When the COVID-19 pandemic struck the U.S. and stay-at-home orders occurred, NA members found “ways and means” to stay clean and be of service. Zoom quickly emerged in place of face-to-face meetings. This platform lent itself to new ways of connecting (i.e., attendees not bound to a geographic area), new forms of community (i.e., meetings organized around secular beliefs, illness in recovery, LGBTQIA+, deaf members, prayer & meditation, young people)1, and new forms of service (i.e., virtual speaker jams, virtual marathon meetings).
Virtual meetings connected a community of NA members interested in history in a new form of service. Members of this community organized and hosted a virtual “NA History Convention.” This convention featured 11 speakers with 45+ years to share for 45 minutes each. It took much planning with many texts, emails, phone calls, and virtual meetings to make it happen. The convention was spread out over two days and was attended by addicts worldwide. It was so successful that two more were held.
As a result of these events, two of the committee members based in Northern California were inspired to capture the history of the Northern California Region by interviewing old-timers and early members. Conducted over Zoom, each interview lasted about an hour and focused on their personal experience with the “early days” of NA in Northern California.
With experience, the interviewers developed better questions. Questions focused on the Area where the addict got clean, where the earliest meetings were held, what literature was available, and what it was like getting clean in the 1970s and 1980s. To date, over 100 interviews have been conducted.
As more members joined in this quest, the group decided to refer to themselves as the Northern California History Project. In 2023, this group became a seated committee of the Northern California Region and continued their service as the “Northern California History and Archive Committee.”
The “H” of the Northern California History and Archive Committee is history. Their service has expanded to include a focus on the history of the LGBTQ+ Community in Northern California. It has also resulted in special history presentations at the 2023 and 2024 Northern California Convention of NA, as well as ‘old timer’ panels consisting of members from the Northern California region with 50+ years clean.
The “A” of the Northern California History and Archive Committee is archives. The committee is also digitizing meeting directories, flyers from events, newsletters, photos, videos, convention registrations and programs.
The Committee is recruiting and training new members to conduct interviews and scan documents. They are hoping to get volunteers from all 23 Areas in the Region. It is so important to document the history of the Northern California Region and to interview the old long-timers before they pass. Unfortunately, many did pass before the Committee could speak with them. This is a reminder of the importance of capturing history before it is lost.
If a silver lining can come out of the pandemic, it may be the renewed interest, effort, and collaboration that is occurring with NA history. The Northern California History and Archives Committee is both an example of this and also a vision for other what other groups, Area, and Regions can accomplish around the preservation of NA history.
- Based on a search of Virtual NA on 11/19/2024 ↩︎