, over and over, like a Nepalese prayer wheel. Scientific progress on this basis is an oxymoron. Twelve-step doctrine may be a viable foundation for a lay priesthood, but not for a modern healing profession. So long as this religious doctrine remains the core teaching of the profession, parity with the medical healing professions, which CAADAC so fervently seeks, can never be achieved. Moreover, the constant influx of 12-step recruits possessed of nothing but their personal experience, and willing to work as counselors for the minimum wage or less, means that a general elevation of salaries and benefits, so crucial to professional workforce development, will remain a Sisyphean effort. In order to advance, the association must take a firm and clear stand that personal experience with the 12-step approach is insufficient qualification for a professional. The organization must actively learn, teach, own, and promote secular alternatives, or it will die a lingering death.
(3) The national organization, NAADAC, is probably no less an alter ego of AA than is CAADAC. In both organizations, in any session, if you say “Hi, I’m Joe, I’m an alcoholic,” most people in the room will reflexively respond, “Hi, Joe.” But the eyes are a bit more open and the brains have been working a bit harder in the national group. So, for example, in the national’s conference program in Nashville, the 12-step meetings at the start and/or end of the day were labeled “Optional.” The CAADAC program lists them without that qualifier. NAADAC’s headline speaker was Carlo DiClemente, speaking on Motivational Interviewing – a secular approach that has little in common with 12-step but much in the way of helpful insights for treating addictions. CAADAC’s choice of the doctor from Utah, McCauley, as keynoter, tended to massage the soft belly of the status quo instead of kicking its hind end forward, which is what needs to happen. The NAADAC conference program had only one workshop specifically devoted to a 12-step issue, and that one was canceled. The CAADAC program was larded with pablum for the faithful: “The Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps,” “A Musical Journey Through the Twelve Steps,” “Spirituality in Recovery” (by Father John), and others; and even where the Step approach was not in the workshop title, it was frequently present in the content, as in the Drug Court program. On balance, therefore, my feeling is that CAADAC’s continued affiliation with NAADAC is probably a good thing to the extent that the more advanced thinking of the national group may be able to pull the local organization forward.
(4) Virtually all the people I met both in CAADAC and NAADAC are sincere, well intentioned, hard working, and approachable. When I first entered these halls a year ago in Burbank I felt apprehensive, as if in potentially hostile territory. I no longer feel that way. These are good people and they can be talked to. LifeRing should definitely continue to participate in these organizations. As more and more of our members become treatment professionals themselves, they should be active in these groups and, in an appropriate situation, play leadership roles. Although there are people in these groups who have tunnel vision, most participants subscribe to the philosophy “whatever works,” and if we can make our aims and methods clear to them, they will be powerfully helpful to us in giving their clients the option of attending LifeRing support groups if they so choose.

-- Marty N. 10/7/07