Denver (Finale)

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

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)

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)

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!

How LifeRing Works

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

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.  

LifeRing in 2010 and Beyond

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

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.

Wants Meeting in Bend OR

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Great letter from Eugene OR

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

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

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

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

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

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