SOS — Secular Organizations for Sobriety — is dead, but local groups don't recognize it AND Jim Christopher's "heirs" won't admit it

SOS being Secular Organizations for Sobriety, founded by Jim Christopher.

Christopher, kept afloat personally by the largess of Center for Inquiry for years, had to get others to help bail him out a few years back to get matching funds that CFI required of it, rather than a blank check which it had been cutting.

Well, the website got overhauled as part of that.

Without Duaine Metevia, who may not have been "THE" right hand man of Jim, but certainly was "A" right hand man. That would be the Duaine who, a dozen or so years ago, after Marty Nicholas stepped down as head of Lifering Secular Recovery and dodged founders syndrome for himself, and forced the organization to do the same, which it has done generally well indeed, threatened to call the cops on me if I ever attended the Dallas SOS-LSR meeting again.

That meeting was dual-branded at the time. I was at the Lifering Congress when Marty stepped down, and was also elected to its board. I talked about this after getting back from Dallas. I never mentioned Jim's name. But, I had no problems if people inferred I was making an insinuation, hint, whatever. 

That's when Duaine threatened to call the cops if I ever showed up again.

I got Lifering to stop the dual listing, of course.

Back to three-four years ago.

Duaine is cut out of the loop by a younger generation, with better web design skills for non-professionals, or professionals, than him. (Jim could barely send an email himself; his secretary at his office at CFI-West, which he got along with a salary, as part of the personal gravy train, had to do anything like this for him. It's part of why many people besides Marty were ready to move beyond SOS, which Duaine wouldn't tell you.)

So, he eventually takes his ball and runs home. 

The national meetings list is no longer maintained.

When Yahoo ends its email groups, he makes no attempt to find a replacement on another site. (Lifering is at IO Groups.) He doesn't create a Facebook group, though somebody else has. 

Then, Jim dies in July 2020.

And, SOS goes further downhill since then. SOS National had the "stay tuned" on meeting lists basically since that time, and it's now going on five years.

Center for Inquiry is clearly not going to fund a paid successor as executive director, let alone with a secretary and free office space.

And, I've known for years they don't have a real board of directors. Whether the IRS knows that, and what that would mean, and how far short of a real board of directors they've been, I don't know.

Now, in today's Net world, sure, it's not impossible to maintain local sobriety groups by word of Facebook mouth or whatever. But, that doesn't easily reach people who move across country. And, the lack of email groups or social media, which are unlikely to be maintained by individual groups, means that there's not that source of information about national happenings, either.

In short, these people are kind of like orphans. But, not 2-year-old or even 6-year-old orphans. They're like teenager orphans, who can survive on their own, but would be better off as part of a family.

Maybe leaders of some of them, like Metevia, have a smidgen, or more, of anti-Lifering animus. Maybe some are just wedded to tradition, even if it's a dead weight, the corpse has been rotting from the inside for five years, and the physical embodiment of the corpse has himself been a corpse for more than a year. Maybe, beyond that, but short of animus, it's stubbornness.

But surely, some leaders of some of these groups know of Lifering's existence already.

Anyway, whoever runs their website, and whatever other de jure (but not de facto, sorry) organization SOS has, from St. Louis? They've been contacted with a short and sweet summary of all of this:

"Wouldn't you be better off officially disbanding the organization and getting / encouraging member groups to join Lifering as their first / best option?

"Signed,

"Someone who knows some history"

The response, from John Gennari?

"Secular Organizations for Sobriety truly respects all paths to sobriety."

I replied to him, admitting the question was at least partly rhetorical, but telling him that clearly wasn't a direct answer and thus I was taking it as a "no" from him.

Given everything I've said above, IMO he's wrong. I also suspect that he knows enough about Lifering to know that ... at a minimum, even as an SOS last-ditcher, the issue is open to discussion.

So, maybe he wants to be a medium-sized fish in a tiny, and drying, pond. I mean, if there is a St. Louis SOS meeting, he can't even get that on the website. If there isn't one, he doesn't even have a personal puddle he's swimming in, only the national pond.

And, a quick Google proves me more than half right, at a minimum, on everything provable. A MeetUp shout-out isn't a website. Yes, he's getting one or two other attendees about .,.. one quarter the time? But, well over half the time, there's one attendee and I think we know who that is. The MeetUp isn't even linked on SOS's online groups page, though all of its nonexistent Yahoo groups are. Other than the Winnipeg group's website that led me here, the only other things listed are within a 60-mile radius of Buffalo, or Amherst, New York and CFI headquarters.

That said, going to THAT link? The plot thickens!

Gennari is ensconced at CFI West, according to it. Quite a magic trick, John, being in both St. Louis and Los Angeles. But, THAT would indeed seem to confirm the other part ... he's Jim Christopher 2.0, and seemingly not a lot better at current age techie stuff than him, or a mix of that and no better at getting help from the people (CFI IT staff, mayhaps?) who did the website overhaul five years ago. It's also "interesting," per what I know and what I've heard others say, that he identifies as a board member when the reality of an actual functioning board has also been a question. 

Seriously, dude. You've been at least a self-anointed heir apparent for what, a year, I'll guess, before Jim died? You've had two years to fix and update the website and haven't. You're a fine chip off the old Christopher block indeed.

AND ... interesting. NO IRS 990 form on file. But, that's an OLD notice. Back from the 1990s. Still, it shows Christopher was some sort of mis-manager then. Surely it wasn't fully under CFI's umbrella in 1992. That said, this additional info? Who is Hubert Michael Lenihan? Answer? Involved with a trademark suit over the SOS name. As in, Marty before Marty. In a sense. But, from what I can tell, never really involved in Lifering after the split. I MAY HAVE met him at a Bay Area Lifering Congress.

And, I've wasted enough time.

I will say, per the trademark lawsuit, I think Christopher talked about "individual SOS group autonomy" because he knew he was shit as an administrator. Peter Principle, sloughed off.

==

In addition, this quote from the SOS website:

If you can't find a physical meeting in your area, there are dozens of on-line groups utilizing the principles of Secular Organizations for Sobriety.

Is not true, or at least not unequivocally true.

SMART, for example, has four "steps," is explicitly wedded to cognitive behavioral therapy (which, IMO, may help you STAY sober, but is too rationalist to help a lot of people GET sober), and has at times, IMO, played footsie with moderation.

Nor does it take account of Refuge Recovery and other allegedly "spiritual but not religious" (Buddhism is a religion, folks, and Refuge Recovery is based on principles that are ultimately derived from the religious, metaphysical stances of Buddhism) sobriety orgs that aren't AA/NA. 

And, if it WERE true, wouldn't it underscore my point and make an SOS national org even more nugatory?

== 

Two comments, a year later.

First, looking at old emails from the late Itchy Bradley, he thought Duaine was a "call screener" for Jim a decade-plus ago. Could be; Duaine's computer skills at that time would have looked like stable genyus to Jim. (Sidebar: Why did CFI never build a website for them? Why did Jim never ask? The second question probably loops back to Duaine.)

Second, when the old Yahoo Groups disappeared and Duaine was cut out of a website redesign at about the same time, to raise money per a CFI demand? An email of his said that SOS Dallas would never go away. It linked to the website, which is ... now dead.

==

More comment, late 2025.

Gennari is STILL listed as being "care of" CFI-West, on the SOS-NYS website, the third link in the group of three, two-thirds down. That said on that page? Last copyrighted 2023. And, with COVID warnings still for meeting attendance.

SOS's main page? Domain has expired.

So has the first of those links, for Gennari's SOS St. Louis meetup. 

Powerless vs made a decision

Alcoholics Anonymous, and the 12-step movement it launched has been chock full of logical (and arguably, ethical) inconsistencies from the start.

Beyond that, the religious angle (it is, because it mentions a deity and because courts have said it is for First Amendment issues) is off-putting to the non-religious and to many religious people that don't agree with its particular religious take.

Beyond THAT, the "powerless" issue is offputting to women, minorities, abuse victims and others.

Step 1 of AA’s 12 steps says:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

But Step 3 says:

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

See, in religion, Lutheranism recognizes this problem and Martin Luther says that people by their own power cannot come to faith in God. 

But, AA hoists itself in its own petard. A decision is an act. Power, not powerlessness.

Of course, Lutheranism has its own problems. It essentially reduces a human being to an automaton, like Buddhism's claim that there is no individual soul, just a life force. And so, Lutheranism has its own petards.

The way to reject this is to reject an omnipotent deity (and an omnipotent karma), and accept a humanistic world. That world may still have an imperfect deity that some call god, though I don't see that, and that in turn raises philosophical issues about what creature would merit the term "god."

In any case, "powerless" is an absolutist word. Good humanism rejects that. And good sobriety rejects that, too. No need to hope for a "daily reprieve" from the AA version of a Calvinist double predestination tyrant.

Wilingness "versus" willpower

AA and the blue-covered paperback book contrast willingness and willpower. And my cogitation, plus some relatively recent sobriety support experiences, say this is wrong.

They're complementary and intertwined.

Sobriety willingness gives the power for willpower that is sometimes all that is to avail when an addictive voice whispers temptations. Sobriety willingness provides the willpower to subsume those addictive voices, those addictive subselves, the "what I don't want to do" portion of Paul and Augustine's lament, the less desirable internal neighbors in Walt Whitman's multitudes or however one expresses that.

And, we do contain multitudes, or at least small neighborhoods; modern philosophy of mind and cognitive science talk about subselves.

So, that's why willingness and willpower intertwine. The willingness to give a sober self or subself more room in the neighborhood is part of what empowers it.

The sobriety support experience that stimulated my thought is that sometimes, what seems to be an abundance of willingness may hide a lack of unity of mind, or even, to get to the willpower issue, may hide a **desired** lack of unity of mind.

And, I've seen somewhat related issues outside the sobriety world.

Years ago, at my group of suburban Dallas weekly newspapers, we hired a person to be the news editor of one of them when we got an opening. Said person was making notes for himself all the time about being organized to do this or that ...

And, amidst all the notes and reminders to himself to get organized, never actually DID get organized.

And, I don't think was even fully conscious or cognizant of that.

I expect to write further on this in the future.

Taking another's inventory not just a 12-step thing

As a recovery blog, this is primarily about my recovery from both alcohol abuse and addiction, and sexual abuse.

But it's also, at times, about general issues in sobriety, including my observations in sobriety support.

I started in AA, before discovering secular sobriety and moving on to it. And, I heard the comments in AA warning about "taking another person's inventory." The old-timers didn't say don't do it, they just warned about it. It's like Jesus saying, "don't judge, lest you are judged in return," but he did not say never do it.

Anyway, it happens in secular sobriety, too. And it's insidious when an inventory is taken in private and another attitude is presented in public.

It's generally bad, outside of that, if the person taking the inventory isn't a sobriety rock themselves.

And, I think that's the main reason the warning arose in the AA version of the sobriety world.

Taking another's inventory is much more than the cheap "when you point at someone, you have three fingers pointing back."

The big issue is that for a person with relatively little sobriety time to take another's inventory, it usually involves not taking a good inventory of their own sobriety standing.

Twenty years ago today

Twenty years ago today, I quit drinking. And, at some point not too far later, actual sobriety set in, and stayed.

I got, if not drunk, half-drunk, for the first time when I was 10 years old. On liquor, not beer. And drunk straight, or as close to straight as a 10-year-old me could stand.

There’s a story behind that, which is part of the story with why I sought out alcohol more and more for nearly 25 years after that.

I’m a “survivor.”

A child abuse survivor.

A child sexual abuse survivor.

An incest survivor.

My primary sexual abuser led me to where that liquor was at. And encouraged me to get drunk.

In addition to being a survivor of child sexual abuse at home (and yes, there, not some grandparent or step-grandparent who lived elsewhere), I am also a survivor of a fair amount of emotional and verbal abuse, along with some other psychological abuse, and a modest amount of physical abuse.

I’m old enough to have been watching John Wayne movies before he died. I knew that “real men” like John Wayne drank straight whiskey, so I drank it as straight as I could on an empty stomach to show the neighborhood kids — acquaintances all of them more than friends, and sometimes bullies and even abusers themselves on an occasion or two — that I was a man.

And threw up 30 seconds after I met two of them.

Gradually, those memories faded more and more. Along with more and more alcohol, helped by me going to an “18-state” on beer for college. Repression may not be the right word, but something like that is real, and Elizabeth Loftus is wrong more than right on this. I know.

I drank more after graduating college and doing traveling church construction for a couple of years. That said, I had alcohol poisoning in college, along with bouts of depression, and didn’t learn.

I eventually tried to follow in my dad’s footsteps. But, before I was through graduate divinity school, knew I couldn’t be a pastor, even as part of the reason for trying it, other than to please my physically, emotionally and psychologically abusive dad was to be a Protestant Christian minister’s version of “married to the church” and escaping other things.

I got my degree, but not ordination. After a year of not getting full-time work, yet not grasping in my mind how manipulative my dad had been in the past, I accepted his offer to move back in.

He lined me up with the possibility of contract adjunct college teaching, which idea I liked, and even more when I got it. And with the job of working part time at a convenience store as well, which I dreaded and made me feel more a failure.

My third suicide attempt was the day before that interview. Yes, third. One at around the time of my first drunk, in childhood, when tormented by the second of my two sexual abusers at home one afternoon. Another in college, after rebuffs from a woman who in hindsight may have been like my third, covert sexual abuser. And then this.

A year later, I was the victim of an armed robbery at gunpoint at the convenience store. And my drinking took off from there. Drinking on the job there, I got fired.

Fortunately, my dad was going to move, and I had nothing keeping me in Flint, Michigan. So, I went with him to Texas. Got my first newspaper job. Then got one in another town. Not great pay, but enough to live on my own.

And the drinking got worse. The last year or so, the only thing I rationally thought about was whether my stomach could handle a straight shot when I got up, or if I needed to start the day on beer.

For non-drinking reasons that weren’t all my fault, I was fired there. At the risk of boss-employee issues, I had asked my office manager out, for coffee, the week before. That removed that problem.

I had it “easy” on drinking. Both a Walgreen’s and a grocery within three-block walking distance and another grocery less than a mile away. After we’d been dating a few weeks, my former office manager saw me walking back to my apartment with a case of beer one afternoon. When she was over that evening, she told me how it made her feel.

Something in my listened. That was a couple of days before July 28, but … after I finished off the booze I had at home … I didn’t buy any more.

And soon, memories started coming back. And more. I talked some with her. Later, I talked more, as yet more memories came back, with the only other person I could talk to at the time.

I soon got a new newspaper job, in a new city. While driving there from Hobbs, New Mexico, I got gas in Amarillo, Texas. A voice inside me said “open the phone book when you go inside.” One AA group was the “Hobbs Plaza” group. I was a secularist of some sort then, and even more, now. But. That caught my eye. I went to a meeting in 15 minutes and an emotional dam started to break.

Then? The move, the stress, the sobriety? The memories came on more — with more emotional content. I would have to stop driving because I was crying.

Eventually, in the next town over, I found out that the pastor at the Methodist church had experience with counseling children. She’d never counseled an adult survivor before, but she helped, with EMDR, and some other techniques.

Eventually, after losing that job for various reasons, I got to Dallas. I found some secular sobriety meetings there, and got involved with Lifering online.

I also, crucially, found a organization called The Family Place which had a lot of women at risk services and then, with a grant, started its first group therapy for male survivors.

The Methodist pastor had diagnosed me with PTSD. I had first figured that was mainly a diagnosis to give an insurance company something as an entry for billing purposes. But, I found out it was real. Very real. And still is today. I even learned that something like this is considered "complex PTSD."

Along with those emotional returns came about two early sobriety years of semi-regular flashbacks and silent scream nightmares. Occasional “body memories” and actions. That’s pretty much faded away, but I had a silent scream nightmare earlier this year. Had a flashback from another trauma last year, over the car accident that badly displaced my left hand two years ago. I may have some genetic susceptibility to this, for traumas beside the sexual and other abuse, as well as that abuse priming me for other PTSD reactions.

I’ve had a hard life. I don’t mean this as a “poor me, pour me” moment per the old AA chestnut. And my life isn’t as hard as someone born into poverty. Nor have I suffered the worst sexual abuse. Trust me, from The Family Place, I know that in person. But, it’s been hard enough.

After a couple of years at The Family Place, I started facing parts of my past. Even before that, I had mildly confronted my dad over the physical and other abuse. He denied it, then minimized it while outsourcing blame.

I then confronted my primary sexual abuser. After initial non-comment, he admitted it, but said the fact he was in the ministry now was a sign he was beyond it. In turn, that only adds to the idea that in some cases, religious abuse can be a real issue.

I’ve never confronted my second abuser, but … while having less interest in confronting him before, I have less interest in accepting his apologizes for not defending me from the older abuser of the two of them as an apology, or even an unconscious admission, of his own actions. The other family member, who said I have false memory syndrome once long ago, I’ve ignored since then on family dynamics issues.

Had I confronted my mom with what I earlier called covert abuse, she would have been clueless, even with a detailed explanation, but then might have had a fatal heart attack years earlier than reality. I don’t want to go into more details; I still feel bits of shame about the weirdness, along with everything else in my family. And, again, with all of this being full blood — no "steps" or "halfs."

With the two people I have confronted, just as described in some books of survivor narratives, I’ve learned that there’s not much healing there.

Do I still have bitterness today, inside the mild-mannered self that many know in person and some Lifering friends have probably sensed just through online contact? Yes.

Bitterness over a stolen adulthood as well as a stolen childhood, not so much from alcohol, but all the family abuse and dysfunction that led to the psychological battering that led me to start getting drunk in the first place. Bitterness over knowing that, in things like a family life for myself today, or not one, a career path that isn’t my original idea or my ideal — not my ideal creatively and “spiritually” even more than not my idea or ideal financially — gets harder to change as I get older, especially in a country like ours.

All I can do ultimately is stay sober and “trudge,” as Yenta the Matchmaker says near the end of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

And, with that said, a couple of closing thoughts, for people with me now, or working to be with me now, on this journey.

One is how huge luck is in our lives. A middle class minister’s family shows blood is not thicker than water. A girlfriend’s comment at the right time “sticks.”

Related to that? Per the old medieval Church’s rhetorical question, “Cur alii, non alii,” I don’t know why sobriety, and sobriety support, “sticks” for some and not for others. I’ve tried to become more careful in insights I offer, or claim to offer, over the years, because of that.

Speaking of, I offer a few “call-outs” to those who have passed.

I mentioned Robert “Itchy” Bradley recently in another post here.

Kat Wyke, aka Kishimojun, was little known even to “oldtimer” Liferingers outside the online meeting and chat room. She stayed sober through the pain and intestinal surgeries of Crohn’s disease for more than a decade herself, until a recurrence of feminine cancer was too much.

I think of Thailand Chani (never learned her real name) and Kenya Johnson, who stayed sober through years of bipolar disorder and other mental health challenges.

Sadly, I think also of those who “succeeded” on one action where I “failed,” because they were frustrated by not staying sober. Or, those who may have thought marijuana was OK, even if marijuana smoke may not have agreed with other health issues.

Cur alii, non alii? As Brahms, Ein Deutsches Requiem, plays here in the background.

All I can do is stay sober, while being honest and true to myself. That's part of what non-steps sobriety offers, including on dealing with issues behind sobriety, and recognizing that they, not "sobriety itself" in a sense, may need to be the primary focus at times.

==

On a related issue, I also don't know why on "cur alii, non alii" on child sexual abuse and recovery. That's both as to why some children are affected worse by it and why, some recover better than others.

I'm going to offer a few bits of speculation, though.

First is that, if it's just a one time, or even more than once, a very occasional abuse, that may lessen its effect.

Second is that, per the ACES evaluation, stability or instability of a child's family life in general is a factor.

Third is if a child is able to, or not able to, find some sort of surrogate parents.

RIP Itchy Bradley

Robert "Itchy" Bradley, or "the immortal" as I called him after my first Lifering Congress meeting with him, has passed away.

I don't know which of us mentioned the phrase first. But, it became a catchword and remained so long after the second Lifering Congress at which I saw him.

I wasn't as close to Itchy as some of the founding or semi-founding members of Lifering. He's pictured at right in that photo at left with Lifering's original executive director, Martin Nicholas. I believe that's at the Lifering Constitutional Congress in Florida in 2001.

I do know that, even before he was there and before Lifering formed, he was taking an initiative in looking online for new alternatives in so-called "secular sobriety" from Secular Organizations for Sobriety, which at that time was the only game in town. Sadly, after a promising start and plenty of potential, SOS had befallen institutional problems, especially "founder's disease." Eventually, he, some SOS Floridians, who sometimes aren't fully recognized in Lifering's founding, which I've noted before, and Marty, representing Californians and having already founded Lifering Press, started Lifering Secular Recovery.

Itchy went on to serve a number of years on Lifering's board of directors.

Indeed, on Lifering's one email list, Marty reminds me and all that Itchy was on the founding board of directors and signed the articles of incorporation. I apologize to people who knew him longer or better that I didn't post that in any early emails to Lifering groups myself.

Itchy put the "secular" in there in the best way. He was a secularist, and I believe passed on that way, unless there's something I don't know about.

But, he wasn't some "Gnu Atheist" type of person, either.

Indeed, he turned me on to a "day at a time" book called "365 Tao." Knowing who he was, I bought a copy and still have it. And, in the spirit of "pass it on," I'm recommending it right here and now.

Daoism is a good way to look at "the immortal one," come to think of it. Itchy was a good practitioner of the Daoist art of "wu wei," or non-doing. In other words, he was good at trying to find what should be the flow of life for him, and afterword, doing as little as possible to disturb that flow. He also didn't suffer arrogance or fools readily.

I quote from another Liferinger, who posted this as a public setting on Facebook:

"Itchy was a sort of hillbilly Jesus who kept a set of mummified turkey feet (look closely) in the guitar case for when he played 'Turkey In The Straw.'"

If you don't believe that, said person has the picture where he says "Look closely."

Behind that body, as frail as he looked, and was, late in life, was both a steeliness of mind and generosity of heart, at least to the degree I knew him and to the degree I saw him with others.

I don't claim to have known Itchy as well as others either inside or outside of Lifering.

I do claim this memory and this understanding as mine.

I conclude this with a musical suggestion or two for listening.

The first is a musical tribute that another person offered to Itchy on Facebook:

The second, kind of stimulated by that, is Alan Parsons' haunting, exotic "Return to Tunguska."



I don't know if Itchy was into Parsons, or Alan Parsons Project as a group. But, while I don't do a lot of modern techno music, this one just grabs me ... and kind of makes me think of him.

Cur alii, non alii?

The old question, "why some, not others?" first raised in medieval Latin Christianity about why are some saved and others not, whether looking on the human side at acts of repentance and belief, or later in Calvinism, at the divine choices in predestination, has long been a question in sobriety, for myself and many others.

Why do some "get it," and others don't? Even when things like child or adult traumas are controlled for, so that people of similar circumstances are being compared, it's clear that ... some get it, others don't.

In my secular sobriety, I was recently reminded of that, strongly.

A lady in an area where there is not face-to-face support had drifted away from activity in online support years ago. In fact, had had ebbs and flows of participation within her long-ago involvement.

Recently, she jumped back in. And, in her meatspace world, started looking at some personal and medical issues, and also signed up for some brief inpatient help plus intensive outpatient.

Less than three weeks later, at an old running buddy's ... she drank, and not just one beer/wine/mixed drink.

Can't tell you some of the other details to honor privacy, but I can talk about the general style I've seen in such cases.

After the relapse (too big to call it a "slip") the person then beats themself up. And invites others to do the same. The subconscious — maybe in some cases fully conscious — idea seems to be "I'll make myself look undeserving of sobriety."

Not only is the person letting an "out" form, subconsciously — or again, maybe fully consciously — they're actively helping create this out.

I don't condemn such people in public for several reasons, and I don't want to sound sanctimonious myself in saying that.

First, if I suspect this is what a person is doing? I'm playing their game in that case. And, in a public forum, rather than one-on-one, I'm playing their game in a way that others can hear and see me play, and thus might be tempted themselves.

Second, if this is not an active attempt to create an out, my jumping in might tempt that person.

Third, definitely, if it's not an active attempt on their part, my jumping in is not productive.

Fourth — to riff on Calvinism and double predestination? What if I am "back out" in the future? It leaves me in a place where I am thus less deserving of compassion myself.

At the same time, I could be — not so much tempted, but conscientiously challenged — to, without saying "Bullshit," say, "Hey, I think this is at least in your subconscious, something deliberate."

I haven't and I won't.

In my opinion, doing so at the time is almost certain to create nothing but a reactive, defensive response. Doing so later is likely to be unproductive if the incident is forgotten, or ... producing a reactive, defensive response if it's not.

To go further than AA, sobriety is about more than so-called "cash-register honesty," but in a specific way.

It's about self-honesty, and about the subconscious as well as conscious parts of ourselves.

Without practicing Buddhist mindfulness, let alone mindful meditation, we do need to work on sober self-awareness.

Moving on on sobriety support

I'm planning on not running for re-election to the board of directors of the secular sobriety support organization where I've served the last few years.

And, I'm glad, for several reasons.

First, to the degree that the alpha-beta (and gamma!) theory of human social structure is true (hint: it's not all that true among wolf packs, let alone among humans), I'm a gamma. I'm not a real leader, but I'm not a real follower, either. Give me a basic sense of security and structure, or the possibility thereof, and I'm marching to my own drum.

Second, a recent board change wound up changing larger board dynamics. That said, the one changed board member has decided not to run for a full term. But, that person triggered other dynamics, other dominoes within the board, that don't totally float my boat either.

I've now returned fire in what could be a developing email argument. I won't disclose confidences, and I don't know if I would stand up as well to this person in person, but I don't like bullies, male or female. (And, yes, there are female bullies too, including some who bully men; that's why there's women who commit domestic violence.)

Beyond that, I feel on an island. To get to an annual convention, I'd have to drive 2.5 hours to an airport in a major city, and even then, nonstop flights are becoming more limited, or else drive 30 miles to the nearest airport and take a puddle-jumper to the big city. And even the big city flights have ... well, they've skyrocketed since I last flew anywhere three years ago.

Finally, with job-related stresses (the largest single advertiser at the two small newspapers where I am publisher, a local grocery story, sold out to a chain last year, hitting our bottom line a sharp ding), I don't need the stress of the changing board dynamics. 

That said, I've learned some things about group dynamics. That includes noting that the person I perceive as a bully decided not to run again after I made my announcement.

I've also learned that, per the old phrase that "to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs," that doesn't mean that you have to break them with undue force, or spatter them.

Sobriety groups are recovery groups, too

Two things on my mind tonight.

First?

It hurts me, angers me and scares me when people "go back out," and it's because they've either not reached out, whether to other sober people, or to a counselor, especially if they have depression or other mental health needs, OR, it's because they've let an anger, a resentment, eat at them. And, I'll be selfish enough to say I want it to scare me.

Second, is that I'm a bit of a resentment mode myself, not about someone in a sobriety group, but, in another group. I know part of the anger is based on my perceptions, and part of it's based on my reactions to how this person reminds me of two males from my childhood. That said, I feel confident in saying that it's not "just" my perception, or my perception plus my personal history. I really think this person has a couple of issues. And, as part of my growth, rather than "detaching" in a way that feels like passivity to me, I need to do something else. I'm not sure what it is, but, I'm groping in that direction.

Online friends, complications, distancing and loss

The last time I blogged here, it was about "fallout" from some changes in an online sobriety support chat room where I've had various degrees of activity for several years.

Looks like another friend may be lost due to that — although I had multiple observations about this person even before the dust-up, to be honest.

Anyway, it looks like a friendship with XXX really is on ice. Friday morning, I noticed AAA and BBB had both friended XXX on Facebook, even though heshe had said in the past s/he didn’t do that. So, I sent himer a friend request query, noting himer's former policy and asking if s/he had possibly changed it, especially not being in the chat so much now, without saying I had noticed s/he had friended others.

The answer would appear to be a definite no. First, XXX appears in chat Friday night with a bit of “sniping,” and, while none of it was directly focused at me, heshe didn’t go out of her way to be friendly, either.

Then, looking at FB later, I noticed that, while in chat or about that time, s/he friended Kathy B. But not me.

Some part of me WANTS revenge, or grudge-holding. Another part says, detach. A third part (that’s why there’s never just two sides to anything) says I want confrontation, but not (necessarily) grudge-holding. I’m a bit sad. I’m a bit angry.

I don’t want to be too much more of either. Well, even that isn’t entirely true. Some part of me wants to wallow. But not a lot. Some part of me wants to blow up. Some part of me wants to be snide, or "sniping," back.

Update, April 13: Call it a bit of spite, a bit of revenge, a bit of righteous and/or non-righteous anger, a bit of pride, or a mix of several or all of the above...

But, I found out today, after checking (and it makes sense) that one can withdraw, retract Facebook friending requests. And I have done so.

Relapses

Two online sobriety friends of mine relapsed in the past week. One was even a meeting host. Damn, it’s tough to see this happen.