Flyout Menu

Welcome to Narcotics Anonymous

What is our message? The message is that an addict, any addict, can stop using drugs, lose the desire to use, and find a new way to live. Our message is hope and the promise is freedom.

Learn More
Find NA Near You
PSA Overlay

“When new members come to meetings, our sole interest is in their desire for freedom from active addiction and how we can be of help.”

It Works: How and Why, “Third Tradition”

Is NA for me?

This is a question every potential member must answer for themselves. Here are some recommended resources that may be helpful:

Need help for family or a friend?

NA meetings are run by and for addicts. If you're looking for help for a loved one, you can contact Narcotics Anonymous near you. 

Find NA Near You

Subscribe to NAWS Emails

Sign up to receive Just for Today and SPAD daily meditation emails, as well as NAWS News, NAWS Updates, and more.

Click Here

Never before have so many clean addicts, of their own choice and in free society, been able to meet where they please, to maintain their recovery in complete creative freedom.

Basic Text, “We Do Recover”

Recovery Quicklinks:

Service Quicklinks:

Narcotics Anonymous sprang from the Alcoholics Anonymous Program of the late 1940s, with meetings first emerging in the Los Angeles area of California, USA, in the early Fifties. The NA program started as a small US movement that has grown into one of the world's oldest and largest organizations of its type.

Today, Narcotics Anonymous is well established throughout much of the Americas, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Newly formed groups and NA communities are now scattered throughout the Indian subcontinent, Africa, East Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Narcotics Anonymous books and information pamphlets are currently available in 49 languages.

Information About NA

Learn More about NA

Daily Meditations

Just for Today

April 13, 2025

People-pleasing
Page 107
“…approval-seeking behavior carried us further into our addiction….“
Basic Text. p. 14
When others approve of what we do or say, we feel good; when they disapprove, we feel bad. Their opinions of us, and how those opinions make us feel, can have positive value. By making us feel good about steering a straight course, they encourage us to continue doing so. “People-pleasing” is something else entirely. We “people-please” when we do things, right or wrong, solely to gain another person's approval.

Low self-esteem can make us think we need someone else's approval to feel okay about ourselves. We do whatever we think it will take to make them tell us we're okay. We feel good for awhile. Then we start hurting. In trying to please another person, we've diminished ourselves and our values. We realize that the approval of others will not fill the emptiness inside us.

The inner satisfaction we seek can be found in doing the right things for the right reasons. We break the people-pleasing cycle when we stop acting merely to gain others' approval and start acting on our Higher Power's will for us. When we do, we may be pleasantly surprised to find that the people who really count in our lives will approve all the more of our behavior. Most importantly, though, we will approve of ourselves.
Just for Today: Higher Power, help me live in accordance with spiritual principles. Only then can I approve of myself.

A Spiritual Principle a Day

April 13, 2025

Finding the Hope We Need to Heal
Page 107
“We don't have to deny reality to have hope or gratitude. We feel what we feel, and we do the footwork anyway.“
Living Clean, Chapter 7, “Living Our Principles”
A lot of us have had a hopeless moment when we are going through something difficult, and a fellow recovering addict shares their opinion that “feelings aren't facts”–and we want to chop their head off. Perhaps more helpful–and hopeful–is this fact: Feelings are real and one thing we learn in NA is that we can feel them and survive them. We do so not merely by grasping onto hope that they'll change soon, but by taking actions in spite of them. As one addict rhymed, we “feel, deal, and heal.”

We deal by engaging the familiar NA footwork: going to meetings, sharing the feelings, and listening for solutions; doing stepwork around an issue, such as our resistance to change; praying and meditating; and focusing on others, not just our own strife. And of course, there's the footwork that's specific to our particular situation. Loss of employment, for instance, requires footwork to replace it. A mental health issue might warrant an appointment with a professional. We retake a course we failed or initiate lifestyle changes to improve our health. We end a marriage. We certainly aren't guaranteed a pain-free life in recovery, and sometimes the footwork is painful, too. Hope is a bridge to relief.

A fresh perspective, especially when infused with gratitude and hope, helps us heal. When we lose that job, many of us will go down the road of fear and self-pity. Taking a moment to shift our perspective to one of gratitude (I have come so far) and hope (There are other opportunities out there for me)–and faith, too (I'll be okay no matter what)–won't deny us our very real feelings. Instead, perspective keeps reasonable feelings of sadness and fear from morphing into abject despair or outsized anxiety. We don't wait until the fear has gone, or the stress or anger or sorrow, before we get back on the path. The feelings might still linger, but we're moving, letting change happen, even taking risks. We're healing.
———     ———     ———     ———     ———
I may not like where I am right now, but I can still be grateful. I can deal with my feelings by working a program and striving to change my perspective. Through NA, and in my relationships with fellow addicts, I fi nd the hope I need to heal.

Do you need help with a drug problem?

Find NA Near You

“If you’re new to NA or planning to go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting for the first time, it might be nice to know a little bit about what happens in our meetings. The information here is meant to give you an understanding of what we do when we come together to share recovery…” 

An Introduction to NA Meetings

Subscribe to NAWS Emails

Sign up to receive NAWS Updates and NAWS News emails as well as Just for Today and SPAD daily emails. 

Subscribe

Get the app:

Apple Android

Follow us:

Instagram Facebook Soundcloud Youtube
Copyright 2025 NA World Services, Inc. All rights reserved.