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FACTS ABOUT
NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS
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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. |
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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. |
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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:
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distribution of Narcotics Anonymous
literature;
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telephone information services;
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public information presentations
for treatment staff, civic organizations, government agencies, and schools;
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panel presentations to acquaint
treatment or correctional facility residents with the NA program; and,
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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:
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64% were male
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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:
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11% were under 20
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37% were between 20 and 30
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48% were between 30 and 45
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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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