Crystal Meth Anonymous
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Crystal Meth Anonymous
Crystal Meth Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other so that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from addiction to crystal meth.
Purpose
The primary purpose of Crystal Meth Anonymous is to lead a sober life and to carry the message of recovery to the crystal meth addict who still suffers.
Who Can Join
Crystal Meth Anonymous is open to all individuals who want to stop using crystal meth. That is the sole requirement for membership.
There are no dues or fees for Crystal Meth Anonymous membership and the fellowship is self-supporting through voluntary contributions of its own members. Crystal Meth Anonymous is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution. The fellowship does not wish to engage in any type of controversy and neither endorses nor opposes any causes.
Anonymity is at the heart of the Crystal Meth Anonymous fellowship. It is well-known that an addict will very often avoid any source of help which might reveal his or her identity. Thus, the pledge of anonymity in Crystal Meth Anonymous assures each member that his or her recovery will remain private.
History of Crystal Meth Anonymous
The founder of Crystal Meth Anonymous, Bill C., a recovering addict 16 years sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, observed in 1994 during Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in Los Angeles that a number of crystal meth addicts were beginning to attend. He noticed that these members weren’t called on to share their experiences because the “secretaries” of these meetings didn’t like the shares and, therefore, didn’t call on them. Bill got the idea that crystal meth addicts needed their own meetings.
Thus, the idea of the Crystal Meth Anonymous fellowship began to take place. The first Crystal Meth Anonymous meeting was attended by 12 people and took place at the West Hollywood Alcohol and Drug Center in West Hollywood, California. It was September 16, 1994. Members of that meeting started other meetings. In a few months, there were daily meetings in Los Angeles.
These Crystal Meth Anonymous members then started meetings in San Francisco and San Diego in California. Meetings also sprang up Phoenix, Arizona, Salt Lake City, Utah and New York City in 1998. By the time 2001 rolled around, meetings had begun in Atlanta, Georgia and meetings in many other parts of the country began shortly after that.
As of early 2011, the General Service website lists approximately 500 meetings in 41 states and provinces in three countries.
How It Works
In the experience of Crystal Meth Anonymous members, they understand that addiction to crystal meth is a progressive illness that, while it cannot be cured, can be arrested – by not using, one day at a time.
The very first step of recovery from addiction to crystal meth is the admission by the addict that he or she is powerless over crystal and that life has become unmanageable.
The Fellowship of Crystal Meth Anonymous works a Twelve Step program of recovery. The Fellowship states that it has not felt the need to elaborate in great detail a specific Crystal Meth Anonymous approach to the Twelve Steps, stating, “Too many other excellent outlines already exist for following these spiritual principles. But our experience has shown that without the Steps we could not stay sober.”
The foundation of the fellowship is three-fold. The first is regular attendance at meetings. There, members discuss how they achieved sobriety and a new outlook on their way of living. Crystal Meth Anonymous recommends a program of recovery which includes the 12-Steps of recovery developed by Alcoholics Anonymous. On the Crystal Meth Anonymous website, it states that “Our experience has shown that daily attendance of Twelve Step meetings and fellowship are among the most effective ways to stay sober.
The second foundation involves sponsorship and Step work. Sponsors are other recovering addicts that individual members choose to offer them guidance in working the Twelve Steps of Crystal Meth Anonymous. Sponsors share how they’ve managed to stay sober, make suggestions to help others stay sober, but they do not tell others what to do. Each Crystal Meth Anonymous member makes his or her own recovery choices.
The third foundation is one of service and commitments. In Crystal Meth Anonymous, members strengthen their sobriety by helping other addicts. As such, they volunteer to do service. This might include arranging chairs, making coffee, stocking literature, keeping the group’s finances, or greeting newcomers at the door of the meeting. Such commitments help members maintain regular meeting attendance, help others get to know each other, and provides individual satisfaction of following through on promises made.
How Crystal Meth Anonymous Differs From Other 12-Step Fellowships
Crystal meth addicts have known darkness, paranoia and compulsions that go along with the disease. The Fellowship of Crystal Meth Anonymous has found that members relate best to other crystal meth addicts because each has experienced the incredible darkness such addiction brings.
The Twelve Steps of Crystal Meth Anonymous were adapted from those developed by Alcoholics Anonymous. It isn’t that Crystal Meth Anonymous believes it is any better or worse than those in other 12-Step fellowships. But many in Crystal Meth Anonymous cannot relate with a “falling-down drunk” or a “nodding-off junkie.” What’s unique to a crystal meth addict is the hyper-extended length and intensity of the drug’s effects. This runs the gamut from compulsive cleaning to sexual activity.
While many Crystal Meth Anonymous members have attended other 12-Step meetings, they came back to the rooms of Crystal Meth Anonymous because of the strong feeling of identification they felt there.
The 12 Steps of Crystal Meth Anonymous
Here are the 12 Steps of Crystal Meth Anonymous, adapted with permission from those developed by Alcoholics Anonymous.
1. We admitted that we were powerless over crystal meth and our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a God of our understanding.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all the persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with a God of our understanding praying only for the knowledge of God’s will for us, and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to crystal meth addicts, and to practice these principles in all of our affairs.
The Twelve Traditions of Crystal Meth Anonymous
The following are the Twelve Traditions of Crystal Meth Anonymous, reprinted and adapted with permission from Alcoholics Anonymous, which originally developed them.
1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon Crystal Meth Anonymous unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as expressed in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for Crystal Meth Anonymous membership is a desire to stop using.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or Crystal Meth Anonymous as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose, to carry its message to the addict who still suffers.
6. A Crystal Meth Anonymous group ought never endorse, finance or lend the Crystal Meth Anonymous name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. Every Crystal Meth Anonymous group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Crystal Meth Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. Crystal Meth Anonymous, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Crystal Meth Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the Crystal Meth Anonymous name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, television, films and other public media.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
--Suzannekane 20:03, 1 June 2011 (MDT)
