Regular meetings, hosted by NA groups, are the basic unit of the NA fellowship. Meetings are held in a variety of places such as church meeting rooms, libraries, hospitals, community centers, parks, or any other place that can accommodate a meeting.
Members who attend the same meeting on a regular basis to establish a recovery network and reliable routine understand this to be their "Home Group". Group members are able to participate in the group's business, and play an important role in deciding how the group's meetings should be conducted.
There are two basic types of meetings, "open" and "closed". Anyone is welcome to attend an open meeting, while closed meetings are limited to addicts and to people who think they may have a problem with drugs.
Meeting formats vary, but often include time devoted to the reading aloud of NA literature regarding the issues involved in living life clean which is written by and for members of NA. Many meetings are conducted by the chairperson who chooses the speakers. Other meetings include an "open sharing" component, where anyone attending has the opportunity to share. There is usually no direct feedback during the "share"; thus only one person ever speaks at any given time during this portion of the meeting. These types of meetings are sometimes described as: speaker/discussion meetings. Some groups choose to host a single speaker (such meetings are usually denoted "speaker meetings") to share for the majority of the meeting time.
Other meeting formats include: round robin (sharing goes around in a circle), tag meeting (each speaker picks the next person to share). Some meetings focus on reading, writing and/or sharing about one of the Twelve Steps or some other portion of NA literature. Some meetings are "common needs" (also known as special-interest) meetings, supporting a particular group of people based on gender, sexual identity, age, language or other characteristic. These meetings are not exclusionary, as any addict is welcome at any NA meeting. NA communities will often make an effort to have a separate meeting run at the same time for members who do not identify with the common-needs meeting.
During the meeting, some groups allot time for NA-related announcements, and many meetings set aside time to recognize "anniversaries" or "birthdays" of clean time. Individuals are sometimes given an opportunity to announce their clean time to the group. In some meetings, and for certain anniversaries, key tags, and medallions – which denote various amounts of clean time – are distributed to those who have achieved those milestones. In some areas, the addict who is celebrating a "clean anniversary" will be able to have support group members read the readings for the meeting and he or she will have a speaker carry the NA message. Then the addict celebrating will have his or her sponsor or a friend or family member, give them a medallion at which time the friend will share some of the celebrating addict's achievements during the last year, or from during the entire course of his or her recovery. Then the addict celebrating can share his or her experience, strength, and hope with the group on how they did it.
NA states in the fifth tradition that "each group has but one primary purpose – to carry the message to the addict who still suffers." Therefore, the newcomer is considered to be the most important person in any meeting. The NA message is hope: that there is another way to live. The one promise of NA is that "an addict, any addict, can stop using drugs, lose the desire to use, and learn a new way of life" (Basic Text). According to the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text, the "Twelve Steps" are the source of this hope and freedom when worked to the best of one's ability.
NA literature suggests that service work is an essential part of a program of recovery. Service is "doing the right thing for the right reason," and is the best example of "good will", which is the basis for the freedom only from active addiction by the NA program. Service work is usually chairing a meeting but may be as simple as cleaning up after the meeting, putting away chairs, or answering a phone. Additionally, there are basic, formalized service positions at the group level to help the group perform its function: examples include treasurer, secretary and Group Service Representative (GSR) who represents the group in the larger service structure.
The NA service structure operates at area, regional and world levels. These levels of service exist to serve the groups and are directly responsible to those groups; they do not govern. World services is accountable to its member regions, who are in turn responsible to member areas. Area service committees directly support member groups and often put on special events, such as dances and picnics. Area service committees also provide special subcommittees to serve the needs of members who may be confined in jails and institutions, and will also provide a public interface to the fellowship.
NA calls itself a spiritual program of recovery from the disease of addiction. The NA program places importance on developing a working relationship with a "higher power". The literature suggests that members formulate their own personal understanding of a higher power. The only suggested guidelines are that this power be "loving, caring, and greater than one's self and more powerful than the disease of addiction".
Members are given absolute freedom in coming to an understanding of a higher power that works for them. Individuals from various spiritual and religious backgrounds, as well as many atheists and agnostics, have developed a relationship with their own higher power. NA also makes frequent use of the word "God" and some members who have difficulty with this term substitute "higher power" or read it as an acronym for "Good Orderly Direction".
The twelve steps of the NA program are based upon spiritual principles, three of which are honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness, embodied in the first three steps. These three are hardly exhaustive. The Basic Text of NA says, in Chapter Four, in reference to all twelve steps, "These are the principles which made our recovery possible". According to NA members these principles, when followed to the best of one's ability, allow for a new way of life.
NA meetings usually close with a circle of the participants, a group hug and a prayer of some sort. Prayers used to close meetings today include the "we" version of the "Serenity Prayer" ("God, Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference."); the Third Step Prayer ("Take my will and my life. Guide me in my recovery. Show me how to live.") or the "Gratitude Prayer" ("That no addict seeking recovery need ever die. ... My Gratitude speaks when I care and when I share with others the NA way.")
One addict helping another is an essential part of the NA program. It is therefore highly recommended that NA members find a sponsor. A sponsor is a member of NA who helps another member of the fellowship by sharing their experience, strength and hope in recovery and serves as a guide through the Twelve Steps. In doing so, NA members often choose a sponsor with experience in applying the NA's Twelve Steps.
To feel most comfortable, many NA members have sponsors of the same sex although members are free to choose any other member as a sponsor. It is also suggested that one should find a sponsor who has not only worked the 12 steps of Narcotics Anonymous, but that person also have a sponsor who has worked the 12 traditions of Narcotics Anonymous.
"Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities." (12th Tradition, Basic Text)
Many NA members identify themselves in meetings by their first name only. The spirit of anonymity is about placing "principles before personalities" and recognizing that no individual addict is superior to another, and that individual addicts do not recover without the fellowship or its spiritual principles.
The Eleventh Tradition states that NA members "need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films".