Deleting posts..... - Al-Anon Family Group

Diva · ~*Service Worker*~

Deleting posts.....

DreamXL · Senior Member

I agree......sorta like take what u like and leave the rest...rarely do i relate to every single thing i read (obviously) lol.......or agree........Thanks excellent post.

GailMichelle · ~*Service Worker*~

I'm not taking sides. However, I read your post and thought it was very thought provoking. I, too, have asked the same questions. I did not see anything wrong with the post. Perhaps I overlooked something?????

serendipity · ~*Service Worker*~

I do have to agree with you Diva. I see we need moderators to keep the board clean and to keep the posts to Aism related topics in geeral. Ofcourse, in my world, I can relate almost everything (my reactions anyway) to Aism...LOL!!

I also feel that unless a post becomes abusive, then it should remain. This is an alanon board and in alanon no one is in charge. No one has the right to determine what is best for another.

Especially in your post which was exactly about censorship, to be censored is not what is called for.

Hopefully this post will remain up so that we may all check our motives and continue on in what is best for us.

Maria123 · ~*Service Worker*~

Hey Diva,

I am with you Girlfriend !

At meetings, there's no way to take back what we've said and it's a good thing people can't be deleted (lol). Yet I also respect that Alanon does not endorse controversy. In a face to face meeting, another member may explain something to the member who's not following the Alanon legacy.

Just this week, at my F2F meeting, a woman chaired the meeting for the very first time. It was amazing, when she first came to alanon, she was so fragile, so broken, so angry and sometimes her shares were very uncomfortable. At the end of the meeting this week, I approached her "very carefully" and thanked her for chairing and told her that her topic was very helpful to me. She said "Maria, this is the best meeting because you all here are so gentle and kind to each other. I know that when I was new, I was a mess." That was so humbling to me and a great reminder because of her beginning.

Such a dichotomy . . . I'm taught in Alanon that we need allow everyone that we cannot control the dignity of living their own lives and making their own mistakes, yet how can that happen if they are denied that opportunity by being deleted? And then I've also learned that all of us here in Alanon bring our ISM's with us whether it's to a meeting or here on the board. I've often had to adjust my "expectations" on alanoners realizing that they are perfertly imperfect . . . just like me

.

I, too, am an advocate for "take what you liked and leave the rest." We truly have more in common with each other (someone's drinking bothers/bothered us) than we have that separates us.

I am often sad that sometimes alanoners aren't guided by "though you may not like us all, you'll love us in a special way, the same way we already love you." Sometimes we may say something wrong or inadvertently hurt someone's feelings . . . welp they just might not support you any longer.

Keep coming, my friend, keep coming,
Maria

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Diva I do agree with your idea of censorship. I do believe that monitoring and postings on this board is very important. The Mods do an admirable job as do each and every poster.

I did check my understanding of the traditions and thought that possibly the
First Tradition speaks to the deleting of posts.

"Our common welfare should come first, personnel progress for the greatest number depends on unity."

Betty

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Reality is that MIP is not an approved Al-Anon site, meeting or function. It is a public
domain created by a caring individual for the use of others probably with the hope that
the principles of the program would be adhered to first and foremost.   The last time
I heard advise given at a Al-Anon meeting or after it for that matter was advise given
to me for promoting Al-Anon with a female friend married to an alcoholic who pretty
well took apart the first meeting she came into and never came back. She didn't know
the program and only knew she had reactions and feelings and personal thoughts about
what was going on in her life. The advise to me? "Please don't ever do that again in
this program."   It came out a success...I never did. End of story.

Betty's suggestion of the 1st tradition is a very workable and valuable one...however
this is not Al-Anon.   (((((hugs))))) smile

david62 · ~*Service Worker*~

"I have this crazy notion that most people can make their own decisions."

Amen sister. It didn't matter how much advice I gave my ex-wife, nor has it mattered how many times I have advised people I know to do just about anything...in the end the number of times they have totally disregarded what I said anyway was quite perplexing!!!! Didn't they know I was profoundly right? wink

I have this crazy notion that Al-Anon suggests that we don't give advice to others so that I can stop my compulsive need to try to solve other people's issues in a patent effort to avoid trying to work on myself and fix the "real" problem.

I am not in charge. I am not as powerful as I sometimes still think I am. I also realize I don't have all the answers anymore, and that is one of the big reasons my advice giving has gone waaaaaaaay down.

Once again, being deleted isn't all that big a deal to me one way or the other. You had a though and wrote about it. I hope you got to read some of the replies before it disappeared...but the important thing is that you are still trying to grow.

My advice to you..hehehe....keep coming back.

David

shellyj123 · ~*Service Worker*~

I have had these same questions prior to this post. No matter how you look at it we DO give advice in this program. I keep telling people, KEEP COMING BACK, FOCUS ON YOU, COME TO SIX MEETINGS BEFORE YOU MAKE A DECISION, USE THE SLOGANS, JOURNAL, ETC.

The list goes on and on. There is all kinds of advice we give here, and I'm sure it is all given in love, and wanting to help one another in need.

But we do have to keep in mind that this is not AlAnon. I though, carry my 12 steps here and my 12 traditions here even though.

shelly

serendipity · ~*Service Worker*~

I think there is a huge difference between giving advice and stating my opinion or making a suggestion. When I say to someone "we suggest you try at least 6 meetings" or "I would suggest that the slogan Let Go and Let God may help in this instance" is far different from saying to someone "If you don't get out of your abusive marriage then you are sure to be killed and then your children wil be parentless and it will be all your fault....I'm just letting you know...."That would be judgemental and sick.

But for me to say "I have been in an abusive, alcoholic situation myself and the only thing that saved me was walking away. I had to save myself, and with the help of this program, I was able to do that. If you need help, want help, let me know and I can advise you as to what worked for me."

I don't think there is anything wrong with stating the truth as it is. At the same time, I curl up into a ball when someone is trying to take over and run my life. It makes me feel MORE incompetent and like a loser. I hate that. On this board, someone doing that is pretty impossible. Anyone can say to me YOU SHOULD or YOU BETTER and I have the ease of overlooking that statement. It is the "helpful enablers" IRL that try to take me over that I have a hard time with. They are like leeches who stick to me. Helpful leeches but leeches none the less....and they do NOT have a program...go figure?

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

Of course I agree with all of you.

The decision is usually being made by one single person in our HUGE membership. I also want to add this person is doing the very best they can and honestly believe they are right.

It is not an easy volunteer job to have.

Most of the time the editing and deleting is done very wisely. But sometimes I find it very frustrating when we have a great discussion going and I want to see others feelings on it and it is gone!

There was nothing wrong in my feeling about discussing advice, or how we word what we want to say to others. If anything it would help us to do it in a more constructive way.

As with this post we are seeing or seems like we are all in agreement.

The fear is I believe that a new person will come on and be put off. But again to me, I would rather come to where the truth is open than trying to make it a wonderland here.

If we hide the stuff some find uncomfortable, it may make our new ones afraid to share their lives that are not pretty.

I have asked that our mods have meetings,this way there could be a group consenses on whether a post is appropriate.

Thank you Diva for coming right back and posting again. What would we do with out the sqeaky wheels.

I saw a great bumper sticker. "We never heard about woman in history who was obediant."

Some of our most important changes, experiments, inventions were done by people others tried to shut up.

Just MY ESH. love,debilyn

QOD · ~*Service Worker*~

I have receives so much helpful & useful ESH from EVERYONE on this site including you, Diva! Granted over the years, I have received some ESH that didn't quite fit to my personality so I didn't use it in my situation...but maybe someone else who read my posts and its responses could use it in their situation. I tend to always use the "Take what you like, leave the rest" attitude. This goes for here on MIP as well as in my day to day life.

I don't have a clue what the post was about that got deleted here. I just felt compelled to put my 2 cents in.

Sincerely,
QOD

Aloha · ~*Service Worker*~

I personally try to limit my own advice-giving. It just feeds my Al-Anon know-it-all-ism, which isn't healthy for ME.

Trust me. If you asked me for advice and I was living in my little make-believe world of having the answer to everything, you would most DEFINITELY get my advice. Because I know what's right for everyone. I have ALL the answers. And if you all would just SEE things the way I see it, you'd all be happy. I'm sure of it.

;)

Diva · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha, two things I know for sure: I am not living in a make-believe world, and I am not a know-it-all, AlAnon or otherwise. Further I do not pretend to know what's right for everyone. Those truths considered, I have no idea what point you are trying to make.

Best holiday wishes to you and yours,

Diva

LarryWhiteford · Member

not sure why editing and deleting is done at all..... don't believe in it....

The material presented here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method to exchange information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal level.