By Amir Zohar
Published in Ha'arez newspaper
06 October 2008

1000 clean addicts attended the Israeli NA Convention.
At the huge dancing party, not even one cigarette was lit.

"As a person I'm blocked, introvert, arrogant. I always try to look cool, I don’t dance, I don’t laugh, I don’t hug, just look good."

This is how Karl - a 58 year old clean heroin addict, actor and trainer who works in the television industry in Berlin - chose to start his sharing as the NA European Union delegate at the 9th Israel NA Convention that took place over a three day period at the Haifa Convention Center.

Karl (a false name like all the names in this article) climbed onto the stage dressed in black - like the curtains. He sat and poured out his feelings under a theatrical projector in front of 1000 clean Israelis addicts. A sentimental introduction, his guilt as a Berlin child born five years after the war, he says: "The truth? I did not want to meet you. 11 years ago, when we decided that the European convention of NA will take place in Haifa, I was cold and distant, like all addicts. But then I met your fellowship and it changed my life. Here some of my real true friends live. Here I learned to be obvious and open minded, to trust others. I cried at the Western Wall (in Jerusalem), I meditated for 10 days at the Dead Sea. I feel so much part of this country that it's scares me. It's goes against my common sense. It is one of the miracles that I experienced in the NA program, and I'm grateful for it."
For an hour he scrutinized his 25 years of using, as a 14 year old boy using heroin and hashish as an anti-social statement, as well as highlights from his last 19 years in sobriety.

"Since I grew up in the Sixties, I had problems with two of the greatest lies: freedom and love. I didn’t graduate in my studies because I was thinking, this will make me free. I didn’t work because I was thinking, this will make me free. I didn’t love my parents because I was thinking this will make me free, I did practically nothing but drugs in order to be free.

I smoked hash, a hippie that went to India to be free, yet I got hepatitis C. If I talk about love and freedom, when I was 19 years old I, was living with my girlfriend in a large hippie community and the guy that gave me drugs told me "everybody's free" and fucked my girlfriend".

When he finished his cynical and bitter delusion about freedom under the influence of drugs, he continued with the next chapter in his life, his rehabilitation.

"At my trial, I was sentenced to life in prison. I spent a long time in jail and in a psychiatric establishment where they filled me with medication.

After my imprisonment I succeeded in my rehabilitation, I got an highly esteemed job, I started a film and advertising company that made millions. I was in a relationship with two more on the side, just to make sure that I could. I had a Lufthansa membership card, two credit cards and a apartment in Paris. For 11 years I did everything to stay clean but I kept on falling time after time. Although I did not use my drug of choice, in the mornings I could barely crawl to the bathroom."

"Despite my searching, I could not find the freedom from my obsessions, from dealing with myself, from my fears." he says "One day, 19 years ago, in Paris, a psychiatrist suggested that I go to an NA meeting. I knew about the program from the past, and I was in such distress, but I did not want to disappoint my prominent psychiatrist, so I took my medication, got into my new car and drove to a meeting. There, a strong-headed woman with worn-out clothes said something that's stuck in my memory: 'I m so happy that I'm free from active addiction'. And then my heart started to beat, this is exactly what I always wanted. NA is not a matrimonial, nor an employment agency, there's no guarantee that you will be happy. On page 102 of the blue book it's said that the only promise for those that keep coming back is the freedom from active addiction".

A thousand clean addicts cheer, applaud and take pictures with their mobile phones - the powerpoint presentation showing hundreds of thousands of people from 49,978 groups around the world to the sound of hits from the sixties. Pictures of smiling, laughing faces, people that graduated from the streets from all over the world, every one of them clean from drugs, shaved, neat and washed.

Photographs of members from branches in N.Y, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris and many more Cities make a colorful and powerful collage that drove the people in the hall to a natural "high".

While the people on the screen are holding signs such as "simple way wins" or "alcohol is a drug" the audience read them out aloud in one voice. Pictures of hugging members from branches in Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Iran, one of the biggest branches in the world, most likely operating with government support, you could hear the sounds of admiration.

The next NA world convention will take place in Barcelona in August 2009.

Based on the AA concept (alcoholics–anonymous), the first NA group met in Southern California on July 1953. The fellowship evolved into a movement while other groups started in the U.S.A. in a disorganized manner. NA was not satisfied with just stopping the use of a specific drug (like in A.A.) it expanded its program to recovery from the addiction to all mind -altering substances of the addict. For 20 years the fellowship expanded mostly in the U.S.A. and reached other parts of the world in due course. In heroin afflicted Germany, it only started there in 1977, in Israel the first room was opened in 1984 in Tel-Aviv.

In NA, the fellowship is the ultimate value (under absolute anonymity), where daily support group meetings are the key to its existence and the personal recovery of its members. At the meetings the addict learns how to apply the concepts of the "12 steps" based on admitting that there is a problem, asking for help, taking a moral inventory, making amends and/or forgiveness for the damage inflicted or suffered and helping one another. Every 'newcomer' takes an 'old-timer' as a coach (sponsor), this action is difficult and embarrassing for someone who comes from the streets but its shows his true willingness in asking for help and entering the program.

In Israel there are group meetings in 30 areas, they take place in rented rooms following the requirements of the program, based only on member's donations. NA does not receive any financial support from anyone who is not an NA member, it does not provide social services, does not operate rehabilitation centers or clinics and does not associate to any other organization or institution.

Cobtrary to the classical bureaucratic form described by Max Weber – where the wide base of the pyramid is represented by the crowd and at the top is the management and elite, - NA is built as a upside down pyramid. At the top is the mass of clean addicts, below are the delegates selected by the area's committees, then comes the regional committee that work according to the decisions and requests of the areas committees.

In 130 countries where the NA program is active, the regional committees select their   delegates to the world services conference that takes place every two years. The world services conference define the goals and reforms that help to develop the fellowship. But first they have to send the decisions in writing to the groups around the world, then and only then, after taking their responses into consideration, can new resolutions can be passed.

In the bottom peak of the pyramid stands the world committee, that includes 18 members responsible for the distribution of the decisions taken at the world conference, to the groups around the world and to verify that they are implemented. All service committees' members are volunteers, the reason being that NA will never employ any professional treatment personnel. But it may hire the services of professional personnel such as accountants or secretaries, who may not be recovering addicts.

"What helps to keep this rare organization structure working, is the special character of our Fellowship" says a public information trusted servant. "For our members, service is a form of 'assignment and privilege', actions are taken in agreement and from a benevolent point of view. Good will is very important in recovery, if there are any disagreements, we vote. People usually find a suitable position on a committee, according to their capabilities and preferences." For instance, in the Literature and Translation committee, translators and even a few writers keep there confidentiality with care. Galit, a translator, a clean addict in her 30's, married to a clean addict, came to the Haifa convention with her husband and their baby son. "In Israel there is no original NA literature" she says, describing the work at the literature committee as if it were a small publishing company. "In order to publish original translated NA literature, we must get the confirmation of the World Service Committee; it’s a process that takes time. Meanwhile, recovering addicts with accumulated clean days are getting books and guidebooks as birthday presents, so it's very important for us to translate the literture as much as we can. The translation is based on a unique NA jargon; a terminology of the fellowship that the members created by themselves."

TO THE LIGHT

A ticket to the convention costs NIS 150 ($43), a large amount of the participants stay in the hotels around Haifa. The program of events lists speakers' meetings, workshops and lectures from 10:00am - 20:00pm in four halls, with additional events in the evening. Some of the speaker topics:  judgment and gossip, recovery and relapse, fear, relationships (intimacy), and other topics that included at NA meetings throughout the year.

The interest was high, all participated, the members were alert and gentle in  keeping the discussion in order. There isn’t another place in the world where people pay attention like at an NA convention. At the big dance party on Friday night, not a single cigarette was lit indoors. At the rave party, drug addicts were dancing side by side, "yuppies" from affluent areas with downtown residents, everybody gave the impression of unity without hash, weed, ecstasy, cocaine or heroin.

"Three weeks ago a member of the convention committee call me and said: Congratulations, you win, you were selected as speaker at a topic meeting, and the subject is "Stop suffering". Gidi starts his sharing in front an audience of 70 at the 'Rimon' hall. He is tall, handsome, green eyes with a shy look on is face. 30 years old, married with five kids, ex-heroin addict who served a few jail sentences, living today in one of the Haifa Suburbs and clean for six years."I like suffering a lot and miss the suffering in my recovery "he confesses" in the past I reached the bottom, I lost my humanity, I weighted 70 kg, I had wounds on my face, and I hated myself. I shaved my head so I'll look like a monster. 18 years I used and felt like a "master-user". But the denial was so strong that I had to start 'shooting drugs' to admit that I was a drug addict. As a consequence of my using, I stopped suffering relatively quickly, but I still had reasons to use, my defects of character, my self-centedness, obsession, compulsion. All the things that pushed me back suffering. I noticed some kind of hole that I fall into from time to time, it's like I hang a sign 'no public access'. This is my desire for solitude, my need to stay in the dark. The awareness that I got from the program allows me to get out from that place, but it seems that I just don’t want to. It usually happens when things don’t go well for me and I think that the all world is plotting against me. It seems as if I like it there, where my addiction rests, but I ask myself, do I really want to stop suffering?"

* *

The darkness in the hall was filled with chatter and laughter, two recovering addicts climbed onto the stage to host the "clean time countdown". The murmering turned into a roar of enthusiastic applause. "What am I?, I'm just a human being" a thousand voices, eyes shining, full of pride and hope, "Together, all the way together, to the light" the words to Meir Banay's song, "shafshaf's song" for a long time the non-official NA anthem of the clean addicts in Israel. "TOGETHER" was the theme for the ninth annual NA convention.

Shooli, a big woman in her late 30's, holds the microphone in her hand and with a thunderous voice present Booli, a clean addict, in his 50's with a heavy bass voice. With glowing eyes they invite onto the stage the addicts in the hall, in the order of their clean time order, old timers first.

The exciting parade lasted for over an hour.  First to go up was a woman, 24 years clean, then the 23, 22, and 20 years. The barrage started on the second decade, the large stage was too narrow to hold the "teenagers" that hugged and danced in joy and embarrassment, to the sound of the Beatles. The less than ten years clean timers arrived in groups; a few pregnant women, an unreal sight for those who saw them on the streets not so long ago.

When the climax came, they cleared a passage onto the stage for the addict who had one day clean. "Just for today" they shouted - the most important statement of the NA program,

All the participants, remembered how difficult it was for them to reach their first clean day, huddled to see the miracle closely, to cheer him up and went wild, just like the kids in "a Star is Born".