In an interview with the NA World Service Board of Trustees in 1986, Jack said, “And so, with little introduction, about the middle of 1953, I started a meeting on Moorpark, at the church, for addicts, knowing absolutely nothing about it. He [Captain Hamilton, the head of the Sheriff’s Narcotics Division] had sent . . . two people from his jurisdiction who were addicts down to the meeting, and forced them to come, of course. Two others came in. There were two girls that came [also], one was from here in Los Angeles, the other one was up from San Bernardino who had heard about it and came. And a man named Cy M came to that first meeting. . . . We opened it the same as we did with AA, and the discussion was on the line that all new starting groups have, you know, what is it all about, what am I going to get out of it, what do I have to do, what’s it cost, and the whole bit. And as near as I can recall, about the only thing that was discussed was the fact there was not going to be a cost factor. There was not going to be any musts that you must do, any different than there was in AA, and that, perhaps, if the Twelve Steps were used, changing the word ‘alcoholics’ to the narcotic addict, that the same principles might work.” 1
Cy attended the next meeting, and then for some reason he decided this was not really his cup of tea, and so he didn’t come back for the third week, but Jimmy K did. “I had known Jimmy in Alcoholics Anonymous, the North Hollywood group, for quite some time,” Jack said, “and we had become very close friends. And I had talked to him about this thing, knowing that he was an addict, and never thought to ask him to come and help. But he showed up, and I stayed with it for eight weeks. About the only real service that I have done for Narcotics Anonymous in those early days was that, at the first meeting,” Jack continued.
Even though the first meeting had been started at the urging of Captain Hamilton, authorities kept it under surveillance, which was of course in the spirit of the times. Addicts still were viewed as criminals, and it was illegal for them to gather together for any purpose whatsoever. As Jack told the trustees in 1986, “After [the meeting] was over, we walked outside. The cops were sitting across the street with the lights on, and as the addicts came out, the two cops were standing there with a notebook. They yelled across the street, ‘We got you, John. We know what you’re trying to do. You think you’re fooling us?’ and this sort of thing, as you’re all familiar with. And I went back to Captain Hamilton and I said, ‘This is not going to work because of that.’ He said, ‘We’ll take care of that.’ And some way or another he did, and they were not rousted from that time on. And so when Jimmy took it over in July of 1953, and I don’t recall whether it was the middle or the latter part of July in 1953, periodically he and I would talk about what he was doing in Narcotics Anonymous.” 2
In August 1953 a group called the Governing Committee started to meet formally and keep minutes. Their first recorded meeting was held August 17, 1953, at the house of Frank and Doris C on Stagg Street in Van Nuys, California. Six were present: Frank and Doris, Jimmy, Paul R, Gilda K, and Steve R. All present accepted the responsibility to serve for anywhere from three to six months; also elected were Jimmy as chairman and Doris as secretary of the rotating committee for leadership.
Two other items of interest were enacted. First they voted to call the group “San Fernando Valley Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous,” over the protest of Jimmy K. Later on he would say, “They had just elected me chairman and vetoed my first suggestion, so we were off to a pretty darned good start!” 3 He was able, however, to convince the other members to contact AA World Services to see if they could use the AA name. After AA’s General Service Office informed them they could not affiliate themselves with AA, the name was changed to Narcotics Anonymous.
The second notable event was the development of bylaws, which laid out how the group would operate. The development of these bylaws took six meetings over the next months to complete. The statement of purpose was taken from The Key—the newsletter of the Narco group in Lexington. Other language said that if members continuously disagreed with other members, they would be asked to resign; that the group would be self-supporting and follow the Twelve Traditions of NA, based on those in AA; and that no committee member could hold similar positions in more than one group simultaneously.
The seventh meeting of the Governing Committee focused on setting up an ongoing meeting, a meeting that would open its doors on October 5, 1953, at Cantara Avenue and Clybourn Street in Sun Valley, California. Seventeen alcoholics and addicts signed in for that meeting. Shortly thereafter, according to Jimmy and others, personality conflicts and disagreements led to internal strife which, by the end of that year, caused the resignation of all original members of the committee, including Jimmy K on December 16. Even so, Jimmy recalled that while he was not directly involved, he made coffee every Monday night for the meeting. The meeting continued at that same location for most of 1954.
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1 Jack P. Interview with World Service Board of Trustees. 14 November 1986.
2 Jack P. Interview.
3 Jimmy K. Twentieth Anniversary.