FRIENDS & FAMILY

Crystal Meth Anonymous is a fellowship of people who share their experience, strength and hope with each other, so they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from addiction to crystal meth. We cannot offer counseling or suggestions on the situations of family members and loved ones of addicts.

Recognizing that there are limited sources of support for families we offer the resources below for informational purposes. The presence of resources on this page does not constitute an endorsement of, nor an affiliation with the institutions, programs, or resources mentioned.

If you have an addict in your life, many mental health professionals recommend compassionately confronting their use and setting boundaries around their using behavior. (i.e. I find your drug use unacceptable – and I won’t allow you around the kids when you are using” etc.)

It may help to remember that addicts are suffering from a progressive and potentially fatal disease. Modern medical thinking is that addiction is not a weakness, a lack of willpower or a moral failing. Addicts are sick people who can be effectively encouraged to get well, not bad people who need to be “good.”

Sadly, most addicts do not recover until they become willing to seek help; our experience has shown it is nearly impossible to “make someone recover.”

Addiction is a progressive disease that affect the entire family structure. Modern recovery approaches deal with the family and friends as well as the addict. It is important to NOT shield the addict from the consequences of their using behavior, or "rescue" them. (Referred to as “enabling.”) Not enabling the addict may help them become willing to seek help.

Alanon can be reached via their website at: al-anon.alateen.org Alanon is focused on the families and friends of Alcoholics, but their materials will be helpful to the loved ones of addicts as well. They are a much larger organization than Naranon, and therefore easier to find in many localities.

Nar-anon – and organization for the families and friends of drug addicts, can be reached at (310) 534-8188 or (800) 477-6291, or write to: Nar-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., 22527 Crenshaw Blvd #200B., Torrance, CA 90505 USA.

We request your continued cooperation in protecting the anonymity of our members at the public level. We ask, therefore, that when presenting CMA members in all forms of public media:

• Use their first names and last initials only or a pseudonym.

• Use pictures in which faces cannot be recognized.

TO THE MEDIA

Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of our Fellowship and assures our members that their recovery will be private. Our experience and long-standing twelve step tradition (the Twelve Traditions which guide our organizational operations can be found here) have shown that the active addict may avoid any source of help which might reveal his or her identity.

Individual recovering addicts may waive this anonymity request when speaking with you, but we ask that you consider our request for anonymity to supersede any waiver they may make. While some might seek publicity and individual recognition, we have found that this may endanger the individual and our work of helping other addicts to recover.

Crystal Meth Anonymous is not affiliated with any other organization, although we have adapted AA‘s Twelve Steps for our use. CMA is self-supporting, declining any outside contributions; and we are nonprofessional, offering only the voluntary support of one recovering addict helping another.

Favorable media coverage of our program and the dangers of crystal meth have been a valuable means of bringing addicts into our Fellowship. You have helped make this possible, and for that we thank you.