Virtual Recovery

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I was recently talking with a friend about an acquaintance who has become known for his bad behavior in one of the smaller concentric circles of overlapping communities we both belong to. My friend briefly described the acquaintances poor behavior, including some activities are pretty problematic in terms of how he treats (and apparently) is treating) women. So there's no question that this guy has needs to be called on his behavior; especially in small communities where we often don't want to create bad feelings within our own overlap, sometimes confrontations are long delayed, much as they are in dysfunctional families. So it did seem like this guy's behavior did need to be confronted, but this is how the concerned parties did it: they created a website about him.Since much of the dude's bad behavior happens when he's drinking, the concerned parties called the website an “intervention” (it's down, so don't try and look for it) and it was really set up like a virtual intervention. There were letters that started “your drinking has affected the community in the following ways” for example, as well as photographic evidence of the guy's behavior. There was also a list of bottom lines that the website creators would hold, although they called them “demands” and that, to me, doesn't quite seem in the same spirit.

Beyond missing the entire point of confronting the person, not the world, with their own behavior, it made me wonder what the purpose was of this kind of interaction, and made me even more scared of the concept of virtual recovery. The old-timers' adage of “if all else fails, go to a meeting” means a real meeting with other people present I'm not sure a computer, even one with a very high speed internet connection, can be a substitute for that.