This week on The Living Clean Podcast, we sit down with Chris M., an addict in recovery whose personal journey eventually led him to create something that would have a lasting impact on Narcotics Anonymous service around the world: the Basic Meeting List Toolbox, better known as BMLT.

But before we talk about technology, databases, or service, we start with Chris himself.

Chris shares his personal recovery story — where he came from, what brought him to Narcotics Anonymous, and the experiences that shaped his life in recovery. It’s a fascinating story and an important reminder that behind every piece of NA service is an addict who first had to find a way to stay clean.

From there, we get into the story of BMLT.

The Basic Meeting List Toolbox was created to give NA service bodies a stable, secure, and centralized way to maintain meeting information. Instead of Areas, Regions, and other service bodies maintaining separate versions of the same information, BMLT allows meeting data — where a meeting is, when it meets, and its format — to be maintained from a central source and then used across multiple websites and meeting-finding tools.

In other words, when an addict pulls out a phone, visits an NA website, and searches for a meeting, there is a good chance there is much more happening behind that search than they realize.

Chris takes us back to how the idea started, the problem he was trying to solve, how BMLT developed, and how something created to serve a practical need grew into a tool used throughout the NA service structure.

We also talk about what happened when Chris eventually passed the project on to others to continue maintaining and developing it — an incredible example of the spirit of service: build something that helps addicts, give it freely, and allow it to become bigger than the person who started it.

This episode isn't really about software.

It's about what can happen when recovery, experience, talent, and service come together — and how one addict's desire to contribute can quietly help countless other addicts find their way into a meeting.