Narcotics Anonymous sprang from the Alcoholics Anonymous Program of the late 1940s, and was co-founded by Jimmy Kinnon. Meetings first emerged in the Los Angeles area of California, USA, in the early Fifties. The N.A. program, officially founded in 1953, started as a small US movement that has grown into one of the world's oldest and largest organizations of its type.
Alcoholics Anonymous was the first 12-step program. Many people with both drug problems and drinking problems found sobriety through this program, although people without a drinking problem were not (and are still not) able to attend closed A.A. meetings. The idea for creating a 12-step program specifically to help drug addicts emerged several times; the earliest mention was in a question asked to Bill Wilson, A.A.'s founder, in 1944.
In February of 1947, a group of drug addicts began to meet as part of a treatment center in Lexington Federal Prison in Kentucky. It was founded by a man named Houston Sewell, and was based on the 12 steps of A.A. This group called itself NARCO or Addicts Anonymous, and continued to meet weekly for over twenty years. Then in 1948, one of the graduates from the NARCO program moved to New York City and started a similar group in the New York Prison System. This was the first group to be called "Narcotics Anonymous", but it did not last long, and dissolved soon after it was founded. Another group in Fort Worth Texas followed the "Lexington model" in its own 12-step group. A similar group inLorton, Virginia called itself NOTROL. In 1950 an unrelated group in California called the "Habit Forming Drug Group" used the 12 steps to address drug addiction. Each of these groups were largely independent, and were not a part of N.A. as it now exists; however they showed that there was a need for such an organized program.
In 1954, the first N.A. publication was printed, called the "Little Yellow Booklet". It contained the 12 steps, and early drafts of several pieces that would later be included in subsequent literature.
At this time, N.A. was not recognised by society at large as a positive force. The initial group had difficulty finding places that would allow them to meet, and often had to meet in people's homes. The Rockerfeller drug laws had made it a crime for drug addicts to meet together for any reason, making N.A. illegal. Addicts would have to cruise around meeting places and check for surveillance, to make sure meetings would not be busted by police. It was many years before N.A. became recognized as a beneficial organization, although some early press accounts were very positive. In addition, many N.A. groups were not following the 12 traditions very closely (which were quite new at the time). These groups were at times accepting money from outside entities, conflating A.A. with N.A., or even adding religious elements to the meetings. For a variety of reasons, meetings began to decline in the late 1950s, and there was a 4-month period in 1959 when there were no meetings held anywhere at all. Spurred in to action by this, Jimmy K. and others dedicated themselves to restarting N.A., promising to hold to the traditions more closely.
In the early 1960s, meetings began to form again and grow. The N.A. White Booklet was written in 1962, and became the heart of N.A. meetings and the basis for all subsequent N.A. literature. N.A. was called a "hip pocket program", because the entire literature could fit into a person's hip pocket. This booklet was republished in 1966 as the N.A. White Book, and included the personal stories of many addicts.
The first N.A. phone line started in 1960, and the first "H&I" group (H&I is a sub-committee of Narcotics Anonymous that carries the message into hospitals and institutions where people cannot get to an outside meeting) was formed in 1963. That year a "Parent Service Board" (later renamed the World Service Board) was formed to ensure that N.A. stayed healthy and followed closely to the traditions. Confusingly, in 1962, the Salvation Army started a group also called "Narcotics Anonymous" that followed a different "13-step" program, but this program soon died out. The N.A. program grew slowly in the 1960s, but the program was learning what was effective and what was not, as relapse rates became less common over time and friction between N.A. groups began to decrease.
In 1971, the first N.A. World Conference was held, and others have followed annually. This was a period of rapid growth in N.A.'s history. By 1970, there were only 20 regular, weekly meetings, all of them in the United States. Within two years there were 70, including meetings in Germany, Australia and Bermuda. By 1976, there were 200 regular meetings, including 83 in California alone, and others in Brazil, Canada, Colombia, India, the Irish Republic, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Five years later, there were 1100 different meetings all over the world. A World Service Office was officially opened in 1977.
From the beginnings of N.A., the need for official N.A. literature was evident. Unfortunately, the process of creating and approving official N.A. literature has seen some of the most contentious periods of debate within the fellowship. Although the Yellow Booklet, Little White Booklet, and Little White Book were used in the 1960s and 1970s, many people desired to have a more detailed book on recovery, paralleling the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous. Some meetings offered A.A. literature at meetings, while others considered writing their own books on recovery. One group even planned to print a "bootleg" version of A.A.'s Big Book with every instance of the word "alcohol" replaced with "drugs". The need for a unified text approved by the fellowship's "group conscience" was recognized, and in October 1979 the first N.A. World Literature Conference was held in Wichita, Kansas.
While previous literature had been written by just a few addicts (primarily by Jimmy K.), the N.A. Basic Text was written as a massive collaboration between hundreds of people. There were a total of seven World Literature Conferences within three years, all of them open to any addict who wished to help. It was decided that the book would use the Little White Book as its outline, filling in and expanding on the subjects discussed in that text. In May of 1982, a finalized version was distributed to all of N.A. for approval, and the text was approved with a 2/3 majority required for passage. After passage, however, publication was held up due to a spirited disagreement regarding a few key sentences which described the nature of the World Service Organization and other N.A. service groups. The book was printed in 1983, with those passages altered, and was subsequently quickly reprinted (as the second edition) with the passages reinserted. After a hasty vote on the issue, the third edition was published, substantially identical to the first edition, with the controversial passages removed again.
Professional editors and writers were hired in 1986 to improve the Basic Text so that it was more consistent in tone and style. The resultant 4th edition, released in 1988, was improperly reviewed and had many problems, including 30 lines which were inadvertantly missing and text that was inconsistent with other N.A. literature. A 5th edition was released in 1991, correcting these problems, and is the version currently in wide use today. Copies are sold at cost at N.A. meetings, and are available in over 30 different languages. Millions have been sold worldwide, and have been useful to many addicts.
In 2004, it was announced that a sixth edition of the N.A. Basic Text was being prepared, and would be submitted for approval in 2008. There would be no changes to the majority of the text, but the "personal stories" section would replace some older stories with new ones, so that the current diversity of N.A. members' experiences would be better represented.
In 2005, there are over 21,500 registered N.A. groups holding over 33,500 weekly meetings in 116 countries. Literature available in 47 different languages, and there are currently 119 translation projects underway.
In 2006, literature is now available in 55 different languages with 115 newly translated items.