News Blog
Email Newsletter Signup - Get the LifeRing Newsletter, news blog posts, and invitations to LifeRing events.
Economic Costs of Excessive Alcohol Consumption
An article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine presents some stark numbers about the costs borne by the U.S. economy due to drinking. The study looked at drinking in the following context: “Excessive alcohol consumption was defined as follows: binge drinking (≥4 drinks per occasion for a woman, and ≥5 drinks per occasion for…
Report on the 2012 LifeRing Congress
As part of our Annual Meeting, LifeRing holds its yearly Congress where certain organizational matters are dealt with by official delegates. Delegates include current embers of the board and current Regional Representatives, plus elected representatives of each open LifeRing meeting, face-to-face or online. The Congress hears reports from each of the delegates about the state…
The Economic Cost of “Excessive” Drinking
A report from the American Journal of Preventive Medicine offers some astonishing figure about the cost of “excessive” alcohol consumption in the United States. The report, compiled in 2009/10, looks at 2006 figures and estimates the total cost to the U.S. economy in that year at $223.5 billion. On a per capita basis, that comes…
A LifeRing Keeper: Gratitude
This is from a message sent to a LifeRing E-mail group: While driving to work today I was thinking about how grateful I am to LifeRing. It has become a useful tool in my own sobriety plan, helping to keep sobriety in the forefront by conversations, observations, and affirmations. That has been important in these…
One in Six Americans Binges on Alcohol at Least Twice a Month, says CDC Head
Everybody knows that binge drinking is a problem among young adults, particularly college students. But in fact, it’s very common among all ages. One in six adults report binging on alcohol one or more times within the past 30 days. That’s 38 million Americans. This is according to Dr. Robert Brewer, head of the CDC’s…
Ten Percent of Americans Say They are “In Recovery”
A new survey finds that 10% of Americans over the age of 18 say they used to have a problem with drugs, including alcohol, but no longer do. A story about the survey appeared on the Market Watch website, a division of the Wall Street Journal. It was carried out last year, asking about 2,500…
A LifeRing Keeper: Why Become a LifeRing Convenor
The subject of convening LifeRing meetings came up in one of our email groups the other day and produced a response that’s worth reading: ____ wrote last night about convening LifeRing groups and I thought I’d expand a bit on my own experience. Being in an active group is, of course, very helpful to long-term…
Millions of American Children Live With Parents Experiencing Alcohol Problems
More than one in ten children in the United States live with a parent who has had an alcohol disorder within the past year, and are at an increased risk of developing a host of mental health problems, according to a new study from SAMHSA, the federal government’s Sustance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.…
Federal Government’s New Definition of “Recovery”
SAMHSA — the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration — is a division of the federal government’s Health and Human Services department and the leading agency for the government’s approach to substance abuse treatment. It recently revamped the definition it uses for “recovery” in a way that makes it closely parallel the LifeRing approach.…