Additional Needs

Most of us can find a meeting on a meeting schedule, get to it, enter and sit down, and hear the spoken message of recovery without a second thought. However, there are some for whom this is not possible. They need additional help in order to do what most of us take for granted. In other words, they are addicts who, for a number of reasons, have additional needs.
—Additional Needs Resource Information, NA World Services, Inc., 2002

What does the term “additional needs” really mean?
Additional needs arise from physical challenges such as blindness, hearing impairment, or mobility limitations by the use of a wheelchair. Additional Needs is not limited to these three categories. Addicts with additional needs may have difficulty with the following:

• Hearing the spoken message of recovery
• Reading the written message of recovery
• Transportation to meetings
• Accessing meeting spaces or event locations

The mission of our committee is to help addicts with overcoming these types of difficulties and receive the message of Narcotics Anonymous.

The therapeutic value of one addict helping another is without parallel. As with all addicts, when we help an addict with additional needs we help carry the message of NA recovery.
—from IP #26, Accessibility for Those with Additional Needs

Additional Needs meets the 3rd Saturday of each month at 12pm noon at 217 Hughes Street, Williamsport, PA.