Where Technology Meets Humanity: Email List Helps People Heal from Eating Disorders

The Recovery Group's THEBIGBOOK Wins L-Soft's LISTSERV Choice Awards – The Mailys


Landover, MD (March 21, 2013) – Helping people recover from eating disorders online? It may sound unlikely, but The Recovery Group's THEBIGBOOK email study group is doing just that, one email at a time. And for its life-changing work, THEBIGBOOK has won the grand prize in L-Soft's 7th annual LISTSERV Choice Awards – The Mailys – competition, honoring outstanding email lists.

"The winning email list, THEBIGBOOK, guides people through the formidable and deeply personal process of recovering from an addiction. One step at a time, its community of dedicated individuals support each other along the path they have all committed to – recovery," said Eric Thomas, L-Soft Founder and CEO, who invented LISTSERV, the original email list software, in 1986.

The Recovery Group (TRG) began with an L-Soft donation of LISTSERV software, which turned a small manual list in 1995 into what was to evolve into an online 12-step organization for men and women around the world who suffer from eating disorders, such as compulsive eating, binge eating, anorexia, bulimia and others.

"With a mantra of 'Around the World, Around the Clock,' TRG now has 100 LISTSERV lists, all geared toward recovery from eating disorders using the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous given to us 75 years ago in The Big Book. THEBIGBOOK (BB) study list has become one of TRG's most effective lists," said Mari C., Founder of The Recovery Group. "Much of the longevity and success of our BB list is because of our dedicated Coordinators and Big Book Leaders throughout the years. By the end of each year, in addition to being thoroughly familiar with this amazing book written over 75 years ago, the group has become very much like a family. Some even call it their 'Family of Choice'."

Linda S., Coordinator of THEBIGBOOK, described how this unique online study group of approximately 400 members accomplishes its mission of support and recovery: "The Big Book list hosts an online study each year. Beginning in January, our leaders guide members through a study of the first 150 pages of The Big Book. Many think of The Big Book as an instruction manual for addicts and the fact is that addiction has no boundaries. Food just happens to be our drug of choice."

She added that each day, there is a different BB Leader, who sends a specific "share" and assignment to the group and, in turn, the group responds to the leader's assignment. The share is always an excerpt from The Big Book and focuses on the 12 steps of recovery from addiction. The daily assignments follow the leaders' original shares and Big Book quotation, providing in-depth work to support each member through the recovery process.

"Our LISTSERV list has archives going back to 1999, and each leader's share, as well as the responses to the daily assignments are there where they can be read for years to come," Linda S. added.

L-Soft's annual LISTSERV Choice Awards – The Mailys – is a unique, worldwide competition that recognizes outstanding email lists of all types that run on the company's LISTSERV or LISTSERV Maestro software. Public voting determines five finalists, from which an L-Soft jury and Eric Thomas select the grand prize winner. The other four finalists in LISTSERV Choice Awards 2012 were:

  • Gunroom: An email group that discusses Patrick O'Brian's literary works
  • Recovery Meditations: A 12-step TRG list where members share daily on the book, Recovery Meditations - One Day at a Time.
  • World Wide Words: Michael Quinion's thoughts about the English language
  • Working the Steps: The WTS Step Study, one of the oldest TRG lists, has four 12-step workshops each year. Each study is 12 weeks long.

Read more about the LISTSERV Choice Awards – The Mailys – on L-Soft's website:
http://www.lsoft.com/news/choiceawards.asp

Read more about The Recovery Group's THEBIGBOOK:
http://www.lsoft.com/customers/thebigbook.asp
http://www.therecoverygroup.org/bigbook.html

About L-Soft

Incorporated in 1994, L-Soft is the exclusive provider of LISTSERV® email list software, email marketing software and email list hosting services. L-Soft's opt-in email solutions are used to manage email newsletters, announcement lists, discussion groups and email communities, serving more than 100 million list subscriptions worldwide. Invented by L-Soft Founder and CEO Eric Thomas, LISTSERV launched the permission email list communication industry in 1986 and remains the gold standard.

L-Soft Press Contact

Susan Brown Faghani
1-301-731-0440, Ext 4
https://www.lsoft.com/contact/econtact.asp?id=pressinfo


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