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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.…
Writers and Drinking: The Myth of Creative Synergy
The author and commentator Christopher Hitchens died a couple of months ago, provoking an outpouring of sympathetic praise from his many admirers, especially among the intelligentsia, where he loomed large, respected for his outspokenness and razor-sharp mind and debating skills. But in addition to his writing and speaking on subjects of intense current interest, Hitchens…
A Haiku
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
New Study Emphasizes Dangers of Drinking During Pregnancy
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,…
Deciphering Mixed Messages About Alcohol
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…
Are There Gender Differences in Alcoholism?
Could it be that alcohol affects women differently than men? If so, what implications does that have for treatment? That’s the issue discussed in a recent Scientific American article. It starts out: “Alcohol abuse does its neurological damage more quickly in women than in men, new research suggests. The finding adds to a growing body…
Another Myth Debunked: The French Don’t Handle Alcohol Any Better Than Other People
Steve S., a member of the LifeRing board of directors, pointed out in a comment on this blog the other day that the idea that Europeans — and particularly the French — deal with alcohol better than Americans is simply not true. He wrote: “France has one of the world’s highest rates of cirrhosis of…