What Is Narcotics Anonymous (NA) Like to Attend?

Question by sjvilla79: What is Narcotics Anonymous (NA) like to attend?
I’m interested in how the group meetings work. For example, are they for people dealing with immediate addiction problems (e.g. people just going straight), or are they also for ongoing support for ex users who have stayed clean from substances for some time?

Best answer:

Answer by ebob
I can give a broad answer that is generic for all the groups based on the 12 steps first used in AA:

Part of the responsibility of those who are successful in these programs is to return to help the newcomer by passing on and commenting on what helped them. The direct answer to your question, then, is both immediate recovery and ongoing support.

As an example of where the concept of this responsibility is listed, Dual Recovery Anonymous has reworked the 12th step of Alcoholics Anonymous to fit their condition:
“12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to others who experience dual disorders and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” (1)

I don’t know how many Anonymous fellowships exist, but all, to the best of my knowledge, follow certain guidelines beyond anonymity. Non-professionalism, no dues or fees for membership, non-affiliation with any other organization and a policy of neither supporting nor opposing other ideas are generally part of their foundation. I’m sure that there are other common policies that someone else can add. Oh, and of course the 12 steps reworded for their particular focus.

Some of this I got out of a book I have that I purchased and read a long time ago – “The Twelve Steps for Everyone…”(who really wants them). I thinks it’s out of print now. Some I got from the Dual Recovery Website cited below, and some I got in a restaurant.

I ran into a fellow I had known as a child. He was the “little kid” in the family that lived behind me. Over the years there were various problems starting out before he was 11. During my teens I ran with one of his older brothers, so I got the inside on some of this. The fighting, stealing, usual stories. His family at one point sent him off to Synanon which in the ’70’s still existed and had a good track record. There he was still a rebel and fought and ran away. By this time he was a young adult. The pattern continued, there was alienation and finally legal protective orders so that he was not allowed to be around the family.

To skip a lot, somewhere along the line he decided he had enough and reached out for help. NA. He got straight and began leading a more conventional life. He had some years at the time I talked to him and was living a stable life. He was living way across two cities, but he told me he came back once a week to meet with the original group he had started with. I asked why if he was clean so long and had meetings closer?

He told that he had several reasons. He had made friends. He might be able to help someone that came in alone, belligerent, afraid and hopeless as he had been. He said that even though he had some clean time he never wanted to think he had it made and he wanted the reminder of what it had been like.

I’ve never been to an NA meeting, either an open or closed one, nor to a DRA meeting. Jess Lair used to write about Emotional Health Anonymous. I’ve got to tell you I’m 60 and a lot of this reading was done in the past and may be out of print now. A book titled “The Spirituality of Imperfection” by someone named Kurtz and (I believe) someone else had a lot of anecdotes from NA and AA, and I found it very uplifting.

A nurse, the other day, was telling me that she was reading “Spirituality of Imperfection” and how impressed she was by it. I just grinned, because I knew what she was talking about.

Sorry, I’ve gotten away from your answer, but I’m trying to convey the atmosphere and spirit of what I’ve seen and read. That may be the “spirit” that they talk about in that 12th step I quoted — a nourishing environment that people don’t grow out of or are forced to graduate.

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