Information for the Public

Narcotics Anonymous is a global, community-based organization with a multi-lingual and multicultural membership. Narcotics Anonymous was founded in 1953 and sprang from the Alcoholics Anonymous Program of the late 1940s, with meetings first emerging in the Los Angeles area of California, USA.

The NA program started as a small US movement that has grown into one of the world’s oldest and largest organizations of its type. Our membership growth was minimal during our initial twenty years as an organization. Since the publication of our Basic Text in 1983, the number of members and meetings has increased dramatically.

Today, NA members hold more than 58,000 meetings weekly in 131 countries. We offer recovery from the effects of addiction through working a twelve-step program, including regular attendance at group meetings. The group atmosphere provides help from peers and offers an ongoing support network for addicts who wish to pursue and maintain a drug-free lifestyle. Our name, Narcotics Anonymous, is not meant to imply a focus on any particular drug; NA’s approach makes no distinction between drugs including alcohol. Membership is free, and we have no affiliation with any organizations outside of NA including governments, religions, law enforcement groups, or medical and psychiatric associations.

Through all of our service efforts and our cooperation with others seeking to help addicts, we strive to reach a day when every addict in the world has an opportunity to experience our message of recovery in his or her own language and culture. Today, Narcotics Anonymous is well established throughout much of the Americas, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Newly formed groups and NA communities are now scattered throughout the Indian subcontinent, Africa, East Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.

The “Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text” is our primary recovery publication. The first section offers ten chapters on recovery fundamentals, including essays on the 12 steps and 12 traditions of NA. The second half of the Basic Text is entitled, Our Members Share, and contains personal stories from recovering addicts.

“It Works: How & Why” is a companion piece to the Basic Text, offering in-depth essays on the 12 steps and 12 Traditions. Each chapter contains the collective experience of members, as well as a section called Applying Spiritual Principles, designed to de-mystify the basic principles of life in recovery.

Narcotics Anonymous books and information pamphlets are currently available in 39 languages. For more information about our program, we invite you to review some of the linked items described below:

(Please note: All linked publications listed below are hosted outside of BASCNA.org and will open in a new window. All linked publications are Copyright © NA World Services Inc. All Rights Reserved)

Information About NA includes facts about the history of NA, organizational philosophy, and membership demographics.

NA Membership Survey contains the results of a biennial survey of approximately 12,000 NA members.

NA: A Resource in Your Community provides information about local NA services that may be available such as public service announcements, phone lines, literature sales, and NA presentations for health fairs, schools and professional conferences.

For Those in Treatment offers some suggestions and a basic plan of action to help recovering addicts in the transition from treatment, to continuing recovery in Narcotics Anonymous.

By Young Addicts, For Young Addicts was developed by young members of Narcotics Anonymous to illustrate the fact that young addicts around the world, speaking many different languages, are getting and staying clean in NA.

In Times of Illness was recently revised to reflect members’ experiences with challenges such as mental health issues, chronic illness and pain, and supporting members with illnesses. It includes section summaries in the table of contents.

PR Subcommittee

When We Meet

The PR Subcommittee meets on the First Sunday of the month at 10:30 AM.

Where We Meet

Terra Nova,  7550 40th St N, Pinellas Park, FL 33781 (NA is not affiliated with this facility!)

Point of Contact

Please email the Public Relations Subcommittee at pr@bascna.org