Board of Directors
LifeRing has a democratically elected Board of Directors. LifeRing Bylaws require a minimum of two years clean and sober to serve on the Board of Directors and a minimum of two years clean and sober to serve as an officer. Directors and officers must be people in recovery from substance addiction. The board meets by video conferencing at the annual LifeRing Congress, and it meets monthly between Congresses by video conferencing.
LifeRing Board of Directors
Anna Bedolla <anna@lifering.org> lives in Austin, Texas. She discovered LifeRing when looking for a secular recovery program and became committed to the program because of its emphasis on self-direction and self-empowerment. She currently convenes the Wednesday 9:00 a.m. PST meeting and co-hosts and provides support to other meetings as needed. LifeRing has been instrumental to her sobriety, and she is excited to be involved with extending its gift to others. Anna was appointed to the LifeRing Board of Directors in September 2022 to fill a vacant seat. Her term will end in 2023.
Bobbi Campbell <bcampbell@lifering.org> Bobbi lives in the Los Angeles area with her husband and fellow LifeRinger Richard, who met as members of the LSRsafe email group, which she credits as her primary source of recovery support as well as the LifeRing Delphi Forum and LSR Women’s Empowered email group. Thanks to these groups she’s been sober since November of 2007 and since then previously volunteered to manage LifeRing’s social media pages - a gig she recently returned to - and wrote for the blog, and is now pleased to be a part of the governing body in addition to serving on the Fundraising, Marketing, and Communication Committee. She writes and does paper crafting on the side, but still doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up. Bobbi was appointed to the LifeRing Board of Directors in December 2022 to fill a vacant seat. Her term will end in 2023.
Lisa Swing-Corney <lisas@lifering.org> joined the LifeRing Community in late 2012 and has celebrated continuous sobriety since 2001. She is a LifeRing in-person meeting convenor in Akron, Ohio, and serves as the LifeRing Frontier Regions Coordinator. Lisa is passionate about choosing her own path in recovery and helping others to bring LifeRing to their communities. In 2021, Lisa was nominated with unanimous consent to fill a vacancy on the LifeRing Board of Directors. In her free time, Lisa enjoys spending time with her dog Audrey and consuming all things Star Trek. Her term ends in 2025.
Lorraine Hull <lorraine@lifering.org> lives in the Mile High City, Denver, CO. She has been involved with convening LifeRing meetings in Colorado since 2013. Lorraine currently convenes the Sunday evening online meeting that is open to all. She loves spending time on WhatsApp with her two granddaughters and playing at parks with her grandson. Lorraine was the board co-chair for three years and has just retired from serving as our board secretary during the 2021-2022 administrative year. She is on her second term with the board that started in 2020 and will end in 2023.
Mary Beth O'Connor <marybeth@lifering.org> resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was first elected to the Board in 2017, and her current term will end in 2023. Mary Beth leads the LifeRing Speakers Bureau and convenes a monthly meeting to explain LifeRing to friends and family. Mary Beth speaks regularly about her personal story, LifeRing, and multiple paths to recovery. You can listen to some of her interviews on her website, junkietojudge.com. Her essay "I Beat Addiction without God" appeared in the Wall Street Journal in August 2020. Her memoir, "From Junkie to Judge: One Woman's Triumph Over Trauma and Addiction," is available on Amazon and all the usual sites.
Michael Toal <michael@lifering.org> Michael first came across LifeRing in Texas, then again in Ireland where he first became a convenor. He then moved back home to Scotland and started online meetings and a UK website hoping to introduce LifeRing to a UK audience. Currently he is establishing a face to face meeting in Edinburgh. Michael believes that LifeRing fills the need for a purely peer to peer, mutual aid support group for recovery from addiction, where people feel comfortable to share lived experiences in a safe and confidential space. His term ends in 2024.
Rafal Klopotowski <rafal@lifering.org> Rafal is a trained Peer and Family Support Specialist. From 2018 to 2022 he worked at NAMI. He facilitated and managed Connection Recovery Support Groups, and mentored his peers through NAMI’s Community Connectors Program. Rafal started to convene a Co-Occuring HWYW meeting in September 2021 and currently he convenes or co-convenes 5 meetings, one of which is attended by participants on both sides of the Atlantic, and is held in Polish! Rafal has two awesome sons. The older one has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, which doesn’t prevent him from being an excellent bookseller, attending college, He is also an excellent, published writer of fiction. His younger brother is studying physics at the University of Oregon. Being on LifeRing's Board is a new adventure for Rafal, and he is really looking forward to this new challenge. His term ends in 2025.
Steve Gonzales <steve@lifering.org> lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and has been involved with LifeRing since 2017. He is a regular convenor and chairs the Finance Committee on the Board. His term ends in 2023.
Sue Betts <sue@lifering.org> is a San Francisco transplant enjoying her fourth year of sobriety. She joined LifeRing in 2019 and was tapped shortly thereafter to convene the Saturday Chat Meeting. Sue created and co-convenes The Liver Spot started in 2020. When Sue began volunteering on LifeRing committees in 2020, she helped establish the Fundraising Marketing Communications Committee affectionately known as FunMarCom and now coordinates fundraising efforts. She is also active in the Meetings and Convenor Support Committee (MCC), the Outreach Committee and the Website Committee. Sue was invited to serve on the LifeRing Board of Directors in 2021 and now serves as the chair. Her term ends in 2024.
Qualifications needed for the Board of Directors
Current LifeRing Officers
Sue Betts, Interim Executive Director
Sue Betts, Chair
Joshua McLaughlin, Secretary
Steve Gonzales, Treasurer
Board Meetings
A Board Meeting is scheduled every month on the second Sunday of the month at 9:00 AM, Pacific Time via a Zoom meeting.
This meeting is open to the public.
Meeting URL: https://zoom.us/j/88907758083?pwd=YTVDMStaY0hVdnhHOTlqcnM1MEpYdz09
Meeting ID: 889 0775 8083
Passcode: lifering
Call-in numbers: https://www.lifering.org/zoom-phone-numbers
Additional help joining a Zoom Meeting: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362193-Joining-a-Meeting
Current Regional Representatives
Co-founder and CEO 1997-2010
Martin Nicolaus
LifeRing Documents
Current LifeRing Bylaws.
LifeRing’s 501(c)(3) IRS Determination Document
California Articles of Incorporation (1997)
Legal Notice
LifeRing Press, LifeRing Recovery, LifeRing Secular Recovery, and the LifeRing graphic design are registered trademarks/servicemarks of LifeRing Inc. All rights reserved. The LifeRing meeting charter and Bylaws are official publications of LifeRing Inc., approved by the LifeRing Congress. All other publications, including, without limitation, the content of posts, blog items, comments, books, brochures, flyers, other publications, and linked sites on this website, represent the opinions of their authors.