Narcotics Anonymous Meetings in Connecticut

What is Narcotics Anonymous?

Narcotics Anonymous (NA) is a nonprofit fellowship or society of recovering drug addicts whose purpose is to help its members stay clean. It’s based on the 12-step principles first pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous. There are many local NA meetings held regularly across Connecticut.

New Haven

The New Haven NA group holds open meetings 3 times a week at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on 280 Frontage Road.

Meetings are held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 7:30 PM in the church basement. The 1-hour meetings consist of members sharing their experiences getting and staying clean with the goal of supporting each other’s recovery.

Hartford

There are several NA meetings each week at the Universalist Church of West Hartford on 433 Fern Street.

Meetings take place every Tuesday and Thursday at 6:00 PM in the church Hall, with a special Saturday morning meeting at 10:30 AM. The open 1-hour meetings provide a supportive environment for members to openly discuss the challenges of overcoming addiction.

Bridgeport

The Bridgeport NA group meets twice a week on Tuesday and Friday evenings at 7:00 PM at the Trinity Episcopal Church on 1500 Main Street. The open 1-hour meetings are held in the church community room and follow the standard NA discussion format focused on sharing for the purpose of recovery from drug addiction.

Founded in the 1950s, Narcotics Anonymous has grown to over 70,000 meetings held in 139 countries worldwide. The program is dedicated to providing a free, supportive environment to help individuals overcome drug addiction through NA’s 12-step methodology.

The 12 Steps of NA

Narcotics Anonymous (NA) is a nonprofit fellowship or society that offers recovery support for people suffering from drug addiction. NA outlines a 12-step program to help members achieve and maintain abstinence from mind- and mood-altering substances. The 12 steps are:

1. We admitted we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The 12 steps aim to motivate NA members to make positive changes in their lives and inspire others to do the same across Connecticut. The steps provide spiritual guidance and a supportive community to help members achieve and maintain abstinence from substance abuse.

Getting Started with NA in Connecticut

Use the meeting search on Methadone.org to find local Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings in your area of Connecticut. Both in-person and online/virtual meetings are available in most places across the state.

Attending Your First Local NA Meeting

Connecticut offers both open and closed NA meetings:

• Open meetings welcome anyone to attend, including those new to recovery or just seeking support. These are good options for your first meeting.
• Closed meetings are only for those with a desire to stop using drugs.

Arrive early to your first meeting and introduce yourself as a new local member. Share your experiences if you feel comfortable, but just listening is also perfectly fine. You may receive welcome keychain tags at your first meeting to mark milestones in your recovery:

• 30 days
• 60 days
• 90 days
• 6 months
• 9 months
• 1 year
• 18 months
• Multiple years

The NA program and its members will provide you with support and camaraderie as you start your recovery journey. The most important thing is to keep coming back.