N.A. is a non-profit Fellowship or society of men and women for whom drugs had become a major problem. We are recovering addicts who meet regularly to help each other stay clean. This is a program of complete abstinence from all drugs. There is only one requirement for membership, the desire to stop using.

Narcotics Anonymous sprang from the Alcoholics Anonymous program of the late 1940s, with
meetings first emerging in the Los Angeles area of California, USA, in the early 1950’s. The NA
program started as a small US movement that has grown into one of the world’s oldest and
largest organizations of its type.

Today, NA has established a prominent presence throughout much of the Americas, Western
Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Newly formed groups and NA communities are becoming
increasingly and rapidly scattered throughout the Indian subcontinent, Africa, East Asia, Middle
East, and Eastern Europe. NA books and information pamphlets are currently available in forty-
one languages.

Reference to NA in Canada can be found as early as 1954, however, the Fellowship did not
firmly plant roots in Canada until the early 1960’s. The most significant growth took place
during the mid-1980’s, with the release of the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text.
Narcotics Anonymous was initially and formally introduced to Nova Scotia in 1980,
with its first meeting hosted in Halifax. The Central Nova Area service committee was formed in
1991. This committee meets regularly to provide services for all NA group members and
communities by organizing events, and through group conscience address any issues that may
arise. Our ASC is tied to the NA service structure which includes the following service bodies:
the Canadian Atlantic Region NA, the Canadian Assembly NA, and the World Service Office NA