Welcome to the North Pittsburgh Area of Narcotics Anonymous

About Us

NA is a nonprofit fellowship or society of men and women for whom drugs had become a major problem. We meet regularly to help each other stay clean. We are not interested in what or how much you used but only in what you want to do about your problem and how we can help.

The North Pittsburgh Area of Narcotics Anonymous - NPASCNA - serves meetings in several North Pittsburgh neighborhoods including Cranberry Township, Wexford, Warrendale, Gibsonia, Etna, Millvale, Lawrenceville, Shaler, Allison Park, Bellevue, Sharpsburg, West Deer, North Hills, Brighton Heights, Spring Garden, Polish Hill, Bradford Woods, and Saxonburg.

We're glad that you've taken the time to visit our website. Here you can find meetings and events in the North Pittsburgh Area; links to meetings in the Tri-State Region - which includes Western Pennsylvania, Northern West Virginia and Eastern Ohio; and also the NA World Services meeting locator. You can also find links to Narcotics Anonymous Literature and other NA fellowship-approved information.

Our Area's History

The research on the history of our area began in probably the most logical place, the North Hills Group. The North Hills Group has been around since April of 1982 and was instrumental in the conception of the North Pittsburgh Area. It was this meeting place where Pittsburgh Region's major activities took place. The North Hills Group served as the proverbial hub for dances, workshops, and where area convened. There were only 20 meetings established at that time, allowing for attendance of pretty much 1 a day; a stark contrast to the existing 3 or 4 meetings Narcotics Anonymous members of North Pittsburgh may attend on any given day. 2 members proposed the idea of starting our area to the North Hills Group homegroup members. Some discussion followed about whether or not this topic was ever considered and was eventually recessed until all homegroup members could be present to weigh-in. At that time, the homegroup members of the North Hills Group accounted for a lot of the North Hills meetings. The members present and the respective meetings they represented were Serenity Cafe, Gibsonia Saturday Night, and Living in Recovery. The meetings they had to reach out to about this idea were Discovery in Recovery, Lost Chapel, and Cranberry Tuesday Night. The groups decided to hold a meeting in Gibsonia on Saturday Night to formally vote on creating our area. This meeting included representatives from the North Hills meetings and the RSR of the Tri-State Region. Not all went smoothly; but ultimately the GSR for Serenity Cafe made a motion, the present members voted, and the motion passed, successfully starting the North Pittsburgh Area. The meeting adjourned because the Saturday Night Meeting had to get set up, but a date was set for the first Area Service Meeting: the last Saturday of the month. The first ASC saw the election of a chair and a secretary, a group was convened to pen the guidelines, and the ASC reps began assuming the corresponding duties, which began with starting a meeting on Sunday; the GSRs were charged with finding a church or talking to churches that already hosted meetings during the week. And so the Sunday Meeting came to fruition, and still meets in the same place today.

It's difficult to imagine. No meeting on Sunday. It's difficult to imagine having the option of only one meeting a day. The progress of our area is a true testament to the growing need for recovery. That need was met by the effort of our predecessors, going from church to church lobbying for meeting space with the intention of a meeting held every day of the week. These people wanted to make it so recovery was accessible to those who craved it. In '92, there were still only 8 meetings a week. One of our members recalls the Tuesday meeting in Etna in the bottom of a brown church. His description boiled down to an illustration of cigarette smoke everywhere. The more people I talked to about the history of our area, the more I heard recollections of "back when you could smoke" at the meetings. I got excited just imagining it, but then thinking about the quantity of people, all exhaling large amounts of smoke, in a basement immediately put a damper on the fantasy. The meetings were the pinnacle of the addict's social life. Everyone went to the meetings looking sharp and looking forward to the interaction; otherwise pining for fellowship. The sentiment of those I spoke to was hard to miss when they recalled the origins of our area and the time period it spawned from. And my sentiment was probably undetectable-sentiment surrounding dependence on the knowledge and experience of my predecessors to impart on me the history of our area, as they knew it. Sentiment brought on by the realization that the people I was in fact talking to were instrumental in the process I was investigating. I guess the case of North Pittsburgh Area's beginning coincides with a basic principle our program: if it wasn't for our predecessors, none of this would be possible.

If you're interested in Narcotics Anonymous and don't know where to start, we suggest that you visit one of our meetings or call the regional helpline - it answers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year!

Drug problem? We can help! It Works - It's Free
Regional helpline: 412-391-5247 - Toll free: 888-251-2426 -TTY: 412-281-1375