Starting SoberCircle has been the most rewarding experience of my professional career. Few are the times where we can positively affect the lives of others while doing the work that we love. I get thank you letters all the time, so I am very aware of the impact this website can have. On the other side though, you have people who seem to have a death wish with the idea of SoberCircle and an online community that serves the greater good people that join it.
Its difficult to deal with all the turmoil that these people seem so driven to create. It also baffles me that people would want to cause harm in a place meant to do good. So, I learned the hard way that people will be people. Some people are really good people. Some people are not such good people. Some people are perfectly fine unless you mix them with other fine people that grate on one another and they drag each other into the mud. Some people will miss their meds and really fly off the handle and give you every reason to banish them, but you dont and they come back and redeem themselves.
This is not the SoberCircle I envisioned, but it is what SoberCircle is. It is a social community, just like the real world. It is an online community with real world issues. And for every bad thing that happens in this real community, there are a half dozen good things happening. That’s the trade-off. There’s an expression that goes around 12 step settings that says “Take what you want and leave the rest”. This is especially true of SoberCircle because we could sanitize the community to the point that only good things were being said, but would the community be better because of this? I seriously doubt it.
The cons could very well become the pros. Yes, there is often a lack of judgment when members slander other members and there is no excuse that makes it acceptable. I have seen cases where people slam others and come to terms that it was wrong to act or react in that manner and they grow from it. One side learns from their mistakes while the other side learns to forgive. What was the con, is now a pro. Its amazing how that works. And its all up to us to take the good out of every situation and leave the bad, to look the other way and not give into the temptation to stoop down to the levels of others. Leaving a positive footprint on the community is a responsibility that we all must share, even if we have done harm to others in the community – its never too late to give something good back.
