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 are each responsible for our lives and our sobriety. The autonomous SOS groups are linked through the Clearinghouse . The Clearinghouse is a center for the dissemination of information for individuals who may be looking for a secular program of recovery.
SOS lends assistance in the formulation of new groups.
The operational costs for the Clearinghouse are covered partially by subscriptions to the SOS International Newsletter , but mostly by the groups themselves donating a portion of the contributions they receive by passing the hat at local meetings, and by individual contributions to the Clearinghouse. The SOS movement began with an article in the Summer 1985 issue of Free Inquiry magazine, the leading humanist journal in the country. James Christopher, the son of an alcoholic and a sober alcoholic himself, wrote Sobriety without Superstition, an account of the path he took to sobriety. Christopher felt that there must be others who wanted to achieve and maintain sobriety through personal responsibility and self-reliance. As a result of the tremendous response to the article from addicted individuals who wanted to maintain sobriety as a separate issue from all else, Jim Christopher founded the Secular Organizations for Sobriety Save Our Selves.