Policies, Rules & Regulations

NOTE: These Rules are the exact rules that you were presented at the time of registration. If you did not read them per the agreement then you are now reading them by your own choice or you were asked to read them for a reason.

Please Read and Fully Understand These Simple Rules:

We strive to make our forums a place where everyone feels welcome. Recovery is what is important here. In order to do this, we have to enforce a few guidelines. If you read them over and try to understand why they exist, we're sure you'll agree with the fact that they are necessary. If you post in our forums, please comply with the following guidelines;


You agree, through your use of the Recovery Crossroads forum, that you will comply with the posting guidelines outlined in this agreement. You also agree not to post in violation of any International or United States Federal law. You also agree not to post any copyrighted material unless you own the copyright or you have written consent from the owner of the copyrighted material. Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also forbidden on this website.

The intended objective of Recovery Crossroads is that it will be a place for Alcoholics or anyone with an addiction to share their experience, strength, and hope with each other, especially the newcomer. It is not intended to be a debating forum to dissect any aspect of Alcoholics Anonymous or any other 12 Step Fellowships. Neither is it intended to be a vehicle for individualized posts direct to other forum members, nor is it intended that one person monopolize any given forum. It is expected that we will allow others to share in their own way – it’s critical to their recovery to have their choices and options.

While the administrators and moderators of Recovery Crossroads forums will attempt to remove or edit any generally objectionable material as quickly as possible, it is impossible to review every message. Therefore you acknowledge that all posts made to these forums express the views and opinions of the author and not the administrators, moderators or webmasters (except for posts by these people) and hence will not be held liable.

You remain solely responsible for the content of your posted messages. Furthermore, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the owners of this forum, any related websites to this forum, its staff, and its subsidiaries. The owners of this forum also reserve the right to reveal your identity (or any other related information collected on this service) in the event of a formal complaint for legal action arising from any situation caused by your use of this forum.

When registering, you must provide a valid e-mail address in order to be approved or to e-mail your password should that be necessary. (Changing your password or e-mail address automatically forces our software to e-mail it to you for verification.) Your IP address must not be hidden/masked. If you are hiding behind an IP Address your account will be deleted without any questions. Your E-mail addresses will be blocked from view to protect your privacy, but will be available to the administration. You can elect to receive e-mails in your personal settings. To prevent abuse, members are allowed only one registered account per person [exceptions apply with permission]. In the case that you lose your password and cannot retrieve it automatically, please use the “I Forgot my Password” link or contact us with your login details; we will reset your password for you. Please DO NOT create a new account. Any duplicate accounts we discover may be merged together or may be deleted without warning.

You have the ability, as you register, to choose your username. We advise that you keep the name appropriate. With this user account you are about to register, you agree to never give your password out to another person except an administrator, for your protection and for validity reasons. You also agree to NEVER use another person's account for any reason. We also HIGHLY recommend you use a complex and unique password for your account, to prevent account theft.

After you register and login to this forum, you will be able to fill out a detailed profile. It is your responsibility to present clean and accurate information. Any information the forum owner or staff determines to be inaccurate or vulgar in nature will be removed, with or without prior notice. Appropriate sanctions may be applicable. Users may upload custom avatars that are in good taste as determined by the "Reasonable Man" definition. Avatars may not be larger than 125x125 pixels, or larger than 15k in size. Recovery Crossroads reserves the right to alter or remove any avatar that does not meet these requirements.


Also note that the software places a cookie, a text file containing bits of information (such as your username and password), in your browser's cache. This is ONLY used to keep you logged in/out. The software does not collect or send any other form of information to your computer.

Posting Guidelines:

We strive to make our forums a place where everyone feels welcome. In order to do this, we have a few guidelines … we ask that you comply with these guidelines if you elect to post in our forums.

1. Recovery Crossroads is a privately owned website and reserves the right to remove or restrict any user without notice. Additionally, unwelcome are persons with political or controversial agendas, and persons who use the forums to link to, or promote, other websites and/or products. RR defenders and proselytizers may also be removed without notice as well.

2. Posts may not contain unnecessary profanity, be sexually explicit, or be in such poor taste as to offend even a truck driver. Automatic censoring will pick up the most offensive swear words and replace them with asterisks. You, however, are not allowed to space out swear words, replace one character in a swear word with an asterisk, or use any alternative spelling to avoid the auto-censor.

3. No obscene/adult material. This means you are not allowed to post links to such pictures, sounds, animations, etc. Do not post adult or sexually oriented material or links to sites containing such material. Recovery Crossroads is a family-oriented website and as such we make every effort that the content is suitable for everyone. You may not place links to your personal, business, or any other website for profit that you are involved with without prior consent from the Administration of Recovery Crossroads. If you do your account can be terminated and banned without notice or warning.

4. No attacks, insults, or flames** - be it on someone's person, Recovery beliefs, religious beliefs, race, national background, sexual orientation, recovery program or whatever. This is VERY important. If you have a problem with somebody, do not flame them on our website. Take it somewhere else. No flaming of ANY kind is welcome here. The quickest way to get banned from our website is to break this rule. This includes public posts, group posts, private messages or contact methods supplied by the member of this site.

** On the Internet, flaming is giving someone a verbal lashing in public. Often this is on a Usenet newsgroup but it could be on a Web forum or perhaps even as e-mail with copies to a distribution list. Unless in response to some rather obvious flamebait, flaming is poor netiquette. Certain issues tend to provoke emphatically stated responses, but flaming is often directed at a self-appointed expert rather than at the issues or information itself and is sometimes directed at unwitting but opinionated newbies who appear in a newsgroup.

5. Read an entire thread before posting to be sure you are posting on-topic. Posting something unrelated to the original post is called being off-topic. While this is permitted somewhat as long as it develops out of the original post and remains at least vaguely connected to the issue, starting to post about something completely unrelated to it is not allowed. In such a case you should open a new thread for it, if needed. If you feel the need to converse further about something unrelated with someone you can either PM or e-mail them. If your post belongs in another forum or on a new thread, put it there, please. Otherwise staff may move your post.

6. No cross posting across different topics and/or forums. Do not post the same message in multiple threads or forums. Make one post, either a reply or a new thread, in the proper forum, and no more. Once you get a reply to that, feel free to post more on that subject. But under no circumstances are you allowed to go opening multiple threads about the same thing, anywhere. Hijacking other people's posts to get answers to something unrelated to the original topic is not allowed either. If you feel that a general announcement needs to be made please request that the Moderator do so.

7. Moderators volunteer their time and deserve all the respect that you may offer. From time to time a Moderator may need to edit, move, or delete a post or an entire thread. Moderators function as an extension of the Administrators of this site and have policies that they must adhere to. If you feel that a decision has been made arbitrarily you may contact the Administrator privately for clarification. Publicly denouncing the actions of a Moderator or Administrator is inappropriate and unacceptable.

8. Users may not attempt to place Moderators or Administrators on their ignore lists, or deny receiving e-mail messages from Administrators. Doing so is grounds for immediate suspension of posting privileges, or removal from this site.

9. Advertisements or solicitation of funds of any type are not permitted without the prior approval of Recovery Crossroads. If you have a product, service, or appeal that you would like to promote, advertise, or plea, please contact the Administration for approval and assistance.

10. Links to other sites with questionable content are not permitted and will be removed without notice.

11. Please don't post private/personal information about people you know without asking their permission first. This includes posting the contents of E-mails or Private Messages without getting permission from the sender.

12. No promotion of websites to in your personal information to include your signature file. We only trade banners and that is upon a mutual trade agreement only. There will be no link exchange except banners. Do not promote other websites in posts. Violations of this rule can and will get you banned immediately. Our experience has been very bad with this practice so we will only work with approved banner exchanges only.

Please enjoy your on-line experience here at Recovery Crossroads. As you may see from the above, our few guidelines are simply common-sense. Remember that RECOVERY is the number one priority. Do NOT hinder the Recovery of another person in any way. This is cause for immediate account termination and being permanently banned.

When posting in any of our forums, blogs, chat rooms or when sending private messages, please do NOT use all CAPS since that is considered yelling and can be offensive.

**If you claim to be a cured alcoholic who can now drink normally, LEAVE and do not return here. We do NOT need that type of confusion here and that is a hindrance to the growth and recovery of those who are here.

**If you are a researcher, either student, or faculty member and not in the private sector of recovery for yourself, LEAVE and do not return. We are NOT your study guide nor your lab rats or your ticket to your degree. If you are discovered conducting such activities your actions may result in litigation and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law for non-compliance of this agreement and all rights to privacy violations by law.

Please note that for security reasons each action you use on this website your IP address is recorded, such as posting, sending private messages, chatting, etc. as is in any for the protection of the website in the event you should be banned from this website or your ISP contacted for illegal activity. This will only happen in the event of a major violation of this agreement.

Although the administrators and moderators of Recovery Crossroads - Alcoholism and Addiction Recovery Community will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of Recovery Crossroads - Alcoholism and Addiction Recovery Community, nor Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. (developers of vBulletin) will be held responsible for the content of any message.

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise in violation of any laws.

The owners of Recovery Crossroads - Alcoholism and Addiction Recovery Community reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason.