The Role Of Narcotics Anonymous During The Treatment Of Substance Abuse

The Subculture of N.A is a life outside of any expectations formed by the main Cultural Influence. It is a very private organization that I belong to which became a way of life for me. It has values, traditions, beliefs, sanctions and roles. This is the only outside influence in my life that made me develop meaning to my life again. I was a complete and total crack addict who finally hit the bottom of the barrel and started looking for a way to climb out of the grave I dug myself into.

An addiction is a harmful relationship with drugs, alcohol, things or activities that brings about negative consequences by over use. People over use this relationship as a form of relaxation, reward or escape and overtime become dependent on these harmful relationships. Extensive research has gone into developing a program to help individuals overcome these harmful relationships. Alcoholics Anonymous has developed a 12- Step Program, which is a model that has been proven to benefit the community in helping to resolve addictions. The 12 step program helps to combat different type of addictions, although minor changes are made to deal with specific additions it is a very successful program. In Saint Petersburg Florida and program called

For the self-help meeting in regards for my reaction paper, I attended a Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meeting. NA is a nonprofit, community-based, 12-step recovery organization for recovering drug addicts (Bowens, 2011, p. 1). The meeting I attended took place outside on a Saturday afternoon at Magnolia Park in Garden Grove, California. It is an open-group tag meeting, where one speaker will tag another person to share and welcome for anyone to attend. It was very easy to locate the meeting, as it was right in front of the park’s only parking lot with members sitting in a circle on benches and lawn chairs. The meeting started at 12:00pm and ended around 1:30pm.

a. The 12 steps and 12 traditions laid a foundation for the early members of NA struggling with addictive substances other than alcohol.

“De aqui soy,” is the name of the group that I visited last week. This group is located on pacific coast high way in Wilmington, CA. The duration of the meeting is 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm. Last Thursday round 8:00 pm, I decided to attend NA meeting. (Narcotics Anonymous) I thought that the time was the same like AA meetings. (Alcoholics Anonymous) However, when I arrived to NA, the meeting was on. With respect, I set myself in one of the empty sits in the back of the room. There were 11 people in the meeting. All of them were Latinos or Spanish speakers. The ages were mix from 21 to 60, I think. The history of substance was variable depending the person. They talked about cocaine, crystal, marijuana, crack, etc…

Narcotics Anonymous is a support group using the same principles as Alcoholics Anonymous but designed for individuals addicted to narcotics (Fortinash & Holoday Worret, 2012). The programs emphasize both personal responsibility and mutual accountability by means of a social model recovery program which is peer-driven. Recovery Kentucky utilizes care and change as their foundation for the peer-driven model. Participants are often reminded the program is not just a pit stop for drug and alcohol use but a commitment to change the whole body, mind and spirit. They are required to attend community meetings and complete a twelve step program where the client will acknowledge the problem, recognize a solution and develop a plan of action that will support the ultimate goal of sobriety (MIC Program Description, n.d.).

Substance abuse recovery programs fundamentally apply a twelve-step program to help clients attain sobriety. Novins et al., discovered “the development of the substance abuse service system in

Before the study by Roose et al. (2012), however, David Frank approached the stigma concept from an entirely different perspective (2011). Frank believed in the negative perceptions of MMT mentioned by Roose et al. (2012), but pointed to long-standing twelve-step programs as the driving force behind that negativity. Frank’s study investigated this hypothesis by interviewing four individuals from each of four different types of opiate abuse categories. His categories included current heroin users not seeking any type of treatment, heroin addicts using twelve-step programs and no illicit opiates, former heroin addicts on MMT with no illicit opiate use, and former heroin addicts on MMT who also used illicit opiates. Believing that twelve-step programs promote abstinence to a point that is unproductive for addicts, Frank’s study pitted MMT, as the “medical model,” against programs like Narcotics Anonymous as the “moral-spiritual model” (2011). The medical model approaches treatment from

As being a family support attendee for my stepfather, the Narcotics Anonymous (NA) support group, this group main focus is to stay clean from drugs. The members of NA learn and expressed ways on coping, to staying away from drugs, and live a drug-free life with the help of their 12 Step Program. When present at the meeting, the support group was on Step Seven, reading about asking God to remove their shortcomings. Even though the support group is near the end of reading and using the 12 Step Program as part of their lives, an individual wanting to go into recovery is an attempt in making a change. However, the goal is to stay clean and away from drug to keep from having a relapse to alcohol and substance use. An onset to alcohol and substance

As I began thinking about what topic covers a multitude of citizens and is a significant issue and problem that affects the justice system here in the United States, almost automatically I was drawn to my deep passion for recovery based solutions to drug and alcohol addictions. I have found my experiences in recovery, to repeatedly be surrounded with the pain of those whom have suffered and are still suffering from effects of their addiction(s). Many addictions have grown out of the same medications that when used properly, provided the relief sought to provide pain maintenance and therefore relief of such pain. I firmly believe that without some form of spiritual

Narcotic Anonymous throughout the country hereby the twelve steps and traditions of Narcotic Anonymous. The twelve steps of narcotic anonymous are: 1. To admit that they are powerless over their addiction, and their lives are unmanageable. 2. They believe that a power greater than themselves could restore them to sanity. 3. A decision is made to turn their will and their lives over the care of God as they understood Him. 4. They made a searching and fearless moral inventory of themselves. 5. They admit to God, to themselves and to another person the nature of their wrong doings. 6. The readiness of letting God remove the defects in their characters. 7. To humbly ask God to remove their shortcomings. 8. Make a list of people they harm and make amends to all of those people. 9. To make direct amends to

Substance abuse is a tragedy that touches many lives. Abuse begins with a single use event that, with continued use and overindulgence, transforms into a battle. The abuser most always loses that battle. Personal relationships, social ties, and employment suffers. Irresponsible and erratic behavior becomes the norm, and though the abuser is aware on some level of the reckless and thoughtless acts that they commit, they continue to use and abuse their drug of choice. What starts as experimentation often ends in addiction. The best hope for a person in the grips of substance abuse is immediate,

There are over 23 million people, 12 and older, living in the United States who are in need of substance abuse treatment (Atkins & Hawdon, 2007). Effective support groups are needed to address an individual’s substance abuse while also take into consideration their beliefs. Atkins and Hawdon (2007) noted despite the popularity and effectiveness of 12-step support groups, a common dominator among individuals who reject them are the concepts surrounding the religious connotation associated with these groups. Without treatment, the effects of substance abuse can be devastating. Significant social and economic ramification such as death and overwhelming financial expenses are two critical outcomes correlated with substance abuse. DeLucia et

Getting help for drug addiction is often such an intimidating idea that many addicts continue to use rather than expose themselves to the embarrassment or pain that they have associated with reaching out to someone for help. This is in large part due to the fact that television, books and movies have portrayed drug rehab centers in such a negative light that the reality is actually quite incomprehensibly different than these depictions. Millions of people have gotten help for addiction and gone on to lead productive and fulfilling lives free from the bonds of substance abuse. However, there are plenty still who delayed treatment for one reason or another and suffered severe consequences by doing so. Because addiction is a progressive and

In my entire life I have never felt so grateful for a program for changing my life around. If it weren’t for these people being part of this amazing Narcotics Anonymous program I would not be here talking about this kindhearted group of people. My life was a total mess, before it was like if I had no future for myself and felt like my head was not attached to my body. These people in the NA program has been generous the only thing I had to do is have that desire to stop using. The hardest thing for myself to do was being able to enter that meeting for the very first time.