Name Change

Name Change: Press Release | History and Discussion

San Francisco Bay Area SOS Chapter
Becomes LifeRing Secular Recovery

By Marty N.

Under the gun of a court order, the San Francisco Bay Area SOS chapter at an intergroup meeting on May 23, 1999, officially changed its name to LifeRing Secular Recovery (LSR).

The change was made under legal duress. A federal district court in San Francisco ordered SOS founder Jim Christopher's SOS International Clearinghouse and the Northern California meetings that identify with Christopher and the Clearinghouse to cease to use the names "Secular Organizations for Sobriety" or "SOS" or anything confusingly similar in Northern California. Christopher and area convenors in April 1999 received letters from the Howard Rice law firm in San Francisco threatening them with prosecution for contempt of court if they continued to use the names here.

The court order, according to the law firm, also restricts use of the names "Secular Organizations for Sobriety" and "SOS" on the unhooked.com web site, and imposes restrictions on distribution of the LifeRing Press publication "Sobriety Handbook: The SOS Way, an Introduction to Secular Organizations for Sobriety," among other limitations.

SOS meetings in Southern California and in other areas of the country were not immediately affected by the order.

The court order creates an unusual situation where the member groups of the international SOS network are known by two different names, LifeRing Secular Recovery in Northern California and SOS in the rest of the world. The Northern California chapter -- consisting at this time entirely of the San Francisco Bay Area groups -- contains the largest cluster of groups in the international network; it is the only area at this time where meetings are held seven days a week. Both LifeRing Press and the unhooked.com web site are based in this region.

The LifeRing Secular Recovery meetings will operate under the legal umbrella of LifeRing Inc., which also operates LifeRing Press. LifeRing Inc. is a California nonprofit corporation with a board of directors and an advisory board composed of members of SOS / LSR groups from around the country. The lifering logo and the words LifeRing Press are registered trademarks of LifeRing Inc. LifeRing Inc. has already applied to register the trademark LifeRing Secular Recovery.

The May 23 intergroup meeting also established an LSR Service Center (SC) to create and distribute meeting schedules, brochures and other literature for the use of LifeRing Secular Recovery meetings. The SC will share office space with LifeRing Press for the time being. The member groups will also commence regular intergroup business meetings on dates to be announced.

[Reprinted from www.unhooked.com 5/23/99]

History and Discussion

(6/12/99)

LifeRing Secular Recovery (LSR) was born officially on May 23, 1999, at an intergroup meeting of San Francisco Bay Area SOS groups. Meeting on a sunny afternoon on the back deck of a members' home in Albany, the participants understood that life had handed them a lemon, and they resolved to make lemonade. The lemon was a court decision that bars Jim Christopher, founder of SOS, and the SOS International Clearinghouse, and the local groups, or anyone considered to be part of them, from using the names SOS or Secular Organizations for Sobriety or anything similar in Northern California. LifeRing Secular Recovery is the lemonade.

This was a name change made under legal pressure, not a schism. Therefore, LifeRing Secular Recovery continues to be philosophically aligned with the SOS International Clearinghouse in Los Angeles and SOS founder James Christopher, and continues to be a member group of the international SOS network, such as it is, as before. Its philosophy continues to be abstinence, secularity, and self-help, as described in the Sobriety Handbook published by LifeRing Press.

Although an equal member, LSR will occupy a special place in SOS by virtue of having its own name. But then the San Francisco Bay Area chapter has long played a role of some distinction in SOS:

It was the host city for the first National SOS Convention in 1989.
It has since 1990 been the largest chapter in terms of the number of member groups. It currently has four times as many meetings as the Los Angeles chapter, where SOS originated.
It was the first in SOS to hold intergroup meetings.
It was the first to form a regional intergroup organization and to incorporate (1991).
It was the first to suffer a split over the abstinence issue, and to draw the lessons of that experience (1992-).
It was the first to publish its own local newsletters (1992-).
It was the first to launch its own speaker's bureau (1996).
It was the first to launch its own web site (www.unhooked.com, June 1996).
It is home to LifeRing Press, publisher of Sobriety Handbook: The SOS Way (1997-).
It is the first chapter to host and organize an international convention on its own (Sept. 11-12 1999).
It enjoys excellent relations with major substance abuse treatment providers.
It is currently the only chapter in the world where a person can attend a meeting seven days a week.

Thus, although the seeds of SOS first germinated in Los Angeles, they have sprouted and grown most vigorously so far (along with the weeds!) in Northern California. The SF Bay Area SOS groups that are now LSR represent collectively not only the largest but also the most organizationally mature cluster within the SOS network.

In selecting the LifeRing name, the SF Bay Area groups showed a keen sense of the practical. The LifeRing logo and name had already enjoyed more than two years of exposure in close association with SOS on the unhooked.com web site and in connection with publication of the Sobriety Handbook. All the scut work that new organizations need to do -- incorporation, bylaws, boards, officers, tax exemption, trademark registration, bank account, bulk mail permit, phone, fax, web site, and the rest -- were already done in the form of LifeRing Inc., which operates LifeRing Press.

Not only practicality, but poetry sustained this choice. The lifering continues the nautical theme of SOS. While SOS is the internationally recognized call of distress, the lifering is an internationally recognized positive response to that call. The familiar red and white lifering is known the world over as a symbol of help. What better metaphor for a recovery support group?

It is a tribute to the maturity of this chapter that the name change has not demoralized but rather invigorated the groups. Meeting attendance is up. Intergroup communications have improved. Treatment professionals are sympathetic. The first meeting schedule under the new name is out, and the first piece of LSR literature (a brochure titled "Secular is Our Middle Name") is also out. It will be followed by others. The LSR organization has the resources to provide itself in time with most every tool and service that SOS formerly supplied.

It remains to be seen whether the converse is also true. Many people don't realize yet that this name change will pose problems for SOS at large. Three services currently provided to SOS at large originate in the San Francisco Bay Area. One is the www.unhooked.com web site. The second is the Sobriety Handbook. The third is the convention. All will undergo significant changes.

The unhooked.com web site can no longer play the role of unofficial web 'zine of SOS. Unhooked.com now returns to its roots and becomes the web site of LifeRing Secular Recovery. Of course, the content will change very little. It will continue to carry news of meetings outside of Northern California, for example. But one of the site's most important service functions, that of presenting the organizational name to the public, has to switch from SOS to LifeRing Secular Recovery. The content is the same, but it comes in a new label. See Unhooked Enters Fourth Year.

LifeRing Press stands before a similar transition as regards its currently sole publication: "Sobriety Handbook: The SOS Way, An Introduction to Secular Organizations for Sobriety / Save Our Selves." The book cannot be distributed under that title in Northern California past the end of 1999. Not only the title but numerous pages of the body text are "banned in Northern California." What the second edition will look like remains to be seen. But this much seems clear: it won't have "SOS" in the title. It won't have "SOS" in the chapter headings. And it won't have a chapter on how to start "SOS" meetings. The choices are a generic handbook of an unnameable organization, or a handbook of LifeRing Secular Recovery, or two handbooks, or none.

The '99 convention is easier; it's a once-a-year event. To change its name this once from SOS Convention to Secular Recovery Convention was a no-brainer. But this is not a long-term solution. An organization deserves and needs a convention held under its own name. Therefore, in coming years either the convention will become an LSR convention or some other chapter will have to provide the service of hosting, financing and organizing it. Or there won't be one.

The fact which all SOS members at large ought to ponder is that the SOS name has had a leg sawn off. The court decision is like a trade embargo severing two parts of our realm. We either have to produce two versions of everything, or some of us -- in some cases all of us -- will have to go without.

In sum, the recent court decision was a lemon not only for the San Francisco Bay Area but for SOS at large. The impact has yet to hit the rest of the organization. When it does, don't despair. Make lemonade.

-- Marty N. 6/12/99

Name Change: Press Release | History and Discussion