Jimmy Kinnon

James Patrick Kinnon (5 April 1911 - 9 July 1985), commonly known as Jimmy Kinnon or "Jimmy K.", was the primary founder of Narcotics Anonymous (NA), a worldwide fellowship of recovering addicts. During his lifetime, he was usually referred to as "Jimmy K." due to NA's principle of personal anonymity on the public level. He never referred to himself as the founder of NA, although the record clearly shows that he played a founding role.

When Kinnon was seven years old he befriended a local alcoholic whom he referred to as Mr. Crookshank. Kinnon would often find him drunk and beaten. One day he found Crookshank badly beaten up and unresponsive. Kinnon ran for help. Over the following weeks Kinnon did not see Crookshank and, after numerous inquiries, his mother took him to see his friend. They went to an institution of which Crookshank was now a resident. He was wheelchair-bound and incoherent. Upon leaving the facility, Kinnon told his mother that when he grew up he was going to help people like Mr. Crookshank.

Kinnon was born in Paisley, Scotland on April 5, 1911. He and his parents moved to the United States in the 1920s. For medical reasons he was separated from his parents on Ellis Island for three and a half days. He befriended a Russian family while he was waiting for his sister to be cleared of a medical issue. When the family was reunited they moved to Philadelphia. He never saw the Russian family again. While in Philadelphia Kinnon went to private school and had plans of entering the priesthood. He began using alcohol and pills which started his years of addiction until he got clean in 1950. He never followed through with his goal of becoming a priest. He met his first wife Agnes in Philadelphia and they had five children together.

Kinnon stopped using all mood and mind-altering substances on February 2, 1950. He began attending Alcoholics Anonymous, a twelve-step program. While in Alcoholics Anonymous he met other members who had struggled with addiction to substances other than alcohol. Alcoholics Anonymous often discouraged members from talking about addictions other than alcohol. Jimmy saw the need to recover from more than the symptom,i.e. substance used (alcohol, pills, etc.) by addressing the addict's thinking and attitudes before, during and in between using. This is why for NA he changed the Step 1 of the 12 Steps of AA from "alcohol" to "addiction". Kinnon attended meetings of another group called Habit-forming Drugs but was disappointed with them.

...
Wikipedia