Wayne Cornelius is a distinguished professor emeritus of political science and U.S.-Mexico relations at the University of California at San Diego and the director emeritus of the university’s Center for Comparative Immigration Studies and is co-editor of Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective (Stanford University Press, 2004).

Save Our Selves, or Secular Organizations for Sobriety, was founded in North Hollywood, Calif., in 1985 as an alternative to AA. The largest secular sobriety group in the world, it has 100,000 members, including believers who want to keep religion separate from recovery as well as atheists, secular humanists and non-Christians. It respects diversity, welcomes skepticism […]

LifeRing Secular Recovery International in Oakland, Calif., was founded in 1999 as a secular alternative to AA. LifeRing does not subscribe to any particular theory of alcoholism/addiction but is held together by a common commitment to abstinence.

Rational Recovery in Lotus, Calif., is a program of independent recovery based on abstinence and banishing of self-doubt. It uses the Addictive Voice Recognition Technique, which is taught on the program’s web site in eight 90-minute sessions. RR has no groups, meetings or treatment centers and maintains that its technique is incompatible with AA and other […]

Kevin Griffin is a meditation teacher in the San Francisco Bay area and former addict who uses meditation, the 12 steps and Buddhist precepts of free will and mindfulness to help addicts recover. He is also one of the founders of the Buddhist Recovery Network.He is the author of One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve […]

Overcomers Outreach in Sylmar, Calif., is a ministry born out of a need of support system for members in evangelical Christian churches. Its support groups use the Bible and the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous to minister to individuals affected by alcohol, drugs, sexual addiction, gambling, food and other compulsive behaviors or dependencies.

Celebrate Recovery is a Christian-based recovery curriculum used by church-based groups throughout the U.S. and abroad. It was developed at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., by Pastor John Baker. Celebrate Recovery uses eight recovery principles drawn from the Beatitudes that parallel AA’s traditional 12 steps.

Ruben Martinez is a writer, performer and teacher and the son of immigrants — his father is from Mexico, and his mother from El Salvador. Martinez is the author of The New Americans, which tells the stories of seven immigrant families and is the companion book to a PBS series on immigration from 2003. He also wrote Crossing […]

Wade Clark Roof is F. Rowny Professor of Religion and Society and chairman of the religious studies department at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is a columnist for Beliefnet and author of, among other books, Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion (Princeton University Press, 2001). He is also editor in […]