LifeRing Secular Recovery
LifeRing Secular Recovery is a secular, non-profit organization providing peer-run addiction recovery groups. The organization provides support and assistance to people seeking to recover from alcohol and drug addiction, and also assists partners, family members and friends of addicts or alcoholics. It is an abstinence-based recovery program with three fundamental principles: sobriety, secularity and self-empowerment. The motto of LifeRing is "empower your sober self."
LifeRing originated in California in 1997 as LifeRing Press, a publishing company separate from its parent organization, Secular Organizations for Sobriety. It incorporated officially in 1999 under its present name, and is no longer affiliated with SOS. LifeRing holds face-to-face meetings in the United States, Canada and Europe, and also supports online meetings, chat rooms, and e-mail support groups. Although the organization is non-religious, it caters to people of all faiths or none, and around a quarter of LifeRing members say they attend some form of religious group. Group participants are encouraged to tailor their program to their own needs and circumstances. Each member is free to incorporate ideas from any source they find useful, such as materials from other addiction recovery groups, including religious-supported approaches like that used by Alcoholics Anonymous. LifeRing is a secular alternative to AA.
History
LifeRing was founded in 1997 as LifeRing Press, a publishing company, as an outgrowth out of the northern California branch of Secular Organizations for Sobriety. Martin Nicolaus was the founder and CEO in 1997, a position he held until 2010 when Craig Whalley took over as president. The LifeRing service center is located in Hayward, California. In 1999, following a meeting of regional representatives, it became LifeRing Secular Recovery, and in 2001 it held its first constitutional congress. The organization holds an annual congress each year where board members are elected. LifeRing is non-profit making and raises all its funds from the sale of books and merchandise, collections at meetings and by donations; although remaining broadly similar in outlook, LifeRing is no longer affiliated with SOS.Disaffiliation from Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS)
By 1990, autonomous SOS groups had formed in Northern California. In January 1991 those groups incorporated as SOS West Secular Organizations for Sobriety, Inc., while a separate New York nonprofit, Secular Organizations for Sobriety, Inc., was incorporated in February of the same year. The New York nonprofit, SOS, Inc., was affiliated with the Council for Secular Humanism, which at the time was known as the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism. In 1994, SOS, Inc., sued SOS West alleging trademark infringement. The United States District Court for the Northern District of California found that SOS West and its predecessors had prior use of “Secular Organizations for Sobriety”/“SOS” in Northern California and enjoined SOS, Inc. from using that name and initialism in that region. Further, the judge required that if SOS, Inc. advertised or solicited donations in Northern California using the “SOS” name, it had to include a clear disclaimer stating that the local SOS there is a separate group and clarifying that SOS West is not affiliated with CODESH. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed with the regional ruling, but sent the case back to the trial judge to decide whether SOS, Inc.’s federal trademark on “Secular Organizations for Sobriety” should be canceled. In both the district court and on appeal, SOS West prevailed regarding its right to use “SOS” in Northern California—no court required it to change names. Nevertheless, the group chose to rebrand for clarity and future nationwide growth, adopting the LifeRing Secular Recovery name beginning in 1999.Professional recognition
LifeRing has been represented by speakers at professional conferences of organizations including the American Psychological Association, the Association of Addiction Professionals, the California Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors, Multiple Pathways of Recovery Conference, and FtBConscience 2. Further research is needed in order for it to be incorporated into a professional clinical setting, as most of the data available prior to the 2016 study was anecdotal in nature. In the mid-1990s, high-profile cases held that requiring individuals who have been mandated to undergo drug or alcohol rehabilitation to attend a program with religious content is impermissible coercion under the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution, and thus secular alternatives are needed. Consequently, it has been acknowledged that there is a pressing need for professional recognition of secular groups such as SMART and LifeRing which may encourage them to become more mainstream and widespread.Methodology
The LifeRing philosophy is expressed in three principles, known as the 3-S philosophy: Sobriety, Secularity, and Self empowerment. Sobriety is defined as abstinence from alcohol and addictive drugs unless used as directed by a physician as a legitimate medical treatment. The principle of Self-Empowerment encourages each member to develop his or her own program of recovery. Unlike twelve-step programs, members do not have sponsors, but are encouraged to help each other. In order to participate the ethos is summarized as:In line with the principle of Secularity, LifeRing meetings do not open with prayers and members are not encouraged to believe in a Higher Power. There is no twelve-step program as with other programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. LifeRing puts forward the idea that sobriety can be achieved through a personal recovery program and peer support. However, religious faith is not discouraged or disrespected, and a membership survey showed that around one-quarter of LifeRing members also attend some form of religious group.
LifeRing encourages each participant to tailor an approach to maintaining abstinence from addictive drugs or alcohol to his or her own needs and experiences. Members are free to incorporate ideas from any source they find useful, including other addiction recovery groups. Meetings often take place in the locations also used by twelve-step recovery groups. LifeRing encourages members to use relapses as learning experiences and discourages admonishing members for relapsing. Members are encouraged to see inside them a sober self and an addict self which are fighting for dominance, one side is trying to be sober and well, the other is obsessed with the drug and wants to keep drinking or using. It has been reported that attending meetings provides a good place for the sober self to learn from and be strengthened by the other sober voices there.
Meetings are run by volunteer peers, known as 'convenors', not led by professionals, and members are allowed to give each other feedback during them. Members are encouraged to raise their hands when appropriate to address and answer another member to offer support or comment while the meeting is in progress. While the meetings online and face-to-face are informal there are some basic rules: Members should be clean and sober if they want to speak at a meeting, no religion, politics or demeaning others' attempts to achieve sobriety is allowed, members must stay respectful of one another, and no 'drunkalogues'. Despite the secular nature of LifeRing a 2013 membership survey showed that just over a quarter of members attend some form of church or other place of worship, a drop from 40% in 2005.
LifeRing's approach has been described as "a homespun, rather than an academic, product" which comes within the discipline of cognitive behavioral therapy. It is influenced by psychologists such as Carl Rogers and Albert Bandura, and has been compared to William Glasser's choice theory which is based on the idea that past relationships are influential on behavior and addictive behaviors are symptomatic of unconscious psychological needs, and Marsha M. Linehan's dialectical behavior therapy which focuses on learning the triggers to certain types of destructive behavior.