A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD:
THE SATURDAY MORNING LIFERING MEETINGS AT OAKLAND KAISER CDRP
Editor's note: It is commonplace to find 12-Step meetings more or less integrated into a substance abuse treatment program. But until recently, we had little if any experience with facilitating our secular meetings in a treatment environment. In April, 1999, Bill S. started one such meeting at the invitation of the staff of the Chemical Dependency Recovery Program of the Kaiser Permanente HMO in Oakland, CA. The treatment staff wanted to be sure that the participants in the Saturday session of the facility's 14-day Early Recovery Program attended support group meetings. Toward that end, staff created a slot for required meeting attendance in the Saturday morning schedule between 10 and 11. They invited the 12-Step programs and also LifeRing (then SOS) to set up meetings in that time slot in the facility's numerous group rooms. Bill S. responded immediately and was ready to go on Day 1, but the 12-Step programs were slower to respond, so for several weeks Bill had the whole program group coming to his meeting. I looked in on this historical novelty -- the only mandatory SOS meeting anywhere in the world -- and was impressed by the spirit of freedom, gentleness, and openness that Bill maintained there. Eventually the 12-Step groups did mount their own meetings in the same time slot in the same facility, patients got a choice where to go, and attendance at our meeting dropped to only about 15. But, as Bill recounts, attendance gradually picked up again and recently our meeting spilled over into a second room. There is a vibrancy and energy to these meetings that needs to be seen to be believed.
I'll let Bill tell the story, but I did want to make four brief observations about this development. First, and most important, these LifeRing meetings operate as broadly based self-help recovery support meetings. They are not marginal huddles of malcontents grousing about the other program. We have a pretty clear vision of what we are doing: mutually reinforcing the sober parts of ourselves and one another, using secular tools, so that sobriety becomes our real-life priority. Second, the birth of these meetings is a credit to the broad vision and courage of the treatment staff at this facility, who have seen over the course of nearly a decade that the SOS/LSR approach definitely works for a significant number of people. Third, when the treatment profession affords us a level playing field, and when recovering people are given a choice between our way and the 12-Step ways, we can easily hold our own in terms of attracting and engaging people in early recovery. There are Saturdays when, in terms of attendance, LifeRing is clearly the mainstream program at this facility. Finally, when the hour is over, the people in our meetings and the people in the 12-Step meetings mix again in the hallways in a friendly, convivial atmosphere. We have our approach, they have theirs, but there is no friction or spirit of rivalry in the air. It feels like, and is, a tacit partnership of people with different strengths and weaknesses, each contributing what they know best to a common endeavor. I can't help but think that in these Saturday morning LifeRing meetings in Oakland, we see some glimpses of the future of our organization. -- Marty N.
The Saturday meeting came about because of a lot of effort on the part of folks who were active in SOS/LSR prior to my introduction to the program. It also happened because of my own efforts to ensure that meetings continue to get started. I was convening a Wednesday evening meeting at the Kaiser CDRP (Chemical Dependency Recovery Program) and attending another meeting at a different location on Saturday afternoons. There were several reasons I decided to attempt to start a meeting on Saturday morning. Some were personal and selfish. I wanted to have a meeting early in the day that wouldn't split up my day as much as the afternoon meeting I was attending. I wanted some control of the meeting. In other words, I had definite ideas of how I thought such a meeting should proceed.
I liked the thought of having the meeting at CDRP because, frankly, the rent was right (0), the power bill was right (0) and there were people who needed a meeting right at hand because of the Kaiser 14 day early recovery program. I talked to one of the counselors there and he said they were thinking about starting a LifeRing meeting and an AA meeting and making one or the other mandatory for the 14 day folks. I did my best to encourage that decision and we got the go ahead to start on the 17th of April 1999. It took a few weeks after that to get the AA meeting started, so for that time we had all 35 or so folks in our meeting on a mandatory basis. As it was a mandatory meeting, we were forbidden to collect money as we usually do at our meetings. I accepted that condition. It was important to give folks a choice of meetings and, as I said, the rent and power were free.
The meeting reduced to 15 or so after the AA meeting got started. Then we began to grow again. We soon (August) outgrew the room we were assigned. I asked the Kaiser folks for a bigger room and got one. Our group continued to grow until we had to split into two groups. After 15 or 20 folks in a meeting, the LifeRing process does not work well.
This, then, would be a good time to talk about the format of the meeting. We start by reading a general opening statement, which describes briefly what LifeRing is and other info about how the meeting will proceed. (There is a meeting package at www.unhooked.com, which gives you all sorts of info regarding how to start and continue a meeting.) After the reading of the opening statement we go around the room and introduce ourselves. An example of an introduction is, "Hi my name is Bill. Alcohol is my problem. I have 18 months clean and sober." As we go around the room, each person talks about how their week in recovery is going. If they had any challenges, what is going right, what problems they need help with, what challenges they may be facing in the coming week and anything else that they feel is pertinent to their recovery. As each person talks, I take notes of topics which are either repeated or that someone has expressed a need to get help with. Sometimes that need is obvious in the distress in expressing the problem. When everyone has had their say, we open up for cross talk. We do not tell folks they have to do this or that. We give support mostly by showing empathy and expressing how we or others we know have dealt with the problem.
At the end of the meeting I prefer to continue a practice which I learned from a person who convened the meeting I most preferred. It is important to give the fighting sober person inside all of us a positive stroke, a feeling of accomplishment. It is also important to do this as the last official act of the meeting. It allows folks to leave the meeting on a positive note. It makes them predisposed to come back. This, in turn, gives them a better chance to continue their recovery. So, I ask that we give ourselves a hand for staying clean and sober another week. It is a great feeling and most everyone leaves the meeting smiling.
Because we mainly draw folks in the 14 day program, we have a rotating membership. There are, of course, some regulars who show up most every Saturday and that is good because I can always call on them to help the new folks with a problem. It is great to have the new folks. It certainly reminds me, when I see some person trying to cope with detox and attend a meeting at the same time, that that is a place in which I do not want to find myself again. It is also true that new folks have a new look on sobriety and often come up with interesting insights that we may have forgotten or have never heard. They come up with ways of expressing ideas that make the lesson therein more powerful and thus more memorable. You can say, "Been there, done that." But then you hear a fellow I know express it, Been there, done that, got the T-shirt." It help me to the point where I just had to put my own piece on it. "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and the bumper sticker." It is definitely a way of expressing to a new person that you understand what they are going through.
Because the meeting has a rotating membership it stays vital. A good number of the folks move on to other aspects of recovery - to different places and challenges. Some, of course, do relapse and we never see them again. Some relapse and they show up again at our meeting. More of them show up at meetings again as far as I can tell from the ones I know relapsed. It is great to know we are there when needed. The average person stays approximately four meetings. Some continue to attend because they move on the 8 week program and need a meeting. They also attend the Tuesday or Wednesday evening meetings.
I mentioned earlier that you can get a package of literature on www.unhooked.com. It is important to have this literature available for new folks. Like anything, they feel more comfortable if they know more about the meeting. Most folks who first attend a meeting have been isolating so long they have lost a lot of their socializing ability. The pamphlets are especially important to have. We also have available the Handbook and the Keepers book. These books are for sale and are just loaded with tools to help people get and stay clean and sober.
I get an tremendous amount of feedback regarding the meetings. In the Saturday meeting, especially, we a lot of folks telling new folks why they like the LifeRing meetings. I've paraphrased a few comments I have gotten since the meeting started, to give you an idea of why people like to attend the meetings.
1. "There are people here with very little sober time and people with a lot. It helps me to hear from all of them. It helps me to know where I've been, where I am and where I'm capable of going."
2. "I love the support I get here. We talk about what's going on now and what we need help with now."
3. "I like this group because it is so positive and uplifting. It is the only group I know I can get real help and a good laugh."
4. "We talk about real problems and real solutions here. I can't tell you how many times I've come to this group certain I was going to relapse, no matter what, and come away with real tools to stay clean and sober. I'm still here and I'm still sober. I just wanted to say thanks to all of you."
5. "I am not Christian and am confused with AA group. I don't have to say a prayer here I don't understand.
6. "I am an atheist and resent anyone telling me I need their higher power. I got me in this and I am going to get me out - with some help from my friends here."
7. "I happen to be Christian. I don't feel that my religion has much to do with my recovery. I want responsibility and control over my own recovery."
8. "I thought the sobriety priority was kind of obvious when I first got in this group. That's what we are trying to do, not use no matter what. But then as I got further along in my recovery, my mind started telling me it might be OK to have a drink and that PRIORITY sure came in handy"
It is important to understand that the reason we have been so successful is because so many people have become clean and sober and stayed that way through LifeRing. This has been demonstrated to the folks at Oakland Kaiser and so the birth of the Saturday meeting has occurred.
I encourage you to go to a LifeRing meeting. Don't tell me there isn't one in
your area. If there isn't one, you owe it to nobody else but yourself to start
one. If you have questions, please ask me on-line at bstobor@aol.com
or call me (your nickel - your choice) at (510) 893-8227.
Your friend in sobriety,
Bill (W. T.) Somers