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Topic: Visibility Problem Small 12-Step Organizations Very Helpful But Unknown

I think everyone has heard of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), and that one can just look in the phone book or call directory assistance to get in contact with them. But what about lesser known and smaller organizations like Nicotine Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, Marijuana Anonymous, and Rational Recovery? Using as an example Nicotine Anonymous, an organization I do volunteer work for. I will use an unofficial abbreviation, NicA, for it. In most cities where there are meetings, NicA is not in the phone book. So even people who have heard of NicA have a very difficult time finding us. Even referral agencies sometimes don't mention us. For example, in Minneapolis, I called the local American Lung Association (ALA) and said I was on day 2 of my quit, and I needed some kind of support group. ALA tried to talk me into taking a ALA Freedom From Smoking $125 8-week class that begins more than a month in the future. She knew of no other support groups for people quitting smoking. I had to mention NicA by name and persist before she looked in some directory and found the international NicA number in San Francisco. (There are 4 NicA groups in the Twin Cities area. We do have some local numbers, but we aren't in the phone book).

A phone book listing in Minneapolis costs about $400/year -- a lot for a no dues, no fees self-supporting support groups that barely breaks even after paying for rent and some basic literature for newcomers. I spent more than 100 hours of my time last fall trying to get a phone book listing for the Twin Cities NicA, without success.

Another way to get some exposure and be more findable is to get listed in regional WWW city guides like Yahoo Twin Cities and DiveIn-Twin Cities. However, they will only link to "local Twin Cities" pages. Thus, in order to be listed in a city guide we need to build a "Twin Cities NicA" web page, and find a low cost web page host to put it. To simply host a simple 5 or 10 Kbyte web page costs $120/year with the Minnesota Telecommunications Network and the Twin Cities Free Net. (These two services are non-profit organizations with the mission of providing low cost internet services for non-profits.)

Much more detail about phone book listings and web page hosts is available at my "Visibility Project" web site at http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/9595/.The purpose of this web site is to share ideas and experiences for ways to increase the visibility of small 12 step and other support groups.

In short, it seems ludicrous that, in a country where there are 350 Billion $ tobacco settlement deals, and 400,000 people die of smoking, that so very few people are aware of NicA (even when there are meetings in their cities) and how to find them. We, the smaller and lesser known support group organizations need help from our friends and members to make us better known and more findable. (Yes, there is the issue of our self-support Tradition 7). A city like Albany N.Y. has only one NicA group with attendance of about 10, and cannot possibly afford an advertising campaign or a phone book listing.

On another subject, the http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/8122/ web site has a multitude of approaches to quitting smoking that together worked for me. cards.html has the contents of dozens of 3 X 5 cards with things I read whenever strong cravings hit. After reading a few cards, the cravings always went away almost completely. index.html is a list of online quit-smoking discussion groups ranging from newsgroups to web-based forums to chat.

Yours for increased visibily,
Jim Larson, Visibility Project
http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/9595/

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