Need help beating an addiction during Covid-19 lockdown? Narcotics Anonymous provides recovery and hope using online platforms
An addict - any addict - can stop using drugs, lose the desire to use, and find a new way to live.
Narcotics Anonymous has expanded its online programme to 10 meetings each day of the week. This helps ensure every addict, and every person who feels they may have a drug problem, can attend a daily meeting while they are unable to attend one of the 350 existing face-to-face meetings happening across South Africa due to the Covid-19 lockdown.
Online Narcotics Anonymous meetings were launched in 2019 with the objective of providing an NA meeting to people, communities, and patients unable to travel to face-to-face meetings.
The growth of NA’s online meetings has been substantial: these digital meetings are reaching communities and individuals in South Africa’s remote regions, many of whom have not yet benefited from face-to-face NA meetings.
The online platform additionally provides valuable information, skills transfer, and hands-on experience regarding how to run an NA meeting, while functioning as a vital resource for those unable to get to meetings. In time, and with the support of the NA Fellowship Development Subcommittee, the hope is to foster the start of face-to-face meetings in these outlying areas
The online platform has also provided for inclusion and participation from a number of countries across Africa. For many of these countries, Narcotics Anonymous meetings are very new, but the accessibility provided by online meetings is making an enormous difference to NA members in other African states.
It has become common practice for existing face-to-face meetings in remote areas to access an online meeting, and thus benefit from seasoned NA members with decades of recovery. Globally, these online meetings are increasingly being supported by members in North America, Australia and Europe.
Daily online meetings follow the same format as a face-to-face NA meeting and are for addicts as well as individuals who feel they may have a problem with drugs. Newcomers are made to feel welcome: NA is geared towards helping every person who feels they may have a drug problem, and anyone who would like to seek help may join, regardless of age, race, sex, creed or religion.
NA’s program is based on the 12 Steps which are, simply put, a set of guiding principles through which many have found recovery. The journey through these steps can be life-changing. The message is simple: an addict – any addict – can stop using drugs, lose the desire to use, and find a new way to live.
For more information on the times and dates of online meetings, please CLICK HERE
For more information please visit the Narcotics Anonymous website or send a mail to pr-chair@na.org.za
Narcotics Anonymous can be reached on our national helpline 0861 00 6962 for support.
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