New LifeRing Canada Website

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.

Even the diehards long for something ...

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.

The Recovery Skills Format

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.

Get well soon, John G.!

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.

Letter to a columnist

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