The Narcotics Anonymous website for England, Scotland & Wales

Development
Narcotics Anonymous started in Los Angeles in 1953 and is one of the oldest and largest organisations of its type in the world.

Following that first NA meeting in Los Angeles, the society grew slowly, spreading to other major north American cities and to Australia by the early 1970s.

The first NA meeting in the United Kingdom took place in London in 1980. There are currently about 700 meetings throughout England, Scotland and Wales each week of which around 180 take place in London. More than 30 meetings are held each week in prisons and a further 30-40 in treatment and detoxification centres.

In 1982, after Narcotics Anonymous published its self-titled Basic Text, the subsequent growth of the fellowship was phenomenal. New groups sprang up in Brazil, Colombia, Germany, India, the Irish Republic, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom and by the end of the year 1,200 groups had been established in 11 countries. Three years later, in 1985 the number of NA groups around the world had tripled.

Today, Narcotics Anonymous is established throughout Western Europe, North and South America and Australia, with newly formed groups and NA communities scattered across the Indian Subcontinent, Africa, East Asia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Central and South America, the Middle East, Europe and Eastern Europe.
More than 43,000 meetings take place in 127 countries each week.

Service Organization
In countries, like the United Kingdom, where Narcotics Anonymous groups have had the chance to develop and stabilise, groups elect delegates to form area service committees. These service committees become responsible for:

The distribution of NA literature;
Manning telephone Helplines;
Carrying out public information presentations for drug treatment centres, civic organisations, government agencies, the police, prisons and other correctional and residential institutions, colleges and schools;
Providing up to date directories of NA meetings.

The London based National Helpline handles more than 15,000 calls from all over the United Kingdom annually. The UK Service Office, deals with the distribution of NA literature and fields enquiries from professionals, handling several thousand more calls each year.

In the United Kingdom, where Narcotics Anonymous is especially well established, a number of area committees join together to create regional committees handling services on a national level leaving the area committees free to focus on local services. Area committees are run almost exclusively by volunteer NA members, who serve on a rotating basis.

In 1978 an international delegate assembly called the World Service Conference was established to provide guidance to national committees and to translate NA literature, assisted by NA's World Service Office in Los Angeles.

Contact information for the United Kingdom, European, World Service and other national and international NA service organisations appears under contacts and Links.

Positions On Related Issues Or Institutions

In order to maintain its focus, Narcotics Anonymous has established a tradition of non-endorsement and does not take positions on anything outside its own specific sphere of activity. NA does not express opinions on any civil, social, medical, legal, or religious issues, nor does it take stands on secondary addiction-related issues such as criminality, law enforcement, drug legalisation or penalties, prostitution, HIV infection, or free-needle programmes.

Narcotics Anonymous neither endorses nor opposes any other organisation's philosophy or methodology. NA does not even oppose the use of drugs. NA believes its sole purpose is to help drug addicts to stop using drugs by providing a platform for them to share their experiences and their recovery with other addicts.

Narcotics Anonymous welcomes the co-operation of those in government; religious organisations; professional and voluntary organisations committed to helping recovering addicts and is happy to co-operate with such bodies interested in Narcotics Anonymous by providing contacts, information and literature about recovery through the NA fellowship. NA's non-addict friends have been instrumental in starting Narcotics Anonymous in many countries and helping NA grow.