Its hard to imagine there not being any NA meetings on the west coast or that Jimmy would walk away from NA and return to AA which helped usher in the death of the only NA meeting on the west coast. But between 1956 and 1959 that's exactly what happened.
----------------------------
Here's a trascript from a recording of an NA History Workshop held June 5 1999 from an interview of Jimmy K.
In 1959 ... "there were no Narcotics Anonymous meetings of any kind [on the west coast]. It broke Jimmy’s heart and in ... March 1960, Jimmy K. determined that this couldn’t be allowed to happen. Jimmy K, Sylvia Wexler, and Penny Kennedy restarted Narcotics Anonymous and the vow they made was that they would follow the Traditions .... They felt that the reason it [NA] had faded away, the reason there had been personality conflicts .... The only way that they could survive as a fellowship is if they scrupulously followed the 12 Traditions, particularly the anonymity part.
Here is how Jimmy describes this:
"For awhile after we formed -- A lot of things happened that I'm not going into tonight ---- but due to some things that happened and due to the nature of the addict, the nature of our illness, some people were put in a position where they became the leaders again, the Great White Father. You know, we can't have a Great White Father or a Big Momma, you know, it doesn't work in this organization. And NA died once more, and the friends of ours in AA helped to pick us up, and said "Don't let it bother you". These were the real friends we had in the beginning; members of AA who believed in us, members of AA had themselves a dual problem at that time and recognized that –- they came and helped us get started again. But again and again this happened in this organization. One person would try to dominate the whole movement. And every time it happened we began to die."
----------------------------
Here's a trascript from a recording of an NA History Workshop held June 5 1999 from an interview of Jimmy K.
In 1959 ... "there were no Narcotics Anonymous meetings of any kind [on the west coast]. It broke Jimmy’s heart and in ... March 1960, Jimmy K. determined that this couldn’t be allowed to happen. Jimmy K, Sylvia Wexler, and Penny Kennedy restarted Narcotics Anonymous and the vow they made was that they would follow the Traditions .... They felt that the reason it [NA] had faded away, the reason there had been personality conflicts .... The only way that they could survive as a fellowship is if they scrupulously followed the 12 Traditions, particularly the anonymity part.
Here is how Jimmy describes this:
"For awhile after we formed -- A lot of things happened that I'm not going into tonight ---- but due to some things that happened and due to the nature of the addict, the nature of our illness, some people were put in a position where they became the leaders again, the Great White Father. You know, we can't have a Great White Father or a Big Momma, you know, it doesn't work in this organization. And NA died once more, and the friends of ours in AA helped to pick us up, and said "Don't let it bother you". These were the real friends we had in the beginning; members of AA who believed in us, members of AA had themselves a dual problem at that time and recognized that –- they came and helped us get started again. But again and again this happened in this organization. One person would try to dominate the whole movement. And every time it happened we began to die."
No comments:
Post a Comment