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.
“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.
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.
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
Daily Meditations
Just for Today
October 29, 2024 |
Living in the now |
Page 315 |
“Living just for today relieves the burden of the past and the fear of the future.“ |
Basic Text, p. 94 |
Thoughts of how bad it was–or could be–can consume our hopes for recovery. Fantasies of how wonderful it was–or could be–can divert us from taking action in the real world. That’s why, in Narcotics Anonymous, we talk about living and recovering “just for today.” In NA, we know that we can change. We’ve come to believe that our Higher Power can restore the soundness of our minds and hearts. The wreckage of our past can be dealt with through the steps. By maintaining our recovery, just for today, we can avoid creating problems in the future. Life in recovery is no fantasy. Daydreams of how great using was or how we can use successfully in the future, delusions of how great things could be, overblown expectations that set us up for disappointment and relapse–all are stripped of their power by the program. We seek God’s will, not our own. We seek to serve others, not ourselves. Our self-centeredness and the importance of how great things could or should be for us disappears. In the light of recovery, we perceive the difference between fantasy and reality. |
Just for Today: I am grateful for the principles of recovery and the new reality they’ve given me. |
A Spiritual Principle a Day
October 29, 2024 |
Integrity through Personal Responsibility |
Page 312 |
“Everyone makes mistakes; promptly admitting when we are wrong shows integrity and responsibility for our actions.“ |
Living Clean, Chapter 6, “Work” |
Perception is a funny thing. Self-centeredness shapes the way we experience our lives, magnifying our own wants and minimizing our responsibility and accountability. It can be like walking through a carnival funhouse filled with distorted mirrors or echo chambers–our senses deceive us. We have a hard time perceiving reality for what it is, especially when it comes to responsibility for our lives and our actions. Checking our perspective with other addicts helps. Working the program–especially the daily inventory of Step Ten–helps us make our way through the funhouse of personal responsibility. As we come to terms with our powerlessness and unmanageability, we blame others less for the wreckage of our past. We begin taking personal responsibility. As we take inventory and ask for help letting go of our defects and shortcomings, we lose the need to make excuses for current actions and choices. We take responsibility for making past wrongs right, and we make a practice of checking our perceptions regularly. We shift our senses away from the carnival distortions and get a better perspective on ourselves and our lives. The Steps help us get better and better at being the type of people we can be proud of being. When we make a wrong turn on our way through the funhouse and find a dead end, it doesn’t do us much good to pretend we’re not lost. We ask for direction, and we backtrack if we have to. We make mistakes because we are human; we correct them because we have integrity. |
——— ——— ——— ——— ——— |
My disease distorts my view of myself and the world around me. I will use regular inventory to adjust my skewed perceptions so that I can find my way out of the madhouse of addiction. |
Do you need help with a drug problem?
“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…”
Subscribe to NAWS Emails
Sign up to receive NAWS Updates and NAWS News emails as well as Just for Today and SPAD daily emails.