One of the goals of our NAVERSE operation, besides helping addicted people to overcome the shame of being seen as an addict and ask for help, was to trigger a societal debate in the French Media to present the NA fellowship as an efficient solution, and to reach not only drug users and their families, but also political and health authorities. To make it happen, we invited French journalists to assist to a world premiere event: the 1st NA meeting in the metaverse. As planned and hoped, every outlet we invited wrote at least one article about the experience.

Narcotics Anonymous is an international nonprofit fellowship or society of men and women for whom drugs had become a major problem. After Alcoholics Anonymous, it’s the second-largest 12-step organization.

Well-known and respected in English-speaking countries, the nonprofit fellowship lacks awareness in France where substitution drugs and cures in rehab centers are preferred.

We were tasked with building awareness around NA and highlighting their method to those in search of a solution: substance users but also their friends and family, public or political entities and health authorities.

To face this issue, we have designed a pilot project.

NAVerse: The First Narcotics Anonymous meeting in the metaverse.

An invitation to share, listen and support each other. Perpetuating the full feeling of fraternity favored by NA’s method…But with full anonymity. And free of shame thank to the avatars.

Helped by NA members, we identified people aiming for sobriety but too ashamed to seek help, and experienced members to mentor them into this pilot project.

We created a cozy metaverse environment to make sure they felt safe.

To trigger a societal debate on a global scale and reach family of users, public and health authorities we’ve also invited journalists from the most important French’s newspapers.

We trained every participant to enable them to create their own avatars and to use the Virtual reality set just before the meeting.

The meeting lasted for one hour, followed by a press conference and one to one interviews, also held in the metaverse.

We filmed the whole meeting and created the first capture of a NA meeting in history followed by a short “best of” version sent to the French Press to highlight the power of the fellowship and NA’s method at a large scale.

The outreach exceeded our expectations:

81 million people reached; a wide media coverage, both national and international; a 158% traffic increase on Narcotics Anonymous’ French website; all participating members joined a physical meeting afterwards.

And most importantly, these meaningful meetings will continue with an upcoming NAVerse meeting in Canada

We learned that nine out of ten people who struggle with drugs addiction don’t look for help because they feel ashamed. Ashamed to be recognized, to be seen as an addict. This is sadly the first reason why addicts don’t dare to open the doors of their first NA meeting. After two years of COVID, mental health and addiction issues have reached an all-time high and a lot of people are looking for help. NA may be called to play an important role to the delivery of health care for addicted individual in the French landscape.

The combination of these two sad truths gave birth to the idea of our NAVERSE operation.