A Message Carried in Every Language
Thank You to NA’s Local Translation Committees
On International Translation Day, we pause with deep gratitude to recognize the past and present members of the Local Translation Committees of Narcotics Anonymous—trusted servants whose quiet, patient, and often unseen work has helped carry the NA message across languages, cultures, communities, and generations.
For many addicts, the first encounter with Narcotics Anonymous does not happen through a meeting room door. It may begin with a few words printed on a page: a pamphlet that explains addiction, a passage from NA literature that describes the pain they thought no one else understood, or a sentence that offers something they had almost stopped believing was possible—hope.
For that message to reach an addict in their own language, someone must first take on the demanding work of translation.
And that work is far more than replacing one word with another.
Local Translation Committee members carefully consider meaning, tone, spiritual principles, cultural understanding, and the unique way ideas are expressed within their own communities. They wrestle with words for which there may be no exact equivalent. They discuss phrases repeatedly, consult one another, review drafts, make corrections, and sometimes return to a single sentence again and again—all because the message matters.
Their responsibility is not simply to produce readable text. It is to help ensure that the NA message remains faithful, understandable, and accessible to the addict who needs it.
Behind every translated booklet, pamphlet, reading, and piece of NA literature are hours—sometimes years—of service. There are committee meetings, long discussions, revisions, proofreading, correspondence, disagreements resolved through patience, and countless acts of cooperation. Much of this service happens away from public attention.
Yet its effect can be immeasurable.
Somewhere, an addict may open NA literature for the first time and discover that the words speak directly to their experience—not through a language that feels distant or unfamiliar, but through the language in which they think, feel, remember, pray, laugh, grieve, and hope.
Because someone served on an LTC, that addict can read:
Recovery is possible.
You are welcome here.
There is a new way of life.
Translation also allows the NA message to become rooted within a community. It enables members to read together, study together, share together, and pass the message to newcomers in words that belong naturally within their own linguistic and cultural world.
In this way, Local Translation Committees help transform the worldwide fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous from an international organization into something deeply local and personal.
They help fulfill the vision that every addict in the world should have the opportunity to experience the NA message in their own language and culture and find the opportunity for a new way of life.
That vision becomes real one translated sentence at a time.
Today, we remember not only those currently serving, but also those who came before them—the members who began translations when resources were limited, who worked without modern technology, who created early glossaries and terminology, who debated difficult passages, who carried manuscripts between communities, and who laid foundations upon which later committees could build.
Some of their names may never appear prominently in NA history.
But their service lives on every time another addict picks up that literature and understands.
To every translator, reviewer, proofreader, coordinator, committee member, trusted servant, and NA member who has contributed to literature translation—past or present:
Thank you.
Thank you for every meeting attended.
Thank you for every difficult word patiently discussed.
Thank you for every paragraph reviewed one more time.
Thank you for protecting the meaning of the NA message while allowing it to speak naturally in another language.
Thank you for giving your time, experience, patience, knowledge, and love to a service whose true reward may be something you never personally witness: an addict somewhere finding hope in words they can finally call their own.
The reach of Narcotics Anonymous is not measured only by how many countries contain meetings or how many pieces of literature have been printed. It is also measured by whether the suffering addict can understand the message when it reaches them.
Local Translation Committees make that possible.
Every translated page is more than literature.
It is a bridge.
A bridge between languages.
A bridge between cultures.
A bridge between one recovering addict and another addict still suffering.
And sometimes, that bridge becomes the path by which someone finds recovery.
To every past and present member of an NA Local Translation Committee:
Your service gives words to hope.
Your efforts allow the NA message to cross borders without losing its heart.
Your dedication helps addicts everywhere discover recovery in the language closest to their own hearts.
On International Translation Day—and every day—we thank you for helping ensure that no addict need be separated from the NA message simply because of language.
With love and gratitude to all LTC members, past and present—thank you for your service.