[ 1312-STEP ]

[ USING THE PO BOX ]

Please address all mail to the PO Box to:

Current Resident 440 N Barranca Ave #7567 Covina, CA 97123 United States of America

The reason why I'm asking everyone to set the recipient to “Current Resident” is because there is a monthly fee for each recipient added to the PO Box, and there is a 1-month long wait period before old names can be removed. PLEASE SPECIFY THE NAME OF THE ACTUAL RECIPIENT ON THE FIRST PAGE OF THE LETTER SO I KNOW WHOM TO FORWARD IT TO.

Mail delivered to the PO Box will be scanned then destroyed by the PO Box company and forwarded to the actual recipient by me via email. For further information on the PO Box company's opsec measures regarding mail privacy, please refer to their Security page.

Please do not use the PO Box for receiving packages (because I'd have to front the shipping costs).

[ CORRESPONDENCE GUIDELINES ]

I've experienced many political disagreements, both online and offline, where people come to conflict with an attitude of, “if I think you're wrong, I'm entitled to get as verbally aggressive with you as much as I want, because if you're wrong that means you're being oppressive, and I'm doing counterviolence by attacking you”—especially when the conflict revolves around actual oppression that does impact them and there's ongoing trauma involved. People get reactive. And for me, the reactivity is very much not a response that's rooted in care for the person you're reacting to—it's not about offering them an opportunity to grow with you in the relationship, it's about defending your own safety because you strictly see the other person as a threat, as a political enemy, whom you have no obligation to treat with care.

In my local organizing scene, I've often felt like affinity and the preservation of organizing relationships is contingent on an unspoken agreement to never actually criticize each other. I've seen some people enforce this social contract by immediately blowing up the relationship as soon as they feel personally attacked by a criticism, or by completely refusing to address and engage with any criticisms that get brought up. And I'm not okay with any of that—I don't think cutting off anyone who triggers you or being completely conflict-avoidant is solid ground for social revolution to flourish.

Choosing to make a recovery space partisan means choosing to take on the risks for retraumatization that show up in both organizing and addiction recovery spaces. These are the guidelines for handling that risk that I have chosen to set in place, subject to change:

[ 1 ]

Abuse, rape (digital or physical), stalking, doxxing, harassment, and any other oppressive behavior that socially reproduces a power dynamic of domination or exploitation are not welcome in this space. If you have been victimized by someone in the group, please let me or another facilitator know, so that we can offer you the support that you need.

Facilitators will aim to prioritize survivors' needs without treating perpetrators and all perceived supporters of perpetrators as people who should be permanently disposed of. However, facilitators must also never place the importance of perpetrators' potential to change over the actual safety of survivors. In a situation where multiple survivors involved have conflicting safety needs, or if a survivor asks for safety measures that go against a facilitator's principles, facilitators will aim to respond in a way that is least damaging to the autonomies of everyone involved.

[ 2 ]

Please do not treat facilitators or comrades in recovery you have instant communication with as crisis hotlines, unless this is an arrangement the person you are corresponding with has explicitly consented to.

[ 3 ]

In a correspondence of fellowship, neither person should feel the need to censor themselves around the other, and both people should feel safe voicing disagreement or difficult feelings to the other person. To facilitate these conditions, please explicitly discuss and agree on boundaries and expectations for conflict resolution with your comrades in recovery as early in correspondence as possible, instead of assuming conflict will never happen or waiting until conflict shows up to put safety measures in place.

Suggested questions to ask and answer: – How often would we like to write each other? – How do we avoid triggering each other while discussing topics that will likely show up in this correspondence, such as substance and process addictions, suicide and self-harm, childhood, relationship, religious and social trauma, and state repression? – What do we need to trust each other as comrades in recovery? – What do we need to feel safe to engage in conflict with each other? – If I don't feel safe to engage in conflict with you, what behavior can you expect from me instead?

[ 4 ]

Although, especially in the context of letter writing to prisoners, it's the standard to explicitly tell the other person if you wish to stop writing, sometimes there's a situation where it would be difficult or unsafe to do so.

If you feel that the other person would not understand your reasons for ending the correspondence, rather than provide a detailed explanation, you can tell them that you're writing to set a boundary regarding future communication, and that you wish to wind the correspondence down.

If you feel that the other person would question why you're setting the boundary, pressure you to continue correspondence, or otherwise push back or retaliate, just stop writing them with no further explanation. Please pre-empt this kind of situation as part of your discussion on boundaries and expectations with them (see guideline 3), and let them know in advance that if you do not write back for [ INSERT TIME PERIOD HERE ], that they should assume you've intended to end correspondence.

[ 5 ]

Please do not plan illegal activities or discuss anyone's involvement with illegal activities through correspondence for this project. Discussion of illegal activities where the details are already public knowledge is OK. Regardless, speak as if an informant's already listening. Don't write anything you wouldn't want read back to you in court.