Clinical Textbook of Addictive Disorders 3rd ed - R. Frances, S. Miller, A. Mack (Guilford, 2005) WW

512 V. TREATMENTS FOR ADDICTIONSthe characteristics later adopted by AA, such as open confessions and guidancefrom members of the group. Bill W continued to drink despite his encounter withEbby in 1934, but he felt that there was a kinship of common suffering amongalcoholics. During his final hospital detoxification, he experienced an alteredstate of consciousness characterized by a strong feeling of proximity with God,which gave him a sense of mission to help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.Bill’s initial efforts to influence other alcoholics were unsuccessful until, inMay 1935, he met another member of the Oxford Group, “Dr. Bob,” who amonth later achieved sobriety and became the cofounder of AA. The numberof alcoholics who experienced spiritual recovery and achieved sobriety in AAprogressively increased; in 1939, when group membership reached 100, theypublished Alcoholics Anonymous, the book that became the bible for the movement(Galanter, 1989). AA institutionalized practices such as a 90-day inductionperiod, sponsorship relationships, the “12 Steps,” and recruitment for thefellowship. The expansion and stability of the organization resulted from its “12Traditions,” which avoid concentration of power within the organization, preventinvolvement of AA with other causes, maintain the anonymity of itsmembership, and preserve the neutrality of the association in relation to controversialissues. Its membership continued to grow; AA, now a global organization,is reported to have more than 75,000 informal groups in the United Statesand 114 other countries, with a membership estimated at 1.5 million. The birthand development of NA illustrate how AA provided a model to other self-helpprograms for addictions.History and Approach of Narcotics AnonymousAlthough the NA program was first applied to drug addiction at the U.S. PublicHealth Service Hospital at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1947, it was an NA groupindependent of any institution and formed by AA members who were addictsin Sun Valley, California, in 1953, that expanded and gave NA its current form(Peyrot, 1985). The Sun Valley NA group did not identify itself with a programorganized in New York City in 1948 by Dan Carlson, an addict formerlyexposed to the Lexington program, because the Sun Valley founders felt thatNA should strictly adhere to AA’s 12 Steps and 12 Traditions by not identifyingitself with any specific agency and not accepting government funds.There are a few differences between AA and NA. NA members usually useillegal drugs, in contrast to most AA members until recently, who could bedescribed as traditional alcoholics. Also, instead of using the term “alcoholism,”NA refers to its problem as “addiction” and addresses the entire range of abusablepsychoactive substances. There is, however, a clear overlap of approachand membership between the organizations, despite their complete independenceof each other. Following in the footsteps of AA, NA has experiencedfast-paced growth. It became an international organization, present in at least