ABOUT

Our Services

Women For Sobriety (WFS) is both an organization and a self-help program (also called the New Life Program) for women with Substance Use Disorders. Founded in 1975, it was the first national self-help program for addiction recovery developed to address the unique needs of women. Based upon the thirteen Acceptance Statements, the New Life Program is one of positivity that encourages emotional and spiritual growth. The New Life Program has been extremely effective in helping women to overcome their Substance Use Disorders and learn a wholly new lifestyle. As a recovery program, it can stand alone or be used along with other recovery supports simultaneously.

Women For Sobriety, Incorporated:

• Conducts outreach and education about addiction and recovery using the WFS New Life Program.
• Supports the establishment and oversight of mutual aid groups based on the principles of the WFS New Life Program.
• Administers the peer-support forum and chat room Women for Sobriety Online thanks to a generous special endowment.
• Develops and distributes official literature about the New Life Program.
• Administers the WFS Annual Weekend Conference.
• Is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization which derives operational funding from group donations, literature sales, the Annual Weekend Conference, fundraising activities, and other donations.

Why A Program For Women Only?

Until the founding of WFS, it was assumed that any program for recovery from addiction would work equally well for women as for men. When it became obvious that recovery rates for males were higher than for females, it was then declared that women were harder to treat and were less cooperative.

WFS came forth with the belief that women simply require a different kind of program in recovery than the kinds of programs developed for men. The success of the WFS New Life Program has shown this to be true.

Although the physiological recovery from addiction is similar across the sex and gender spectrums, the psychological (emotional) needs of women in recovery are very different from those of men. The New Life Program is directed to these specific needs of women in recovery.

Women for Sobriety welcomes all expressions of female identity and our peer-supported resources are available to all sisters from the LGBTQIA community.

Volunteer

WFS is always looking for volunteers! Whether you can donate a few hours each week, each month, or each year, please consider filling out our Volunteer Application.  After you send your application you will receive an invitation to our monthly virtual volunteer orientation, held on the first Tuesday of each month at 8:30 pm Eastern.  There you will hear more information about the various volunteer opportunities.

We rely on volunteers for many tasks, including:

• Helping at the Annual Weekend Conference (limited work scholarships may be available annually)
• Running local In-person Meetings (Certified Facilitator)
• Moderating the WFS Online forum (Community Care Group)
• Running online chat meetings (Certified Facilitator)
• Reaching out to treatment centers and medical professionals to tell them about the WFS New Life Program (Volunteer Bank)
• Tabling or giving presentations at local and national recovery conferences and events (Volunteer Bank)
• Helping with administrative tasks in the office (Volunteer Bank)
• Serving on one of our peer-led Management Teams (see below)
• Serving as a governance volunteer on our Board of Directors (see the Governance Tab)

Volunteer Now

Volunteer Bank

The new WFS Volunteer Bank is perfect for our volunteers who may not be able to make an ongoing or high-level commitment at this time, or for those who prefer simpler projects to work on. Volunteer Bank volunteers list their task preferences (and prefer-not-to's!) and receive periodic emails with current projects the organization needs help with. Task categories you can sign up for (or opt out of) include:

• Phone calls
• Things you can do online (email, internet research, etc)
• Things you can do by yourself
• Things you can do with others
• Things you can do out in your community
• Helping in the office (Quakertown, PA)
• Participant Writer - contributing blog posts, personal stories, or other writing about your recovery journey for online and print outreach, marketing, and sales materials.
• Outreach - from home or in person
• Speaker's Bureau - participating in local or national publicity opportunities

Volunteer Now

Phone Support Volunteer

Since the incorporation of our Phone Support Volunteers on our new online Meeting Finder, demand for Phone Support Volunteers is higher than ever! For women new to WFS who do not have access to other peer support or who wish to develop a more individualized support relationship, a Phone Support Volunteer can be a critical figure in their recovery. Phone Support Volunteers should be well established in their recovery (typically this means at least one year of continuous sobriety), be well-versed in the WFS philosophy and New Life Program, and have good interpersonal boundaries. Women requesting a Phone Support Volunteer are provided only with the first name and phone number of the volunteer - the rest is up to you.

Certified Facilitators (CF) - In-Person, Video and Chat Meetings

Women for Sobriety relies on our volunteer facilitators to bring the New Life Program into their local communities and to women online. Our minimum requirements to be a CF include:

• having read Turnabout, Goodbye Hangovers, Hello Life, or the Beginner's Collection,
• having at least one year of continuous sobriety, and
• demonstrating a thorough knowledge of the New Life Program.

Additionally, we ask that our in-person meeting CF’s be willing to:

• make an initial commitment to a minimum of six months of weekly meetings to allow the group time to develop,
• send 100% of group donations to the WFS organization on a regular basis (this is used to send literature and supplies to the group, as well as support outreach and other program activities),
• obtain a rent-free meeting space, and
• correspond with prospective meeting attendees by both email and telephone.

If this describes you, please fill out our Volunteer Application and indicate that you are applying for a Certified Facilitator position. Within a few days, you will be contacted by our Volunteer Coordinator for a screening call to ensure that you meet the above requirements. You'll then receive the full Facilitator Certification Application form - for an idea of what is included, here are the questions for your review. After the full application has been received, you may be contacted again by someone on our Facilitator Team. After becoming certified, you will receive a package in the mail with your training manual and certificate.

If you need help meeting any of the requirements above or if you have any questions about the certification process, please contact [email protected] and someone from our Facilitator Team will help you out.

The requirements to be a CF for our online mutual aid chat meetings are similar to those listed above for in-person and video meetings. In addition, Chat CFs should be familiar with our online chat meeting format. Contact [email protected] if you have questions or need assistance with becoming a chat CF.

Volunteer Now

WFS Teams

Our Teams are instrumental in bringing WFS to the next level! During a strategic planning session in 2016, the WFS Board of Directors identified six key operational dimensions that needed to be developed to further strengthen the organization's ability to fulfill its mission. Eventually, these became six Management Teams, and we also added one additional critical group, the Conference Management Team. We've recently lost the stuffy "Management" label and now we are just the amazing WFS Teams!

You can join one of the Teams directly or, if you have a specific project in mind that you want to work on, our Volunteer Coordinator will help you determine where in the Team framework that project fits. The sky is the limit here - if you have the idea, drive, and time, please share it with us! As long as your project is in line with the organization's Vision, Mission, and Values, chances are that we can find a way to empower you to help us help more women.

• Conference Team - Plans and coordinates the WFS Annual Weekend Conference. Includes workgroups for conference activities and logistics. Email [email protected] for more information.
• Facilitator Team - Supports and grows meeting program, increasing the quality and availability of in-person, video, and chat New Life Program meetings. Email [email protected] for more information.
• Web Services Team - Manages the WFS Online community and this public website. Email [email protected] for more information.
• Materials Team - Guiding New Life literature into the 21st century! This team is evaluating and updating WFS branding and bookstore offerings to be relevant to today's recovering woman. Email [email protected] for more information.
• Outreach Team - Makes sure the New Life message makes it to the women who need it, including the professional recovery community. Email [email protected] for more information.
• Fundraising Team - Identifying and developing sources of funds for the WFS organization so that we can further increase our reach to women in recovery. Includes workgroups for annual fundraisers and exploring additional sources of revenue, such as grants and corporate sponsorships. Email [email protected] for more information.
• Volunteer Empowerment Team - Explores and develops ways to empower even more women to become involved in growing and implementing the organization's services. Runs the monthly Volunteer Orientation event. Email [email protected] for more information.

Volunteer Now

Governance

As a tax exempt 501(c)(3) organization, Women for Sobriety, Inc., is governed by a Board of Directors. As with all non-profit corporation boards, the WFS Board’s primary purpose is providing policy and financial oversight to ensure that donated funds are spent in a prudent, efficient manner consistent with the Mission Statement. Board members also help with fundraising, special projects, and other organizational initiatives that contribute to mission fulfillment. The Board is composed primarily of women who have recovered using the New Life Program, but may also include other interested specialists. You can learn more about serving on the WFS Board and the application and selection process in our Board Recruitment Packet.

If you are interested in serving on our Board of Directors, start by filling out the Volunteer Application and select option 9 on the task list (Board of Directors). Like all Boards, we are particularly interested in women with specialized knowledge that will contribute to healthy business development in our sector, such as financial expertise, marketing and outreach experience, legal knowledge, social services or professional drug and alcohol counseling training, healthcare administration, and other skilled fields.

Current Board of Directors:

Britt Rodriguez - britt@womenforsobriety.org

Edie N - [email protected]

Ginger R - ginger@womenforsobriety.org

Jean H - jean@womenforsobriety.org 

Lisa Lerner - lisal@womenforsobriety.org 

Veena I - veena@womenforsobriety.org

Ellen K - ellen@womenforsobriety.org

Bunny H - bunny@womenforsobriety.org

Executive Officers:

President – Jean H

Executive Director - Dr. Michelle Shaivitz - [email protected]

Vice President - Veena I

Secretary – Lisa Lerner

Treasurer – Britt Rodriguez

Documentation:

• 2021 Strategic Plan
• Organizational Chart
• 2017 990 Tax Document
• 2018 Annual Report
• 2018 990 Tax Document
• 2019 990 Tax Document
• 2020 990 Tax Document
• 2021 990 Tax Document
• Affinity Group Policy
• Corporate Sponsorship Policy
• Conflict of Interest Policy
• Inclusion Policy
• Financial Controls Policy & Procedures
• Bylaws - updated February 22 2018
• Whistleblower Policy
• WFS Facilitator Training Policy 3.17.22

Program Founder, Jean Kirkpatrick, Ph.D.

Dr. Jean Kirkpatrick couldn't cope with the fact that she was the first woman to receive the Fels Fellowship award at the University of Pennsylvania, so she went out and got drunk. Fearing that a mistake had been made and the funds to write her doctoral dissertation would be taken away, Dr. Kirkpatrick broke 3 years of sobriety with a drunk that lasted 13 years.

In Turnabout: New Help for the Woman Alcoholic, Dr. Kirkpatrick describes these years, the self-destruction, and how she finally was able to stop drinking.

With her own sobriety established by methods other than the traditional AA Program, Dr. Kirkpatrick formed the Women for Sobriety, Inc., organization and the New Life Program, and devoted the remainder of her life to helping women with addictions.

Who would think that this dynamic, intelligent, energetic woman had a history of addiction with suicide attempts and a stay in a psychiatric hospital? What amazed Dr. Kirkpatrick is not that she had a severe drinking problem, but that in all the years of her drinking, not once was she diagnosed as having a Substance Use Disorder.

Coming from a small town in eastern Pennsylvania, Jean was the only child of a prominent family. All through her life she rebelled against authority and the existing systems. At 19, she eloped with a young man in the Signal Corps just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Her husband was soon commissioned an officer and the young couple was stationed in numerous airbases in the west and southwest. Jean said that this is where her serious drinking began. Although she was not yet deeply into her Alcohol Use Disorder, the definite signs that she was well on her way were there.

After the war, like so many other wartime marriages, she found herself a young divorcee. She then entered Moravian College for Women, "Because it was the only college that would accept me, I had been thrown out of so many." She became an honor student and was elected to the Who's Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges in 1950.

Dr. Kirkpatrick continued her education with a Master’s Degree in English from Lehigh University in 1954 after having taught a year in a Kansas high school. In 1955, she entered the University of Pennsylvania's doctoral program and was awarded the Frances Sargent Pepper Fellowship, Bloomfield Moore Fellow; Joseph M. Bennett Fellowship; the University Women's Fellowship; and was the University of Pennsylvania's Woman of the Year in 1958.

During the time of her doctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Kirkpatrick came to grips with her alcohol problem, joined AA, and was sober for 3 years. But the final award of the Fels Fellowship was the beginning of a final drinking bout that lasted for 13 years.

When she returned to AA 13 years later, she wanted to hear new ideas and new things. AA just wasn't saying to her what she needed to hear. The fault was not with the AA Program but was in Jean's own need to know about herself. And so she continued to drink.

During this time Jean began to read more and more the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and other metaphysical writers. She began to see that by changing her thoughts she could change herself. By changing her thought when she was lonely or depressed, she would manage to string together 2 or 3 days of sobriety. Little by little these days became weeks and soon months. Finally, Jean Kirkpatrick, professional alcoholic, was sober a year. Her sobriety was achieved by realizing that she was a capable woman and that all her problems were the creation of her own mind. Not that problems weren't there, but she was able to look at them differently and so create her own way of reacting to them or acting upon them.

At this time, her father died and she was forced to move in with her aging mother. Her father's estate was quite small and she was confronted with the fact that she would have to find some work to help support herself and her mother. She was over 45 with a Ph.D. in sociology and recovered woman alcoholic. The prospects of finding a job weren't good. She tried various means of self-employment, all of which failed. Then in 1973, Dr. Kirkpatrick realized that she had knowledge of how to recover from Alcohol Use Disorder by a unique means, one that she could share with other women suffering from addiction. She had found her life's goal.

Armed with her own recovery and an instinctive knowledge that women with addictions had special needs that must be met in order to overcome their Substance Use Disorder and have lasting sobriety, Dr. Kirkpatrick set about establishing the first self-help organization for women in recovery, Women For Sobriety (WFS). From the beginning she felt that women with addictions had the same problems she did, i.e., little or no self-esteem, depression, loneliness and excessive feelings of guilt. She knew that she had found a way to overcome these feelings and felt other women would benefit from her experience.

In 1973 Dr. Kirkpatrick set her plan of recovery into an acceptance program that she called New Life. She felt that New Life groups could meet in homes and women would practice the New Program. In 1975, she used the name Women For Sobriety, Inc., to establish a nonprofit organization. She formalized thirteen affirmations that had been helpful in her own recovery into the thirteen Acceptance Statements which are still used today.

In October of 1977, Woman's Day magazine ran an article, "When A Woman Drinks Too Much," that told of a woman's drinking problem and how she overcame her problem with a new Program, something different from AA. From this article came thousands of letters from women seeking help for their own Substance Use Disorders. After hearing about WFS, an editor at Doubleday Books approached Jean to write a story about her addiction and her recovery. The printed copy of Turnabout is exactly as Jean wrote it –Doubleday editors did not edit the manuscript at all.

By this time, Jean had been quite used to public speaking, radio, and TV interviews. She was becoming a featured speaker at addiction conferences, a good person to interview on radio and TV talk shows, and good newspaper space. People wanted to know about this attractive brunette woman and her horrible drinking past. They were also interested in learning about this new approach to recovery that was so different from the established model. And women and their families were writing letters to WFS at the rate of 100 letters a week for additional information about the program.

In January 1978, Jean's book was released. She appeared on "The Today Show," "Good Morning America," and "To Tell The Truth" to name just a few TV shows. With her appearance on the "Phil Donahue Show", WFS received 500 letters a day for one week. Those letters expressed the views of women across the country. They said, "Yes, that's what happened to me; your expressing exactly those things I feel and thank you for telling my story."

Women For Sobriety has received over 80,000 letters from women and their families. These letters show that what Jean felt from the beginning was true: women do have special problems in recovery and, in order for them to have lasting sobriety, programs for them must address these needs, especially the building of self-esteem.

Dr. Kirkpatrick became recognized as an expert on addiction in women. She twice appeared before Senate sub-committees testifying on the special needs of women in recovery.

Since her recovery, Dr. Kirkpatrick has devoted herself tirelessly to the plight of women in recovery. In June of 1978, the Moravian College Alumni Association awarded her their highest honor — The Raymond Hauper Humanitarian Award for her "outstanding service in the cause of human welfare." At the time, this award had only been given 3 times in the 145-year history of the college.

The dream of Dr. Kirkpatrick to have women meet in self-help groups throughout the country has become a reality, and treatment facilities also use the program. Thousands of women have written in to say that they finally reached sobriety after years and years of being unsuccessful. Finally, they learned who they were and what they can do, and many end their letters with, "Thank you, Jean, for saving my life."

On June 19, 2000, Dr. Jean Kirkpatrick passed away at the age of 77. Her life experiences and recovery journey, expressed so well in her books and the WFS New Life Program, have had such a personal and positive impact on many women in recovery. Her desire was to see that WFS continue after her passing so that not one single woman would have to take the journey to recovery alone. WFS participants, staff members, and the Board of Directors are dedicated and committed to keeping the WFS New Life Program available for all those seeking help from their addictions.