The 2006 LifeRing Congress in Review

Friday evening March 24
All day Saturday March 25
Sunday morning March 26
Berkeley, California

The 2006 LifeRing Congress Saturday Workshops in Review

by Katie Frohmberg 

Keynote:  What Really Works in Treatment and Why Lifering is Destined for Success.

Keynote Speaker Catherine Trestrail, CDP, MSW, ACSW is Founder and Director of A Positive Alternative which opened in 1990 under the name “Women’s Recovery Center” in Seattle.  Catherine’s work in the mental health and addictions field has consistently been on the leading edge in the Northwest.  She has pioneered the integration of psychological research on addictions with the clinical format of a State Certified Outpatient Program.  For over twenty years, Catherine has advocated gender specific treatment; providing a structured, skills- and insight-based approach to recovery from addictions.  Her approach has been consistently to focus on client strengths and individuality in a practical, hopeful, compassionate, and positive manner.

Catherine hosts a Lifering meeting in Seattle and uses the Workbook Recovery by Choice in her program.  The men’s program is called the Men’s Recovery Program.  The women’s is called Women’s Recovery Center.  Both are non-12 step in approach.

Over the years, Catherine has always tried to focus on “What makes treatment work?”.  Treatment is hard to implement on a large scale.  People need to be treated as individuals with words that match their life experience.  A small program encourages a sense of empowerment and involvement.  She started with a women-only group because research in the 1970’s showed that women always do better in women-only groups no matter what the context.  Men also do well in separate meetings.

She likes Lifering because it is open-ended and non-dogmatic.  Lifering says that you are in charge of your own life and recovery.  You are the expert and you need to be the problem solver.  Treatment professionals can help immensely to get the process started. 

Frequently treatment program staff only have experience in a 12-step program and can only speak from that experience.  A well-trained staff has learned techniques in undergraduate and graduate school – methods of emotional regulation, methods of cognitive therapy.  This education teaches the staff how to think differently instead of falling back on their own experience.

Research shows that patients need choice, whatever methodology is chosen.  Choice gives a higher probability of success.  Addicts hate to be told what to do and are frequently suspicious of authority and “the system”.  This attitude has been labeled as ‘resistance’ in the treatment field.  There is no one and only way to recovery whether in addiction or cancer.

Lifering has no assumptions that you did something wrong or you need to be ashamed of.  Lifering provides a forum where you can talk about what’s going on in your own life.  The group consists of intelligent, creative and courageous people who will discuss your life and problems with you.  Lifering teaches that you’ll come up with your own solutions and they will work.

Many treatment programs begin their first day by saying “out of 100, only 4 will remain sober after this program”.  What a welcome to treatment and what a way to discourage patients!!  This sad statement is not true, the vast majority of people who are in recovery do it by themselves, do it without any treatment at all.  They are using common sense, problem solving skills and presenting themselves to the world as a non-drinker and users, same as Lifering.  Her program doesn’t think there’s any advantage in labeling yourself “alcoholic” or “addict” unless the patient feels they need to do so. 

When someone stops using, he/she needs to make it a mission to find things that have meaning in their life and to practice those things every day.  Some times it’s contra dancing, sometimes it’s volunteering.  Some people have no idea what to do but the program encourages them to start somewhere.  You need to focus on making your life satisfying as a non-drinker.  If you don’t, it creates the kind of thoughts that lead to relapse. 

How Lifering Works, the Chalk Talk.

Marty N., Lifering CEO, gave his famous Chalk Talk about the healing process at work in the Lifering meeting format.  He coached Congress participants in learning and adapting this presentation for their own audiences.  A DVD of this presentation will be available from the Lifering web site when ready. 

As he approached recovery, Marty explained that he had an image in his head.  There were two Marty’s at war with each other, the Sober person and the Addicted person.  When he quit, the addicted person was in charge and the sober person was pushed down in some out of the way place.  The longer he was sober, the longer the sober person had to become dominant and push down the addicted person.  When addicted, the interactions of addicted persons to addicted persons reinforces the addicted behavior.  When sober, the interactions of sober people to sober people reinforces the sober behavior.  This process is depicted as a circle with an Addicted A larger than the Sober S.  In recovery, the Sober S is larger than the Addicted A.  This process has become one of the major slogans of Lifering – Empower Your Sober Self. 

Quality Time: What Makes a Good Lifering Meeting?

Panelists included Deanna H. (Vallejo), Linda G. (Pleasanton), Mark L. (Walnut Creek), Henry C. (San Francisco), and Chet G. (Oakland), Moderator.  All are experienced Lifering convenors who shared their experiences and philosophies about making a Lifering hour a quality recovery experience for all participants.

Discussion threads included:

.  Time Management.  As convenor, be sure that every person in the room has a chance to speak, even if they decide to pass. 

.  When meetings get too large.  Any meeting with more than 12-14 people tends to be too big for everyone to have a chance to speak and for good conversation to take place.  The optimum solution is to have an extra room with an extra convenor so that the meeting can be split in two.  Henry moderates a meeting which can have as many as 50 people with no extra convenor to split the meeting.  He has decided to make that large meeting a place where participants feel they are moving on to a better part of their life and that the meeting experience should involve laughter and happiness.  He wants participants to know that they can relapse and come back to his meeting without feeling discouraged or ashamed. 

.  How to get participants to focus on other attendees and not on the convenor?

Chet pointed out that it is natural for participants to want to address the person “in charge” at the meeting.  He finds that more meaningful cross-talk takes place when the speaker is focusing on other attendees, not the convenor.  The intention is not one-on-one connections, but many-to-many.  Chet accomplishes this by not giving eye contact to the speaker.  Eventually, the speaker will focus on another set of eyes and cross-talk starts to happen.

.  “I” statements instead of “should” statements.

An important part of Lifering meeting culture is to avoid dogmatic prescriptions about how to do it right.  The only requirement for coming to a Lifering meeting is a desire to be clean and sober.  Therefore, participants do not tell other participants that they “should” do something to stay clean, but rather say what worked for them in the form of “I” statements.  This allows the door to stay open to all kinds of recovery strategies.

Deanna discussed how to involve newcomers in the meeting.  She makes sure that the newcomer receives a set of brochures and especially a schedule before they leave.  She gives them a 5 minute introduction to Lifering so they know what the basic philosophies are, or she asks another attendee to do so.  Most importantly, she emphasizes that other group members are there to listen.  In early recovery, this can be terribly important.  She also points out that once a participant has gotten what they need for their recovery, it’s time for them to pay back by offering themselves for other people in early recovery, by helping Lifering as a convenor or in other ways.

Mark L. ended the session with the comment that there’s a remarkable culture which arises in Lifering meetings. The meetings are

• Thoughtful

• Non-dogmatic

• Goal oriented

These qualities are passed on from meeting to meeting and from person to person in a self-propagating manner.

Starting a New Lifering Meeting.

Panelists included Tim M. (Los Angeles), Ken (Martinez), Jack M. (Vancouver BC), and Katie F. (Berkeley), moderator.  Convenors with experience starting new meetings tell how they did it.

Tim M. started a meeting in Hollywood, CA when he moved there from San Francisco.  First, he wanted a meeting space where 12-step meetings and recovery is provided.  He found it at the Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender center in Los Angeles called The Village.  His room is right near the bathroom and a chair is just outside his room with a stack of brochures on it.  People who come and go to the bathrooms can’t fail to see the brochures.  They are listed in the LGBT newsletter and most come through word of mouth or their therapist.  At his time slot he is competing with NA, AA and CA.  He has received lots of good support from the Service Center.  They did 6 mailings to all therapists and treatment centers in the Los Angeles County area.  This has raised the attendance.  He is planning on a second Lifering meeting at Kaiser.  He feels that by the time there is a second or third meeting in the area, they begin to feed off of each other and continue to grow.  One audience participant suggested a Public Relations campaign to demystify the secular approach.

Jack M. from Vancouver, BC reported that he started to question AA after attending for about 10 years.  He later read books which were highly critical of AA.  Eventually he found Lifering on the computer.  For his last 15 years before retirement, he was in charge of alcohol recovery meetings for the Canadian Railroad.

To start his meeting(s), he got a small bit of startup money.  This enabled him to pay rent for a room and to run an ad in the paper.  Having a couple of allies is also very important.  He wanted to concentrate on the metropolitan Vancouver area and the ad cost him $500 per month.  Since he didn’t have any experienced convenors, he had to do it all himself; you have to work on being independent.

Jack feels that it is important to continue to get the word out.  In his experience, Lifering is the best alternative by far.

Ken in Martinez, CA started his new meeting 4 months ago.  He had been attending the Vallejo meeting and after four meetings, he started thinking about starting a meeting on his own.  Kaiser’s Chemical Dependency Recovery Program develops closeness among attendees but the end is abrupt and those in recovery need to maintain contact.

The Martinez meeting supports a rotating convenorship, this is a great training ground for new convenors.  Further, co-convenorship is a great help and avoids the feeling that the meeting is “yours”.  Fortunately, convening is not a lifelong commitment.  You can turn it over to someone else after 6 months and move to start another new meeting. 

Online Recovery: A Cinderella Story?

Lifering participants who have found their recovery support only or mainly via the Internet, and experienced Lifering chat hosts, email participants, and other online activists discuss the why and how of online recovery.  Presenters included Dan K (Illinois), Marty N. (Oakland CA),  and Craig W (Seattle), LSRsafe listmeister and moderator.

The moderator said he has used online support as of 2001, he wanted an alternative to AA.  He had looked at the Big Book and didn’t like it.  He lives in a small town and there’s no anonymity.  He joined LSRMail while he was still drinking, he faded away for a while but kept in touch with a few people.  He rejoined after a year and succeeded in quitting completely.

How do email lists work?  The server (in this case groups.yahoo.com) maintains a list of those wishing to participate.  One email sent to the server gets broadcast to all list members who then have a chance to respond or post their own message.  LSRMail can have 30-40 messages per day, a time investment equivalent to one face-to-face meeting.

Craig feels that you can be much more expressive and honest with a keyboard than you can in a face-to-face meeting.  You can carefully choose your words.  He is someone who gets overwhelmed by too much information in a face-to-face meeting.  The level of discourse is higher because people are thinking about what they say.  Yes, you lose the warmth of a human voice, but there are compensations.  Messages which are dominating and off-topic can be skipped, your sober self can seek out other sober selves.  You can contact people off list and pursue their friendships.  In an email list, shy and isolated people can be released of their social phobia.  Mail can be read any time of the day or night or when feeling a craving.  Even those reading messages without participating can benefit.

Craig says he is thinking of setting up a pre-quitter’s group.

Dan K. is the LifeRing Chat Coordinator.  His vision is to give people lots of recovery choices.  He’d like to see chats organized by state and then create local groups which have a face-to-face component.  These, then, become online feeders into face-to-face meetings.

There was a recent column in Newsweek by Anna Quinlan discussing online groups.  She points out that face-to-face meetings have a deterrent to bad behavior, the fact that you are facing each other.  It is easy in an online relationship to be mean without consequences. 

Marty commented that there is a continual tension between face-to-face and online, but that both groups are good for each other.  Ideally people should participate in both types of meetings.  The two formats cater to “whatever works for you”, and accommodates different learning styles.  In a chat, you get to know people from around the world and can follow that up with meeting them in person.

A very good source book to review is:  Online Counseling: A Handbook for Mental Health Professionals (Practical Resources for the Mental Health Professional) by Ron Kraus, Jason Zack and George Stricker.  2006, Elsevier Publishing.