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Matthew Gawron
Substance Abuse
March 25, 2008
My First Narcotics Anonymous Meeting
Today I attended a meeting of the Holyoke Chapter of the Narcotics Anonymous Network. It took place at the Second Congregational Church. Initially, I felt as if the meeting would be a very general collection of people who use narcotics, all sitting around in a circle in a room, led by a single person. I figured that the person leading the meeting would be a person who is clean of narcotics use and would act as a sort of spiritual leader, reading passages from the bible or such. The people in attendance would in turn feel uplifted to fight their addiction and speak of how they felt standing up and speaking aloud to the group.
As I entered the room in the basement of the church, I found that the seating arrangement was arranged in rows and facing a desk up front. The person in charge and running the meeting guided me into the room and offered me a cup of coffee. I sat down and watched as people came strolling in, some young, some looking almost elderly. One woman even had brought her young child with her.
The man at the front of the room introduced himself and started the meeting with a reading from a book that most of the people in attendance had brought to the meeting with them. Every person read a little bit and then would say pass, and then the next person would read more of the passage. However, although the reading was written with a somewhat spiritual background, it was not anything from the bible as I had previously believed it would be. Then there was a period of news and agenda announcements, where members of the group gave updates on upcoming events and provided everyone with a series of resources they can consult beyond the group for help with their addiction. Then members of the group stood up and shared with the group stories of their triumphs and hardships of the past day or week as an addict. I felt that this was...