What is a Group Service Number?

In early 2003, DRA World Network began to implement a numbering system for our Group’s registered 12 Step meetings called a Group Service Number.

It is a unique identifier that will be provided to each Group or meeting that has its own service structure and group conscience.

It is only for full 12 Step, 12 Tradition, DRA meetings and not for Institutional Educational Sessions and the like.

It will be useful when a Group’s Secretary or Group Service Representative contacts DRA World Network regarding a meeting’s registration information or other matters.

It will also help ensure that each registered DRA Group has an equal voice in matters affecting the DRA Fellowship as a whole. 

This numbering system is part of the foundation of the Fellowship’s “Network for Unity and Service”.

Eventually, Groups may be asked questions regarding important matters concerning the Fellowship of DRA by the Board of Directors or related Trustee Service Boards.

A Group will then take its Group’s conscience regarding the matter. The Group Service Representative, identified by a Group Service Number, will then be able to notify the World Network Central Office of the results of that Group’s collective experience and wisdom regarding the matter.

In effect, DRA World Network will be able to take an Informed Conscience of the DRA Fellowship. 

A Vision for DRA is that this upcoming system will evolve as DRA grows into a system of live conferences and/or conventions where matters concerning the DRA Fellowship are discussed and members experiences in dual recovery can be shared on a larger scale.

We will be supplying these new Group Service Numbers to existing Groups as soon as they update their meeting registrations and to new Group meetings upon registration.

The easiest way to register or update your Group’s meetings is by filling out the online registration form. You can also download and print out a registration form and mail it to us.

The Group Service Number will never be published. Though they are not strictly secret. We urge you to keep them confidential to the service workers who may need to make use of them as part of their service positions. This helps ensure the integrity of the information in our meeting database.

A DRA meeting is a function of a DRA Group. In some cases, a DRA Group will hold more than one meeting per week. In light of the purpose of the Group Service Number, generally, a Group will have a Group service number that applies to all of the meetings they hold.

However, we know that some Groups and meetings are not structured this way and are basically more like separate Groups with the same name. We will leave it up to the individual Groups as to if each of their meetings needs a separate number and voice in the Fellowship’s decision making processes. The defining factor is whether or not each meeting is run by and serves a different set of members.

Our intent is that each member of our Fellowship is represented equally. When “votes” are tallied, the number of members in a Group will be factored in.

As part of this numbering system, we would like to know when your Group’s meetings were first formed.

We would like to know what year they began. This is now part of the standard registration form. If your group doesn’t yet have a Group Service Number please update your meeting’s registration information.