KTC – Building Community
Okay. So you signed into KTC. Some vets told you where and how to post. You posted. Now what? Well, there is a lot of things that you can do from here, but I would recommend that, along with continuing to read the gems that others have left behind in HOF, Words of Wisdom, Intro threads, etcÂ…., to begin building community. Here are a few suggestions to help you begin building a community of support and accountability within your quit group.
1) Start your SSOA - Connect with a previous quit group leader and find out how they developed their spreadsheet of accountability aka the SSOA. Sometimes, you might have a vet reach out and initiative this for you like the DOGs (Jan 2016) did (shot out to ChickDip.) This SSOA helps you very early one begin to take a daily talley of who is in your cohort and who is showing up daily. This helps provide you some direction and accountability each day. Additionally, I would recommend recruiting a crew of people within your cohort to manage the SSOA on a daily basis. DonÂ’t just dump it on one person who is willing to do it, even if they are willing. Give back and support your cohort. You can have a crew delegate days of who is the point person or you can just collectively jump at it each day. IÂ’d recommend trading numbers with this group so you all can keep each other in the loop.
2) Know your cohort - IÂ’d recommend reaching out each day or two to at least one new person in your cohort. When it makes sense, exchange numbers, but donÂ’t be offended when people donÂ’t want to. Give them time and meet them where they are. DonÂ’t overwhelm yourself, but in addition to regularly posting on your forum and engaging everyone, reach out individually and get to know people more deeply. This can help you understand others and develop trust. Trust is something you need after all as you are largely dealing with strangers online. Most of the people I reached out to were proven to be trustworthy, there was a few who were not. You can take this process to assess this on your own.
3) Fun posts -- It helps to post a few fun things in the forum to get people interacting. One time, we borrowed something from another cohort and everyone posted their name, job, and a few other items. Do this at your discretion. Remember, at the end of the day, you donÂ’t know who you are dealing with always so you might want to be reserved at times with what you share. Use your own discretion and donÂ’t be pressured by anyone to share what you donÂ’t want to share. However, it helps to cultivate community by doing some fun things like this.
4) Hunting trips together -- Other group activities can be fun and build solidarity. We used to get hounded by a few vets who only seemed to tell us consistently that we weren’t doing this right and weren’t doing that right. As grown men, quite a few of us expressed getting tired of it. Therefore, a few of my fellow DOGs and I used to even team up and take on some good battles with the vets. I seemed to always take the most heat and backlash though. When times got tough, a few of my fellow DOGs used to hide in their DOG pens and I would be pitted as the “drama guy” although we all engaged in it or planned to. Again, it would have helped to build better trust. Obviously, I let my guard down with them, but I didn’t initially mind because I could handle my own. Nonetheless, these little “hunting trips” were always fun. Sometimes we’d get together and go in the chat room or one of the new quit groups. Sometimes it would be for pure fun and other times it would be for pure support.
5) Buddy system -- I think it is extremely important to build a buddy system or a small group system. We called our system the WMD program. It stands for Watch My Dog aka WMD. Each DOG was paired with another DOG. Each pair were also expected to be the next line of search and rescue. The way this worked is like this, let’s say you have WMD pair #1 between 1A and 1B. Then you have WMD pair #2 with 2A and 2B. If one 1B came up missing on roll, 1A was the first line of responsibility. Therefore, whoever is checking SSOA should reach out to the WMD and say, “your boy/girl is missing!” In a case where let’s say 2A and 2B come up missing, then the WMD pair #1 were the second line of search and rescue.
6) Groupme and limitations -- I still think utilizing groupme or other group text apps are extremely beneficial in cultivating community within your quit group. Some people in here, including many admins, are uncomfortable with the spread of groupme, but I think it is good with some very strict parameters set on the front end. I get their concerns though. They don’t want it to take away from the site. After all, you sharing your journey in the forums is a trail for other quitters to learn from. They can’t do that in the groupme. This is a somewhat fair concern although I would reject it being an “all or nothing” thing. If you do, as I suggested, you should set some ground rules.
First off, no one should ever communicate in the groupme if they have not posted roll that day. This is the same expectation in the chat room.
Secondly, you should limit the groupme to discussions that you donÂ’t feel comfortable sharing with the entire KTC community. The groupme should never take place of discussion in forum. However, there were moments when someone might share something like a marital struggle or issues with flatulence that he/she didnÂ’t feel comfortable to share with other strangers in a forum. In this case, the groupme plays a vital role in establishing community, trust, and developing deeper relationships.
However, for this same reason, it brings me to my third suggestion, the groupme is supposed to be more intimate and people should respect each otherÂ’s privacy. What you share in the groupme should be between those in the groupme unless you collectively decide something else. We ran into issues where there was infighting within the groupme and someone would run their mouth in the forum about it. Often they were doing this because they knew the culture in the forum would actually support them and they were trying to build a case against that person. This is a major breach of trust and makes it difficult to develop a true brotherhood.
7) Be yourself, even if you are resisted – KTC has a culture. Culture is fluid. It is created by those within that community. Many of us started dipping because we were following. We wanted to do what we saw others doing. When you quit Nic, you decided that you’d be a leader in your own life and not let Nic do the leading. Extend that mission to your interactions in this community. Don’t follow just to follow. I encourage you to be yourself, even if being yourself naturally “rocks the boat” because those who oppose you will draw everyone and their Ma in to stand against you. They are often to appealing to the “we” in here because they don’t stand on their own two feet. Be strong and stand your ground, as long as you are being reasonable. Check yourself when you are not. Don’t just fit in because it seems easier in the short run. There are other people like you and they need to see that reflected in this community. Don’t tuck you away in a closet. In that same spirit though, don’t feel like you have to prove yourself to anyone in here. If people don’t appreciate what you contribute to the community, don’t waste your time on them. Put your energy elsewhere. For example, I decided to put a good amount of my energy into things like what I am doing now, just creating something for a struggling dipper to be empowered with and turn away from the Nic Pimp. Learn to connect with people who have common value and beliefs, but don’t limit yourself to that. I’m a Christian so it was important for me to connect to other Christians who are comfortable talking about their walk with Christ and how it relates to quitting and navigating this community.
On a final note, keep up the good work! You are here. ThatÂ’s a great start!
