Sometimes real jerks come to meetings. I know, hard to believe, but it really does happen. And sometimes they cross the line. Very rarely they're violent or threatening, in which case reserve the option if necessary of calling the police. Basically, we're dealing with ordinary misbehaviour, e.g.:
- Sexual inuendo
- Showing people dirty pictures
- Making passes
- Talking about sex
- Conversational bombarding
- Monologuing
Whatever, you get the picture, class-A jerk. So, what do you do?
Well, what I do is say things like:
- That's inappropriate and it needs to stop
- Do not speak to me like that
- I'm going to stop this conversation right here
- If you've got a problem, maybe speak to your sponsor, but I can't help
You get the picture. Straightforward boundary. You know why they're doing it? Because people have been permitting it. So set the boundary. If they become actually aggressive beyond a cross look and a nasty comeback, maybe it can be escalated, but I have met many jerks in meetings, and actual violence is vanishing rare, and their anger almost always passes swiftly. Usually they 'punish' the meeting by not coming back.
Groups where everyone sets boundaries like this tend not to experience persistent problems with jerks.
I don't ask others, including group officers, to fight my battles for me. Escalating this to group business when it can be dealt with directly and on the spot is enormously disruptive to the group and often less effective than just putting up the hand and stopping it then and there.
I was trained right from from the start in AA to set boundaries, which was necessary, as there were some sexually un-boundaried individuals in my groups and I was 21 and cute-ish (although not in perspective and not in the light). Train your sponsees, too: they'll need this. And by the way, I'm shorter and slighter in build than most of the people I've had to set boundaries with. This is not about physical dominance: it's about confidence to step in immediately when a line is crossed.