Secular Organizations for Sobriety/Save Our Selves

Secular Organizations for Sobriety/Save Our Selves (SOS), a nonprofit organization serving chemically dependent individuals and their families, was founded in 1985 by James Christopher as a nonspiritual alternative to traditional Twelve-Step recovery programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. SOS comprises a network of autonomous self-help groups coordinated by the SOS clearinghouse. These self-help groups address a wide range of issues related to addiction, including overeating, gambling, smoking, and co-occurring psychiatric disorders.

In 1985, Christopher published an article titled "Sobriety Without Superstition," which is an account of the course he, as a self-described "free thinker," took to rational sobriety. This article is credited by SOS itself as being the founding document of the organization. With its first self-help support group held in 1986 in North Hollywood, California, SOS has become a recovery method for alcoholics and drug addicts and their families that has expanded to more than 1,000 meetings and more than 20,000 members in the United States. With its current international affiliations, SOS numbers over 5,000 meetings and 100,000 members worldwide.

SOS emphasizes its status as a secular recovery program that holds that sobriety is an issue separate from religion or spirituality. SOS, therefore, credits the individual for achieving and maintaining sobriety, without reliance on, or appeal to, a "Higher Power." Similarly, SOS supports skepticism and encourages the use of the scientific method to understand chemical dependence. Other general principles of SOS include the belief that support of other chemically dependent persons is an important adjunct to recovery, that group meetings are best conducted in an anonymous manner, that SOS groups are self-supporting through contributions from members, and that SOS does not limit its approach to chemical dependence to one theory or area of knowledge.

SOS views sobriety as the top priority in an individual's life and insists on its members' own responsibility for abstinence from drugs and alcohol. SOS refers to the individual's responsibility for remaining clean and sober as a lifelong "sobriety priority." This commitment to sobriety is viewed by SOS as an ethical responsibility involving an obligation to no longer put oneself or others at risk from the behaviors associated with chemical dependence. SOS emphasizes the power of persons to make a choice concerning their sobriety and acknowledges that this choice must be reaffirmed continually. SOS views chemical dependence as mainly physiological in nature, and as such, this "cellular addiction" must be curtailed with the continual acknowledgment that one is an alcoholic or addict for whom sobriety is the top priority. Despite an emphasis on the physiological nature of addiction, SOS does not adhere to a single point of view or theory and honors the individual's own approach to his or her addiction, whether the cause is attributed to nature or nurture.

SOS provides suggested guidelines for sobriety. These guidelines are not steps offered as a program but are to be used by the individual to craft his or her own program for the achievement of sobriety. The guidelines encompass a daily reaffirmation of one's commitment not to drink or use drugs under any condition; a commitment to take any necessary steps to achieve lifelong sobriety; a decision to not drink or use for reasons based on emotions, external circumstances, or conflicts; a commitment to sharing thoughts and feelings with others as sober, clean individuals; and an affirmation that a person is responsible for his or her own life and sobriety. These guidelines are read by a member at the beginning of each SOS meeting.

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