The LifeRing Home Page

Report from the LifeRing Office Administrator

Craig W — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:48:32 +0000

LifeRing has only one part-time employee: an office administrator who oversees the flow of book orders, emails, phone calls, etc. Robert Stump took over that job in mid-December and has been trying to systematically carry out his duties. He filed this report, which gives a good peek at what the LifeRing office actually does.

Report from the Service Center

Hi everybody, my name is Robert Stump, and If you haven’t heard, I am the new office administrator at the LifeRing Service Center. I have scheduled myself to be in the office Monday through Thursday in the afternoons from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM and on Fridays from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM. Craig Whalley, my partner in crime, is usually at the Service Center for a couple of hours every morning, except on Wednesdays, shipping book orders and doing office stuff. If you’re planning to come down to visit please call first to make sure one of us will be in.

Here is a list of some of the things I been doing here at the Service Center in the first month of the new year:

The LifeRing Meeting page at LifeRing.org
- The on-line PDF Meeting Lists are being updated more frequently
- Meeting locations have been fixed and updated.
- I have listed the local LifeRing web site when available.
- The Google meeting map has been fixed and updated to reflect these changes.
- A new California Meeting Brochure has been created (thanks to Lynn C.) and will be updated and published twice a month.
LifeRing Brochures
- Lynn C. has redesigned the “Welcome to LifeRing” and “Recovery by Choice” brochures. They are both published on white paper stock.
- All our other brochures have had a minor update to change the web site wording from unhooked.com to lifering.org but otherwise will be left as is.
- These brochures are scheduled to have major rewrites done to them over the next couple of years (again to be done by Lynn C.).
Convenor and Meeting updates
- I am in the process of updating the meetings and convenors information in the POL database.
- There are currently some meetings where I have outdated contact information and in some cases no contact information at all.
- I’m not even sure if some meetings that are listed on our web site are in existence anymore.
- Because of this, I would like all currently active and past convenors, to email the LifeRing Service Center at service@lifering.org, call our toll free number 800-811-4142, or write to the Service Center (address is below). Please give me your current contact information including name, email, phone number, and address and the meeting you are currently convening if any (please include the meeting location with a meeting room if needed, time and day of your meeting). This information will be kept private in an encrypted database that only three people have access to.
- I would also like to encourage individuals who are thinking about convening a meeting or who would like to learn more about running a meeting to send your contact info in to the service center. Even just a name and email/phone number will work. Someone will contact you to see what help or additional information you might need.
Improved communication
- Speaking of the 800 number, in the past it has taken a number of rings to get through to the service center. Most people, I suspect, gave up before getting through. I am changing this and upgrading to AT&T Unified Messaging. The 800 number will be set up to answer in three rings or less by either a representative in the Service Center or the answering service (which we will be checking when we are not in the office). Service should be a lot faster.

A Haiku

Craig W — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:45:46 +0000

David R., a LifeRing meeting Convenor in Fresno, California, wrote a Haiku verse that seems worth sharing. Like all Haikus, it attempts to convey an image and an idea in a very brief format. Here’s what he wrote:

Addiction support group –
Listening …
I hear myself

Blog Author Likes LifeRing

Craig W — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:31:12 +0000

LifeRing was recently featured in a blog called “Wired in to Recovery“. The author, Derek Jones, is handicapped but was able to participate in a LifeRing Chat meeting. “I have just spent the last hour on LifeRing and I found it fantastic. I joined a conversation with four people and it really has helped my confidence to be able to talk to people. I explained to them that I was not fast at typing and the response was just to take my time as there is no rush. Most of the chat was really light hearted and the people were open and honest about their addictions.”

If you are interested in learning more about LifeRing’s Chat on-line meetings, visit the Chat Room on our website

Read more of Derek’s blog by clicking HERE

New Study Emphasizes Dangers of Drinking During Pregnancy

Craig W — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:09:42 +0000

The dangers of drinking during pregnancy were underlined in the results of a new study reported on by the Wall Street Journal. The article talks about one result of the study: “For each drink consumed each day over the daily average [in the study of 1,000 women] in the second half of the first trimester, the women’s babies were 12% more likely to have a small head circumference, 16% more likely to have low birth weight and over 20% more likely to have a very thin upper lip or lack a vertical indentation between their noses and lips. While seemingly minor, those characteristics are typical of fetal alcohol syndrome, or FAS, and frequently presage cognitive and behavior problems later in life.”

It’s long been widely known that drinking during pregnancy carried danger, but this study shows clearly just how critical those dangers are. “”We found that there is no safe amount of alcohol to drink during pregnancy,” says lead author Haruna Sawada Feldman, a postdoctoral student at the University of California, San Diego.”

Read the full article by clicking HERE.

Deciphering Mixed Messages About Alcohol

Craig W — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:07:26 +0000

A recent radio broadcast of NPR’s Talk of the Town concerned itself with the stark truth about the toll that Alcohol takes on the American people. Tens of thousands dying each year, millions addicted or dependent, millions more who’ve suffered grievous damage directly related to alcohol use. You can listen to the archived broadcast, or read a transcript, HERE

Website Woes

Craig W — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:00:42 +0000

Update: The problem seems to be fixed (fingers crossed)

We’ve been having problems — origin unknown — with the website. Some people (including the people who need to read this) are unable to sign on to the site. We’re working to track down the problem and hope to have it resolved soon. Thanks for your patience as we work on this.

Recovery on campus – a hot issue

Steve S — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:34:49 +0000

The New York Times has a good story about sobriety recovery in the college world and what colleges and universities are doing to try to help college age alcoholics and addicts.

One takeaway? As counselor B.J. Davis mentioned at a Lifering Congress a few years ago … enjoying life early in sobriety is important in general. It has to be at the college lifestyle level, as a counselor at Rutgers points out on page 2. The story mentions specific ways to do that sober fun in college.

Having started my own sober life in AA, I can testify to this. My original AA group had people stay late on either Friday night, Saturday night, or both, almost every weekend. People would order a pizza or two and play cards or dominoes. Fun and camaraderie both got promoted.

Second takeaway? As younger Americans in general are more open-minded to new ideas and less religious than older Americans, they’re going to be more open to alternatives to 12-Step programs. How an organization like Lifering, in its size at this time, gets its foot in the door, I don’t know, but an opening is there, clearly.

Anyway, there’s plenty of food for thought here.

‘Healthy’ red wine data is bogus

Steve S — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:30:57 +0000

An AP story has the details:

A University of Connecticut researcher known for his work on the benefits of red wine to heart health falsified his data in more than 100 instances, and nearly a dozen scientific journals are being warned of the potential problems after publishing his studies in recent years, officials said Wednesday.

UConn officials said their internal review found 145 instances over seven years in which Dr. Dipak Das fabricated and falsified data, and the U.S. Office of Research Integrity has launched an independent investigation of his work.

There’s no indication of the motive, but the university just turned down nearly $1 million in federal grants related to the fake research.

New LifeRing meeting in Esquimalt, B.C., Canada

Craig W — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:18:59 +0000

A new LifeRing meeting got underway last week in Esquimalt, Canada, outside of Victoria, the provincial capital of British Columbia. Michael Walsh, Executive Director of LifeRing Canada, announced the new meeting which takes place on Tuesday evenings at 7:30 at the Esquimalt Recreation Centre on Fraser St. The Victoria area now has meetings six times a week.

Michael also reports that the new LifeRing Canada website is now up and running. See it HERE.

Meet the New LifeRing Office Administrator, Robert Stump

Craig W — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:01:36 +0000

As of the first of the new year, LifeRing’s Oakland office is being overseen by Robert Stump, already known to many in the organization for his years of service. Robert is currently the group’s Treasurer — a position he’ll hand-off soon — and also has given much time and knowledge to dealing with our computer systems. Robert’s day job as a construction estimator has been impacted by the recession so he has the time free for now for taking on the new position.

All who dealt with her will miss Rachaell Castro, the departing administrator. Rachaell gave some two years of service and brought much sparkle and intelligence to the job. She’ll be missed.

With Robert on board, the office hours will change. The new hours are 12-3 p.m., PST, Monday through Thursday, and 9-3:30 on Fridays. As always, visitors to the office should call ahead rather than just dropping by. In addition, LifeRing board chair Craig Whalley is in the habit of working at the office for an hour or two starting at 9 a.m. each weekday except Wednesday.