Narcotics Anonymous (NA), founded in 1953, describes itself as a "nonprofit fellowship or society of men and women for whom drugs had become a major problem.

According to the Basic Text, Narcotics Anonymous "has no opinion on outside issues," including those of politics, science or medicine, and does not endorse any outside organization or institution.

Members who attend the same meeting regularly to establish a recovery network and reliable routine understand this to be their "home group."

According to the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text, the "Twelve Steps" are the source of this hope and freedom when worked to the best of one's ability.

Area service committees directly support member groups and often put on special events, such as dances and picnics.

[11] NA also makes frequent use of the word "God" and some members who have difficulty with this term substitute "higher power" or read it as an acronym for "Good Orderly Direction".

The Eleventh Tradition states that NA members "need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films".

The Fourth Tradition gives each AA group the autonomy to include or exclude non-alcoholic addicts from "closed" meetings – where only those with an expressed desire to quit drinking may attend.

These groups were at times accepting money from outside entities, conflating AA with NA, or even adding religious elements to the meetings.

By 1976, there were 200 regular meetings, including 83 in California alone, and in the early 1980s in Brazil, Canada, Colombia, India, the Republic of Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

One group even planned to print a bootlegged version of AA'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 NA World Literature Conference was held in Wichita, Kansas.

The resultant 4th edition, released in 1987, was improperly reviewed and had many problems, including 30 lines that were missing and text that was inconsistent with other NA literature.

[28] over the next two years members of the Narcotics Anonymous fellowship took part in a collective effort to create this new book-length piece of literature.

This is similar to another book previously published by NA called Just for Today, containing a message for thought on a recovery related topic for each day of the year.

There are, however, some objective measures that can be shared based on data obtained from members attending one of NA world conventions; the diversity of membership, especially ethnic background, seems to be representative of the geographic location of the survey.

The following demographic information was revealed in a survey returned by almost half of the 13,000 attendees at the 2003 NA World Convention held in San Diego, California: • Gender: 55% male, 45% female.

Because no attendance records are kept, it is impossible to estimate what percentages of those who come to Narcotics Anonymous remain active in NA over time.

Each ASC elects its own officers: the chairperson, vice-chairperson, secretary, treasurer, and regional committee members (RCMs).

Many of the issues dealt with by RSCs are the same ones that will come before the World Service Conference, with the RSC being the best way for local groups to help craft policies that will affect NA as a whole.

This is achieved through annual or biannual Zonal Forum meetings together with development visits to NA groups and members in other countries.

Experienced NA members hold workshops, and meetings and present material to help the newer communities.

Some Zonal Forums are a service-oriented sharing session that provides the means by which NA communities in their zone can communicate, cooperate, and grow with one another.

Although not a part of NA's formal decision-making system, Zonal Forums interact with World Services in many ways.

To more effectively serve the fellowship, World Services and the Zonal Forums maintain an ongoing partnership to plan and conduct the Worldwide Workshop system.

Group often provide some literature items such as IPs (Double sided single sheet pamphlets) and keytags/chips celebrating clean time.

Some literature is provided to new members for free (such as the "Information Pamphlets") while other, typically book-length pieces, are sold at the purchase cost to the group.

A study of the early experience of new NA members in Victoria Australia in 1995 interviewed 91 members initially and 62 (68%) after 12 months and found that higher self-help participation as measured by service role involvement, step work, and stable meeting attendance, in the 12 months before the follow-up was associated with a four-fold reduction in levels of hazardous drug and alcohol use, less illicit income and sickness benefits and higher emotional support at reinterview.

The report then sees if 12-step meetings have a specific effect (in other words, if there is causation or merely correlation) by using statistical analysis to compare participants self-reported level of motivation, 12-step attendance, and successfully getting clean and sober.

CA's program involves abstaining from cocaine "and all other mind-altering substances", thus taking the same stance as NA pertaining to abstinence from all drugs, including alcohol and marijuana.