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A SOCIETY OF RECOVERING DRUG ADDICTS
Narcotics Anonymous is an international, community-based
association of recovering drug addicts. Started in 1947, the NA movement
is one of the world's oldest and largest of its type, with nearly twenty
thousand weekly meetings in seventy countries. Here we hope to explain
what Narcotics Anonymous is and what its recovery program offers to drug
addicts. We will describe how NA services are organized at the local,
national, and international levels. We will talk about how Narcotics
Anonymous cooperates with others concerned about drug abuse in their
countries and communities. Finally, we will provide information on NA's
membership and indicators of the success of Narcotics Anonymous. |
DEVELOPMENT
Narcotics Anonymous sprang from the Alcoholics Anonymous
movement in the late 1940s, with meetings first sprouting up in the Los
Angeles area of California, USA, in the early Fifties. For many years
the society grew very slowly, spreading from Los Angeles to other major
North American cities and Australia in the early 1970s. An assembly of
local delegates was first established in 1978. In 1983 Narcotics
Anonymous published its self-titled basic text, and growth rates have
since skyrocketed. Groups formed rapidly in Brazil, Colombia, Germany,
India, the Irish Republic, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
In the three years following initial publication of NA's basic text, the
number of Narcotics Anonymous groups nearly tripled. Today, Narcotics
Anonymous is fairly well established throughout much of Western Europe,
the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand, with newly formed groups and
NA communities scattered through the Indian subcontinent, Africa, East
Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. |
PROGRAM
NA's earliest self-titled pamphlet, known among members
as "the White Booklet," describes Narcotics Anonymous as
"a nonprofit fellowship or society of men and women for whom drugs
had become a major problem . . . recovering addicts who meet regularly
to help each other stay clean." Membership is open to any drug
addict, regardless of the particular drug or combination of drugs used.
There are no social, religious, economic, racial, ethnic, national,
gender, or class-status membership restrictions. Narcotics Anonymous
membership is completely voluntary; no membership rolls or attendance
records are kept, either for NA or anyone else. Members live in the
community and attend meetings on their own time. There are no dues or
fees for membership; most members regularly contribute small sums to
help cover expenses at group meetings, but contributions are not
mandatory.
The core of the Narcotics Anonymous recovery program
is a series of personal activities known as the Twelve Steps, adapted
from Alcoholics Anonymous. These "steps" include admitting
there is a problem, seeking help, self-appraisal, confidential
self-disclosure, making amends where harm has been done, and working
with other drug addicts who want to recover. Central to the program is
an emphasis on what is referred to as a "spiritual awakening,"
emphasizing its practical value, not its philosophical or metaphysical
import, which has posed very little difficulty in translating the
program across cultural boundaries. Narcotics Anonymous itself is
nonreligious and encourages each member to cultivate an individual
understanding, religious or not, of this "spiritual
awakening."
Narcotics Anonymous believes that one of the keys to
its success is the therapeutic value of addicts working with other
addicts. In meetings, each member shares personal experience with others
seeking help, not as professionals but simply as people who have been
there themselves and have found a solution. Narcotics Anonymous has no
professional therapists, no residential facilities, and no clinics. NA
provides no vocational, legal, financial, psychiatric, or medical
services. The closest thing to an "NA counselor" is the
sponsor, an experienced member who gives informal assistance to a newer
member.
The primary service provided by Narcotics Anonymous
is the NA group meeting. Each group runs itself on the basis of
principles common to the entire organization, principles laid out in the
movement's literature. There is no hierarchical authority structure in
Narcotics Anonymous. Most groups have no permanent facilities of their
own, instead renting space for their weekly meetings in buildings run by
public, religious, or civic organizations. Meetings may be
"open," meaning anyone may attend, or "closed,"
meaning only people who are there to address their own drug problem may
attend. Meetings are led by NA members; other members take part by
talking in turn about their experiences in recovering from drug
addiction.
The Narcotics Anonymous program uses a very simple,
experience-oriented disease concept of addiction. Narcotics Anonymous
does not qualify its use of the term "disease" in any medical
or specialized therapeutic sense, nor does NA make any attempt to
persuade others of the correctness of its view. The NA movement asserts
only that its members have found acceptance of addiction as a disease to
be effective in helping them come to terms with their condition.
Narcotics Anonymous encourages its members to observe
complete abstinence from all drugs, including alcohol, even substances
other than the individual's drug of choice, though NA's only stated
membership requirement is "a desire to stop using" drugs. It
has been the NA members' experience that complete and continuous
abstinence provides the best foundation for recovery and personal
growth. However, Narcotics Anonymous takes no absolute stand as a
society on the use of caffeine, nicotine, or sugar. Similarly, the use
of prescribed medication for the treatment of specific medical or
psychiatric conditions is neither encouraged nor prohibited by NA. While
recognizing numerous questions in these areas, Narcotics Anonymous feels
that they are matters of personal decision and encourages its members to
consult their own experience, the experience of other members, and
qualified health professionals in making up their minds about these
subjects.
One more thing needs to be said about the Narcotics
Anonymous program. Its members recognize that NA is but one organization
among many addressing the problem of drug addiction. Members feel they
have had significant success in addressing their own addiction problems,
but Narcotics Anonymous does not claim to have a program that will work
for all addicts under all circumstances or that its therapeutic views
should be universally adopted. If Narcotics Anonymous can be useful to
addicts in your care or in your community, it stands ready to be of
service.
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SERVICE ORGANIZATION
The basic unit of the Narcotics Anonymous organization
is the NA group. In a country where Narcotics Anonymous is a relatively
new phenomenon, the NA group is the only level of organization. In a
country where a number of Narcotics Anonymous groups have had the chance
to develop and stabilize, groups will have elected delegates to form a
local service committee. A number of services are usually offered by
these area committees, among them:
 | distribution of Narcotics Anonymous literature; |
| telephone information services; |
| public information presentations for treatment
staff, civic organizations, government agencies, and schools; |
| panel presentations to acquaint treatment or
correctional facility residents with the NA program; and, |
| meeting directories for individual information and
use in scheduling visits by client groups. |
Area committees, whether serving a network of groups in
a single city or all groups in a given country, are run almost
exclusively by volunteer NA members, who serve on a rotating basis.
In some countries, especially the larger countries or
those where Narcotics Anonymous is especially well established, a number
of area committees have joined together to create regions. These
regional committees handle services affecting the entire national
movement, while the area committees handle local services.
An international delegate assembly called the World
Service Conference, which has met annually since 1978, provides guidance
for a number of committees which address issues affecting the entire
organization, all assisted by NA's World Service Office in Los Angeles,
California, USA. Primary among the priorities of NA's world services are
activities which support young national movements and the translation of
Narcotics Anonymous literature. For additional information, contact
either the World Service Office headquarters in Los Angeles or the
European branch office in Brussels; their mailing addresses, telephone
numbers, and fax numbers appear at the end of this article.
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POSITIONS
ON RELATED ISSUES OR INSTITUTIONS
In order to maintain its focus, Narcotics Anonymous has
established a tradition of nonendorsement and does not take positions as
an organization on anything outside its own specific sphere of activity.
Narcotics Anonymous does not express opinions, either pro or con, on
civil, social, medical, legal, or religious issues, nor does it take any
stands on secondary addiction-related issues such as criminality, law
enforcement, drug legalization or penalties, prostitution, HIV
infection, or free-needle programs. The NA movement does not even oppose
the use of drugs, stating only that if an addict desires to stop using,
Narcotics Anonymous stands ready to help.
Narcotics Anonymous is entirely self-supporting and
accepts no financial contributions from nonmembers. In a similar vein,
it is generally understood that groups and service committees are run by
members, for members.
NA will neither endorse nor oppose any other
organization's philosophy or methodology. Narcotics Anonymous believes
its sole competence is in providing a platform upon which drug addicts
can share their recovery with one another. This is certainly not to say
that Narcotics Anonymous believes there aren't any other
"good" or "worthy" organizations. However, to remain
free of the distraction of controversy, NA focuses all its energy on its
particular area of competence, leaving others to fulfill their own
goals.
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COOPERATING WITH NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS
Although, as previously stated, certain traditions do
guide NA's relations with other organizations, Narcotics Anonymous
welcomes the cooperation of those in government, the clergy, the helping
professions, and private voluntary organizations. In turn, NA is happy
to cooperate with others interested in Narcotics Anonymous by providing
information, literature, and contact information about recovery through
the NA Fellowship. NA's nonaddict friends have been instrumental in
starting Narcotics Anonymous in many countries and helping NA grow.
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EFFECTIVENESS;
MEMBERSHIP DEMOGRAPHICS
No comprehensive surveys of Narcotics Anonymous
membership have been completed to date, due especially to NA's emphasis
on protecting the anonymity of the members. However, it is possible to
offer some general, informal observations about the nature of the
membership and the effectiveness of the program, observations believed
to be reasonably accurate.
Male/female ratio
Of the 5,000 NA members responding to an informal poll
taken in 1989:
| 64% were male |
| 36% were female. |
Socioeconomic background
The socioeconomic strata represented by the NA
membership varies from country to country. Most national movements are
founded by members of one particular social or economic class, but as
their outreach to the entire range of the drug-addicted population in
each country becomes more effective, the membership becomes more broadly
representative of all socioeconomic backgrounds.
Age
Of the 5,000 NA members responding to an informal poll
taken in 1989:
| 11% were under 20 |
| 37% were between 20 and 30 |
| 48% were between 30 and 45 |
| 4% were over 45 |
Religious backgrounds
All religious backgrounds are represented among NA
members. In a given national movement, the membership generally reflects
the diversity or homogeneity of the background culture.
Rate of growth
Because no attendance records are kept, it is impossible
even to estimate what percentage of those who come to Narcotics
Anonymous ultimately achieve long-term abstinence. The only sure
indicator of the program's success is the rapid growth in the number of
registered Narcotics Anonymous meetings in recent decades and the rapid
spread of Narcotics Anonymous outside North America. In 1978, there were
fewer than 200 registered groups in three countries. In 1983, more than
a dozen countries had 2,966 meetings. In 1994, we knew of groups holding
19,822 weekly meetings in seventy countries. |
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World Service Office
PO Box 9999
Van Nuys, California 91409
Unites States
Telephone: (818) 773-9999
Fax: (818) 700-0700 |
WSO Europe
48 Rue de l'Ete/Zomerstraat
B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
Telephone: 32-2-646-6012
Fax: 32-2-649-9239 |
This paper was first presented at the ICAA's 18th
International Institute on the Prevention and Treatment of Drug
Dependence, Berlin, July 1990. It was updated in May 1995.
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