Online Alateen Security
Can We Establish Safe Meetings for Teens?
By BuddyT
One of the requests that comes across my computer screen most often is from a parent in an alcoholic marriage, usually the non-drinking or recovering parent, seeking to find Alateen meetings online for their child.
I explain to them that the reason that there are very few, if any, Alateen meetings available is because the World Service Organization (WSO) of Al-Anon Family Groups does not encourage the establishment of meetings for teens due to security concerns.
The reason being it is virtually impossible to determine who someone really is in the online environment. It is easy for people to pretend to be someone they are not.
Several months ago I received such a request directly from a teen, asking me if I could set up a time and/or a special chat room in which she and her friends could meet. She had been searching all over the Internet and had not been able to find a room for Alateen.
I wrote back and explained the concerns of WSO about security for teens online and told her that in the past we had tried several times to establish such a room, but it just had not worked out, for various reasons -- usually a lack of participation.
Has to Be a Way
Well, this young lady was very persistent. She kept writing me saying that their had to be a way to set up such a place and if there were any disruptions or intruders in the room they could be banned by the adult sponsor or administrator. Please, could I set up something for her and her friends?My heart went out to this teenager, as it does all children who are living in an alcoholic environment, so I proposed a plan to her. I agreed to set up a special password-protected section of one of our forums (bulletin boards) for her and her friends, if she agreed to allow it to be monitored by her, myself and an adult Al-Anon sponsor. She enthusiastically agreed.
I set up a section in our Forum which was a "private folder," which means only those who were specifically given access to the folder could even see that it was there. It was invisible to everyone else. I asked one of my friends with more than 25 years in Al-Anon if she would be the Alateen sponsor and she eagerly agreed to do so.
Security Problems
I wrote the teen and told her that all was ready to go and she could now invite her friends to the forum. They would be given access to the private section if she would let me, as administrator, know which ones logging on were her Alateen friends so that I could turn on the access.As soon as the forum was established, the teen started posting topics for discussion -- along with the complete opening and closing statements suggested for online meetings -- every day. I had to admire her enthusiasm.
She also wanted me to tell her how to get the meeting listed with Al-Anon's WSO and on the Online Al-Anon Information Service. I explained to her that first she had to have a group and then the group could vote to determine if it wanted to be listed with WSO and if so, elect a meeting contact person. I told her she needed to first invite her friends to the room.
Then she wanted me to announce the existence of the group on the web site and in the newsletter. This kid was very persistent, as I said. I explained that to announce the Alateen group publicly would open up the forum to the very security problems we were trying to avoid, because there no way I could tell if someone requesting access was really a teen.
I Was Fooled
Again, I told her I thought that she had Alateen friends online that she was going to invite to the meeting. Then something told me to ask her this question:You are a member of Alateen, right?
Well, it turns out this "teen" was not only not a member of Alateen, she was not even a member of Al-Anon. In fact, she was an adult member of Alcoholic Anonymous! The guidelines for Alateen meetings specifically prohibit members of A.A. from being Alateen sponsors.
I deleted the new teen section of the forum immediately. I couldn't believe, after all these years of doing this online recovery stuff and seeing almost every trick in the book, that I had been fooled into thinking this person was a teen, when in fact she was not even close to being an Alateen.
But this story proves the point that WSO is wise to be concerned about the safety of Alateen members online. This is the very trick that sexual predators use when stalking teens on the Internet -- they pretend to be teens themselves until they can lure their targets into meeting with them face-to-face.
There is certainly a need for Alateen meetings online, with an estimated 6.6 million children under the age of 18 years living in U.S. households with at least one alcoholic parent. But until we can come up with some security measure that will protect them from those who purposefully prey upon teens in general, it is not a wise choice to have publicly accessible meetings for teens.
