I'm in the early stages of organizing LifeRing Toronto--our fourth meeting is tonight--and I've been wondering what to do next.
Everyone who has contacted LifeRing Toronto (9 or 10 people so far) has located us through www.unhooked.com, which they found through a web search site such as Google. Six of these contacts have showed up at our meetings, and we've already got a small, fairly cohesive group. I think it helps that I created a local web site, www.liferingtoronto.ipfox.com , with the generous assistance of Richard Blumberg of LSR in Cincinnati. We've had one walk-in through a visit to the local web site.
I've started a closed email group, liferingtoronto@yahoogroups.com , for discussion of local issues and the continuation of meeting discussions. I think this is helping keep the group together.
I'm still getting twice-weekly counselling at a major addiction treatment centre, the Addiction Research Foundation division of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). I've discussed LifeRing with three counsellors there, and two of them showed some enthusiasm. One says she has referred clients to LifeRing Toronto, but none of these have found our meeting yet.
Despite modest results so far, I like this bottom-up approach because it avoids the possibility of institutional restrictions on non-AA self-help referrals. There are no such restrictions right now in Toronto because AA has a local monopoly, apart from us! AA is quite entrenched here, though, and I've been warned about the possibility of reactionary moves by the AA-dominated CAMH board and by similar hospital boards.
The next step for me is to write physicians and counsellors in the general vicinity of the meeting location. I'll include just a covering letter and some pamphlets. If I get a bite, I'll send the LSR treatment professionals' booklet and ask for a face-to-face discussion.
I plan to post some pamphlets on the University of Toronto campus, right next door to our meeting location. Our host, Cecil Community Centre, plans to promote us through their printed handouts and an ad in the Kensington neighbourhood newspaper. I'm not sure what to do about seeking publicity in the major media--if we got credibility through that approach it might help our mailings, but I don't know if media exposure would actually bring in new members.
If anyone reading this has an idea for me, I'm all ears.
Lastly, I'd like to say that establishing a local LSR group has been the perfect therapy for my addiction.
-- Geoff Robertson