Narcotics Anonymous communities have two primary ways in which they regularly interact directly with professionals and the community. NA public meetings are sometimes held to present NA on a broad scale to an entire community. Local NA public information committees also make regular presentations to community organizations, treatment administrators and clinical staff, policy makers, and researchers.
Narcotics Anonymous has a strong interest in cooperation with addiction researchers to independently study the nature and effectiveness of our program. However, we have had difficulty establishing such relationships so far. Our fellowship has a very strong interest in maintaining the personal confidentiality of its members. We also need to discuss how to connect a researcher with NA interviewees without inferring an outright endorsement by NA of the researcher's organization or compromising the autonomy of local groups and service committees. Our World Service Office is eager to discuss innovative ways to cooperate with researchers in surmounting these challenges.
One direct contact between NA and professionals is in the Narcotics Anonymous meetings that are sometimes started by nonaddict treatment staff, health care professionals, social workers, educators, and others. We actively encourage professionals to support Narcotics Anonymous in their local communities and to start NA meetings in communities where there is no Narcotics Anonymous as yet. We have two cautions to offer in regard to such meetings:
NA meetings started by nonaddict professionals should be turned over to the addicts themselves as soon as possible. One of the key reasons Narcotics Anonymous works as well as it does as an organization is its independence. New NA members should be encouraged to take responsibility for their own NA meeting as quickly as they can, without compromising the stability of the meeting. The professional who started the meeting should then take an outside support role in relation to the new NA group.
When NA meetings are held on the grounds of a treatment facility or in a professional's offices, special care should be taken to explain the distinction between the facility and Narcotics Anonymous. It serves everyone well to maintain the distinction between professional therapeutic facilities and NA's nonprofessional, addict-to-addict approach to recovery. When an NA meeting is held in a treatment facility or a therapist's offices, some explanation should be made to those attending that the NA group is simply meeting there but is not a function of the facility or therapist.