After twelve drafts that have been posted on this website, and four months of weekly Focus Group meetings in Oakland, the workbook is finally ready for its "beta" publication. All of the chapters and the introduction have been rewritten at least twice, some of them much more than that, and the whole work has now reached a point where it hangs together as a cohesive whole with a beginning, a middle and an end. I believe we can now hang it out to the public without shame or embarrassment.
Initial publication is as a "Beta Edition." This term, borrowed from the software world, signifies (a) that we are looking for end-user feedback and plan to incorporate that feedback in a forthcoming final first edition, and (b) that we don't know the market well enough yet to decide on the size of a print run. The Beta Edition will be produced on demand by a photo copy shop, so that we do not carry a significant inventory and have virtually no up-front investment. On the other hand, at the $20 selling price, LifeRing Press earns virtually no revenue on sales of the Beta Edition.
The Beta Edition has a plain card stock cover, and is spiral bound so that it lays flat. It physically resembles a college course reader. It is 300 pages, full letter sheet size. There are fourteen chapters and dozens of checklists and worksheets. Click for the final Table of Contents and the Table of Worksheets. Click for text of the Introduction with footnotes (PDF).
In order to allow LifeRing Press to get a better reading on the market, we will not be posting the Beta edition online for downloading. We ask convenors to refrain from distributing any of the now obsolete drafts so as not to pre-empt sales of the Beta. On the other hand, we will send a sample copy of the Beta Edition to any convenor who undertakes to promote the work among meeting participants and with treatment professionals, reviewers, etc. We very much appreciate feedback from convenors about the reception and use made of the book.
The workbook is positioned as a self-help individual study guide, i.e. as "bibliotherapy." It is not positioned as a clinical protocol for treatment centers; we do not have enough experience with institutional programming to attempt such a project at this time. However, individual patients in treatment centers who find that the same old same old is not working for them may be able to use the workbook as a supplement -- and in rare cases as an alternative -- to the program's standard curriculum. Treatment professionals should be told that this workbook is available as "one more arrow in the quiver" and not as a replacement for their current approach. The workbook may also find a significant audience in prisons.
Most of the content of the book comes out of LifeRing meetings. Whether and how the workbook will integrate back into LifeRing meetings remains to be seen. The book is positioned as just one more tool in the LifeRing toolbox, so that its use is strictly optional and up to the individual. The book contains a large number of topics and issues that might be usefully discussed in a LifeRing meeting, and the book urges the user on numerous occasions to take the issue to a meeting. If users do use it in that manner, the book may enrich meeting discussion and bring more people to meetings. Conceivably, meeting chairpeople could pick topics from the book as basis for weekly discussion, for meetings that use the topic system. It may also happen that people who want to work the workbook might organize new meetings focused on that project.
Convenors should make clear, if necessary, that the book is not "Steps" and does not contain a big-P Program. It is at most a scaffolding that people can use to stand on as they build their own personal small-p programs. The atmosphere in some places is so saturated with the 12-Step mentality that some people assume that anything that any organization publishes has a similar scope and function to the Big Book, i.e. a catechism and string of testimonials. If someone does try to work this workbook as if it were a BB, they will soon lose their footing. Our book contains about ten times as many questions as it contains answers, and its whole thrust is to try to encourage you to think, rather than to take things on faith.
The introduction makes the passing point that thinking for yourself is more strenuous than taking things on faith. This point is made to deflate the annoying 12-Step notion that everything other than AA is the "softer, easier way." However, I would not press this point too heavily, because we do not need to get into a silly competition with AA over who works harder and beats themselves up more to get sober. There are several points of our workbook that overlap with several topics in the 12 Steps, and it would be more positive to point to our common concern with helping people stay clean and sober. The fact that we have this thick and heavy workbook, filled with positive tools and ideas for recovery, will be evidence enough of the seriousness of our intent and our willingness to invest effort.
One of the areas where the Oakland Focus Group has been very helpful is in sandpapering the jagged, hostile edges that I tend to develop from exposure to the 12-Step environment. If you compare the "21 Questions to Ask About Your Support Group" between draft 0.96 and the Beta, you will see that much effort has gone into making our points with more subtlety, indirection, and as few words as possible, but without pulling any punches. This has been among the hardest bits of writing in the whole project, but will, I hope, be well worth it in the long run in terms of persuasion.
Directly after the Congress in February, we should have enough feedback and a clear enough sense of the market -- and enough money -- to send the final draft of the Workbook, first edition, to the printer, with an attractive four-color glossy cover, and all the trimmings. If it takes off, your drab-cover old Beta Editions may be worth big bucks some day in the antiquarian book market.
It's been great fun writing this so far, and I hope you all get something out of it as well.
Enjoy!
-- Marty N. 12/5/00