Personal Narrative: My Narcotics Anonymous Meeting

I attended a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, NA, on Tuesday, April 28 from 7:00 pm-8:30 pm. The meeting was held at Northeastern University’s Ell Hall. The purpose of the meeting was to give people with drug addiction a space to talk about their struggles, successes, and stories and provide a community to offer support. In the meeting I attended, the program began with several readings followed by the introductions of new comers. There was a chip ceremony where chips indicating a specific time of sobriety were given to recipients; no one received a chip at this meeting. There was a speaker at this specific meeting who shared her own struggles with addiction. After the speaker concluded, the meeting was opened and almost all people present shared

There were a few of people under the age of thirty, but most were between the ages of thirty and fifty. Additionally, out of the eleven, nine appeared to be Caucasian, one middle-eastern man, and one black woman. I introduced myself when they asked for people who’s first meeting at the location it was to do so. For the rest of the meeting I simply listened. At the end I did join the circle for the closing reading. The meeting was really eye opening to experience first hand. There wasn’t any stigma present, only respect and encouragement. I also was surprised by the diversity in the group. From the stories shared, most members did not seem to be addicted to opioids nor did they seem to become addicted from an initial prescription. In an article posted by the Center for Disease Control, they report that the populations at highest risk of opioid abuse are “men, persons ages 20-64 years, non-Hispanic whites, and poor and rural populations (CDC, 2012).” These findings aligned fairly close to the group make up present at the meeting I attended, even though that was a small sample size. Although the literature may provide the greatest populations at risk, that doesn’t mean that other populations are immune to developing an opioid addiction, which was also observed by the variety of people at the