From Little Acorns Grow ...

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!

Growing in Dublin

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.

LifeRing at St. Patrick's Hospital, Dublin

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.

All the libraries in Dublin

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.

LifeRing in Ireland

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.