SOS Celebrates 21 Years of Service
Jim Christopher
Jim Christopher is the founder and executive director of Secular Organizations for Sobriety. He is at work on a new book, titled 12 Steps to Murder: Why I Left AA, Got Sober on My Own, and Founded SOS. He believes the title conveys the urgent need for change.
In 1984, a sober alcoholic thrust an article about his frustrations with Alcoholics Anonymous into the hands of Paul Kurtz. The occasion was a seminar sponsored by Free Inquiry magazine in Los Angeles. Shortly afterward, Dr. Kurtz responded with a letter inquiring about the small secular recovery group I had founded-an alternative to AA-that met weekly in members' homes around town. Paul relayed the exciting news that Free Inquiry would publish my article in the Summer 1985 issue. To my delight, "Sobriety without Superstition" generated worldwide comment on the urgent need for alternative recovery approaches in the treatment of addictive disorders. In short order, SOS was born. SOS is the acronym for Secular Organizations for Sobriety, also known as Save Our Selves. Known initially as SSG/Secular Sobriety Groups, Dr. Kurtz suggested the more compelling acronym and members voted for the name change early in our history. Free Inquiry magazine, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Centers for Inquiry have continued to encourage, nurture, and support SOS and respect its autonomy to the present day.
Much has happened since those early days. In the most recent issue of our quarterly SOS International Newsletter (Volume 18, No. 3, Winter 2005/6), I reflected:
My twenty-eighth year of freedom from alcohol/drugs swiftly approaches (sobriety date: April 24, 1978). In all this time I've not experienced what I refer to as the "Pavlovian Pull" or associations coupled with cravings. Why? Because I experienced personal April showers back in '78, or what I've come to call "Feel the Real." This cognitive-visceral synchronization, if you will, allowed me an eye-opener to top all my previous half-assed eye-openers in that my head and gut fused in an unimpeded moment of truth about my real life as an active addict and I became willing to take any action necessary in order to escape my painful addiction nightmare. I felt the pain of my horrific state and wanted no more of it, no matter what. Thus, I reclaimed my natural, albeit damaged, survival system and have benefited from the unpickled core of my being ever since, come what may. So in times of stress or sorrow, or any other feelings about my lot in life, I see my escape from booze and drugs, my primal life-saving state-my sobriety priority-as a separate issue from all else in my life and times.
We've come a long way since the early, kitchen-table days. SOS maintains a database of over twenty thousand individual members and thousands of meetings are held daily worldwide - both in person and online (www.sossobriety.org). SOS will soon make available a workbook/manual specifically for treatment professionals who focus on addictive disorders. Although these materials have existed for many years in my four books, in numerous articles via the SOS newsletter (and many other publications), in SOS informational brochures (in the English and Spanish languages), and online via the Internet.
SOS nurtures individual self-empowerment in recovery rather than learned helplessness. In this context, "learned helplessness" refers to the conviction that one cannot maintain recovery without continual, lifelong reliance on AA or one of the many other twelve-step groups-a conviction often fostered and nurtured by the group itself. A stunning portrait of AA's encouragement of learned helplessness appears in a pamphlet called "Why We Were Chosen." Though not an official AA publication, the pamphlet is nonetheless available at AA's central offices. It states, in part:
God in His wisdom selected this group of men and women to be the purveyors of His goodness. In selecting those to bring about this phenomenon He went not to the proud, the mighty, the famous nor the brilliant. . . . He went to the drunkard-the so-called weakling of the world. He might well have said to us: . . . "Be careful always, if success attends your efforts, not to ascribe to personal superiority that to which you can lay claim only by virtue of my gift. If I had wanted learned men to accomplish this mission, the power would have been entrusted to the physician and scientist. If I had wanted eloquent men there would have been many anxious for the assignment. . . . You were selected because you have been the outcasts of the world. . . . Keep ever in mind the admission you made on the day of your profession in Alcoholics Anonymous-that you are powerless and that it was only with your willingness to turn your life and will unto my keeping that relief came to you.
In sharp contrast to this approach, in SOS, we deliberately do not tell each other how to live. We do not promote faith healing or magical thinking. Nor do we wish to replace an addiction with a dependence on any entity, group, or organization-not even SOS. On the contrary, SOS folks are encouraged to create their own individual recovery plans, each utilizing recovery tools SOS offers along with recovery tools that members often discover in the world at large.
In my view, AA is a religion in denial, and its inappropriate grip upon treatment facilities in this country and abroad often deliberately thwarts the exploration of alternative support and treatment methods, resulting ultimately in countless untimely deaths. At last year's SOS conference, I proclaimed "twenty years is long enough." By that, I meant that alternative recovery options like SOS, Women for Sobriety, SMART Recovery, and others should be far more readily available within addiction-treatment facilities. Treatment professionals should give clients a voice in their individual recovery plans, moving beyond the inappropriate assumption that one (12-step) plan fits all.
My sobriety anniversary is not the only event at hand to be celebrated. The year 2006 also marks twenty-one years of service by SOS, and I'm enthused about our forthcoming international conference. It will be held on Saturday, November 18, in the Steve Allen Theatre, located at the Center for Inquiry/West (not, coincidentally, the home of SOS International Headquarters), at 4773 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. The theme of this year's SOS event is "SOS Internet Friends Meet Face to Face" (see ad p. 38).
Boxed item:
SOS-suggested "Guidelines for Sobriety"
„To break the cycle of denial and achieve sobriety, we first acknowledge that we are alcoholics or addicts. „We reaffirm this truth daily and accept without reservation-one day at a time-that as clean and sober individuals we cannot and do not drink or use, no matter what.
„Since drinking or using is not an option for us, we take whatever steps are necessary to continue our Sobriety Priority lifelong.
„A quaility of life, "the good life," can be achieved. However, life is also filled with uncertainties. Therefore, we do not drink or use regardless of feelings, circumstances, or conflicts.
We share in confidence with each other our thoughts and feelings as sober, clean individuals.
„Sobriety is our Priority, and we each are responsible for our lives and our sobriety.
-from James Christopher, How to Stay Sober:
Recovery without Religion
(Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1988), p. 105
Second Boxed item:
General Principles of SOS
„All those who sincerely seek sobriety are welcome as members in any SOS Group.
„Although sobriety is an individual responsibility, life does not have to be faced alone. The support of other alcoholics and addicts is a vital adjunct to recovery. In SOS, members share experiences, insights, information, strength, and encouragement in friendly, honest, anonymous, and supportive group meetings.
„Sobriety is the number-one priority in an alcoholic's or addict's life. As such, the alcoholic or addict must abstain from all drugs or alcohol. „SOS is not a spin-off of any religious or secular group. There is no hidden agenda, as the focus of SOS is sobriety, not other issues.
„SOS seeks only to promote amongst those who suffer from alcoholism or other drug addictions. As a group, SOS has no opinion on outside matters and does not wish to become entangled in outside controversy.
„To avoid unnecessary entanglements, each SOS group is self-supporting through contributions from its members and refuses outside support. „Honest, clear, and direct communication of feelings, thoughts, and knowledge aids in recovery and in choosing nondestructive, nondelusional, and rational approaches to living sober and rewarding lives.
„As knowledge of drinking or addiction might cause a person harm or embarrassment in the outside world, SOS guards the anonymity of its membership and the contents of its discussions from those not within the group.
„SOS encourages the scientific study of alcoholism and addiction in all their aspects. SOS does not limit its outlook to one area of knowledge or theory of alcoholism and addiction.
-SOS Guidebook for Group Leaders (Los Angeles, Calif.: SOS International Clearinghouse, 2002), pp. 22-23
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