Logging On for Recovery

I work in international development, and until recently, I’ve traveled overseas at least once a month. As many fellows know, travel brings inherent challenges and difficulties for those of us in FA. Here are a few: timing sponsor calls, handling time changes and mealtimes, dealing with food on airplanes, making phone calls from overseas, and finding reasonable substitutes for meetings. Part of the solution for both my job, as well as for sponsor calls and telephone outreach, is the use of videoconferencing services.

My life changed immediately with COVID-19. My international trips were postponed, I had to hurry back home from Washington, DC, and all the work teams I managed were ordered to shelter in place. I worked with our senior leaders to formulate early plans for staff in Washington State, where some of the first “shelter in place” orders were issued. Work became all virtual, all the time, and the pandemic forced the closure of in-person FA meetings, flummoxing the notion of face-to-face fellowship for our group.

Not surprisingly, when we were ordered to stay at home, I brought with me a bit of experience in the use of videoconferencing tools. When we decided to move our meetings online, I, like many other fellows used to the digital environment, fell into a new, uncharted service position as technical coordinator.

Many, many fellows had no experience in the use of any online platform, and the transition to conducting fellowship online presented practical, emotional, and spiritual challenges. On the most practical level, decisions had to be made about how to send links to the meetings, what versions of the videoconferencing services to purchase, and how to allow members who did not have cameras on their computer to use their phone to attend meetings. There were also emotional challenges. Difficulty with technology sparked insecurity in many fellows, me included. In one of our meetings, I inexplicably had to restart my computer, making me late for the meeting. I sweated out those minutes, as others thought of me as the “tech” person. I was embarrassed, though to this day I do not know what happened that required me to reboot my system. For many fellows, learning to use a videoconference platform was nerve-wracking. For one meeting, the secretary could not get on the call and was so frustrated that he left to take his dog on a walk, feeling left out and lonelier than if we had not had the meeting at all. And yes, there have been other issues, such as hacking, the meeting crashing, and each fellow related to use of videoconferencing platforms. We coached people on how to login, use their camera, mute and unmute, and how to “raise their hand.” We were patient with people as they neglected to mute audio, talked to their children, shushed the dog, and stolen recordings, all of which we had to address for the sake of safety and anonymity. However, we took on these challenges one at a time.

We phoned people individually for email addresses so we could send them the links. We asked questions to assess the needs of forgot to unmute before reading or sharing. We bought an upgraded version of the platform and agreed to pay the extra expense out of our Seventh Tradition once we resumed meeting in person. We appointed a coordinator, rotated meeting moderators who selected readings, and expanded the duties of the phone list service position to include maintaining email addresses while keeping them confidential.

It certainly has lifted the spiritsof our group to gather at ourusual time and maintaina sense of continuity, despitethe unusual circumstances.

We learned to make time after closing the meeting to have fellowship, especially with those with less than 90 days of abstinence, so they felt included. We made every effort to follow up with people who experienced technological difficulties to cheer them on and encourage them to keep attending. Over these two years, we have tried to work through all these issues, one day at a time, one meeting at a time.

Without question, overcoming these challenges has been rewarding. The meetings are well attended. We have experienced new readings from FA literature, and we are staying online after the meeting closes for more conversation and fellowship. We “see” each other up close and talk a little more about our homes and families, becoming more willing to share about how we are adapting and coping in the crisis. There are also spiritual benefits to attending online meetings. It certainly has lifted the spirits of our group to gather at our usual time and maintain a sense of continuity, despite the unusual circumstances. I brought the coordination of the meetings to my Higher Power for reassurance and a spirit of graciousness and patience, and I have seen the confidence of my fellows grow as they have overcome their initial fears and reticence.

Overall, I am enormously thankful for video conferencing platforms, for the technicians that make the platforms work, for the telecommunication workers who have kept the internet and cellservice functioning during this social isolation. I am proud of the World ServiceConference for wrestling with the need for online meetings and grateful for the pioneering fellows who have helped us see online meetings as normal for now. The famous Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky, once wrote, “Times of crisis, of disruption or constructive change are not only predictable, but desirable. They mean growth. Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”

For FA, that new word is “videoconference,” a word I am now unafraid to utter so we can necessarily adapt our essential tools of recovery during this COVID-19 response.