Can my family members or other friends and loved ones come to meetings with me?

[Kat]

Q. Can my family members or other friends and loved ones come to meetings with me?

[Kat]

Absolutly anyone can go to an open na meeting including family, friends, professionals or those wanting to see if na is right for them or for whatever reason. Closed meetings are for Addicts only or those who think they may have a problem with addiction. I personally ran into this issue at a ftf homegroup which was a closed meeting: an addict walked in with thier husband and son and the group got together quickly came up with a conscience to hand her a local meeting list pointing out open meetings and explained the difference between open and closed na meetings. She was ok with this but the husband had an uproar. Nothing we can do about that. A lil long winded but that was kind of part of the rational behind my answer .

[Gemm]

Many areas will apply this somewhat differently. In general though, an open meeting is for anyone who has any interest in NA – this includes family, friends, students in college studying addiction or any other member of the public. A closed meeting however is for addicts or those who think they may be an addict. Often those who aren’t sure yet may need the atmosphere of a closed meeting to feel safe enough to ask the questions they really need to ask or talk about things that they wouldn’t feel free enough to talk about in an open meeting where anyone can be.

I’ve even seen 1 meeting try to say that it meant that the meeting was closed to all but home group members. Needless to say, that meeting didn’t survive long. The real weird part – the meeting’s name was Survivors.