The
Narcotics Anonymous commitment to community partnerships can
best be understood within the context of NA's Twelve
Steps and Twelve
Traditions. Our Twelfth Step for personal recovery encourages
every individual NA member to try "to carry [the NA recovery]
message to addicts". Among our Twelve Traditions are certain
guiding principles for NA's engagement, as groups and as an
organization, with others in the community:
Our mission as an organization is to communicate to addicts
in the community that we may be able to help them learn to live
drug-free, recover from the effects of drug addiction, and establish
stable, productive lifestyles.
Our public relations activities strive to attract addicts to
Narcotics Anonymous without being overtly or unduly promotional.
Our membership is open to anyone who wants to stop using drugs,
regardless of the particular drugs they have used. There are
no social, religious, economic, racial, ethnic, national, gender,
or class-status membership restrictions.
We maintain a policy of "cooperation without affiliation"
in our interorganizational relations. This policy allows us
to work with others in the community without becoming involved
in a manner which might distract us from our mission. This means
that:
We will neither explicitly endorse nor oppose other organizations
or approaches to the problems associated with drug addiction.
We will not allow other organizations to use the Narcotics Anonymous
name for their programs.
We will not provide funding for other organizations, nor will
we accept funding from outside our own organization.
We will take no position on any public issues, even those related
to drug addicts or addiction.
Narcotics Anonymous has only one mission: to provide an environment
within which drug addicts can help one another stop using and
find a new way to live. We are not an antidrug or prohibitionist
organization, nor do we take any position concerning decriminalization
or legalization. We are neither for nor against free-needle-and-syringe
exchange programs, drug-replacement clinics, or other efforts
to reduce drug-related harm. We will work with anyone to provide
their clients with our services, without interfering with their
therapeutic regimen or client relationships.
We encourage anyone likely to be interacting frequently with
Narcotics Anonymous to become familiar with the book on our
Twelve Steps and Traditions, It Works: How and Why. The
book is available from our World Service Office. |
