About the fellowship
What Nicotine Anonymous is, who it is for, and where to find meetings in the UK.
Nicotine Anonymous, or NicA, is a free, anonymous fellowship for anyone who wants to stop using nicotine. Members share their experience of living without cigarettes, roll-ups, cigars, pipes, vapes, pouches and nicotine gum, and support each other through the first days, weeks and years.
There are no fees and no referral. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using nicotine.
NicA is for anyone who wants to stop using nicotine in any form. People in meetings describe how familiar it is: trying to quit on their own and starting again, switching from cigarettes to vapes and still unable to put it down, the midnight trip to the shop, the quiet shame of lighting up again. You do not have to have stopped before you come.
The fellowship places no claim about how anyone should stop. It is a place for people who want to, and who are finding it easier not to do it alone.
NicA meetings in the UK run mostly online, with two in-person meetings in Scotland (Kirkcaldy) and Oxfordshire (Hempton). An online meeting lasts about an hour. A member chairs it, reads a short opening, and people share from their own experience. Nobody is called on, and first names are all anyone uses.
Because the fellowship runs across time zones, there are meetings at many hours of the day UK time, including early mornings. Some have a familiar focus such as women, newcomers, or long-term abstinence.
Nicotine Anonymous began in California in 1985, started by members of other twelve-step fellowships who could not stop smoking. It took the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and adapted them to nicotine. The UK fellowship has grown through the online years and now runs its own meetings on Zoom and phone.