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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.

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“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. 

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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”

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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

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Daily Meditations

Just for Today

April 25, 2025

Embracing reality
Page 119
“Recovery is a reality for us today.“
Basic Text, p. 101
Pain and misery were realities in our using lives. We were unwilling either to accept our living situation or to change what was unacceptable in our lives. We attempted to escape life's pain by taking drugs, but using only compounded our troubles. Our altered sense of reality became a nightmare.

Through living the program of Narcotics Anonymous, we learn that our dreams can replace our nightmares. We grow and change. We acquire the freedom of choice. We are able to give and receive love. We can share honestly about ourselves, no longer magnifying or minimizing the truth. We accept the challenges real life offers us, facing them in a mature, responsible way.

Although recovery does not give us immunity from the realities of life, in the NA Fellowship we can find the support, genuine care, and concern we need to face those realities. We need never hide from reality by using drugs again, for our unity with other recovering addicts gives us strength. Today the support, the care, and the empathy of recovery give us a clean, clear window through which to view, experience, and appreciate reality as it is.
Just for Today: A gift of my recovery is living and enjoying life as it truly is. Today, I will embrace reality.

A Spiritual Principle a Day

April 25, 2025

Compassion Toward All
Page 119
“I have a deep compassion for the still-suffering addict, be it the addict who is sitting in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous, the addict who has yet to find the rooms, or especially the addict who left and has yet to find the way back again.“
Basic Text, Coming Home, “Second Chance”
One of the most painful lessons we learn in recovery is that we are each on our own path. No matter how much we want to help, close friends or partners sometimes relapse. Sponsees or other members we've tried to help may choose to get loaded. The same goes for members with significant cleantime whom we admire, and sometimes our sponsor (who's just another addict like we are) will be suffering in the rooms and keeping it to themselves–and will end up using again. The pain we feel in these situations takes many forms: grief, anger, betrayal, confusion, fear for our own recovery.

But we also feel deep compassion for another addict's pain. We try to let that compassion, rather than our pain, drive our actions.

NA members have different ideas about what compassion looks like. Some of us believe that if an addict is using and not coming to meetings, no contact should be made. Tough love. Others reach out to still-using addicts believing it's absolutely necessary to maintain that connection.

In some meetings, an empty chair is set out to represent the still-suffering addict, and–as a sort of collective compassion–we pray that seat gets filled. The most important thing we can do is to stay clean ourselves so that when the time comes, we will be there for any addict who is seeking help. The power of living by example should never be underestimated. Whatever our judgments, we can all agree that addicts should always be welcomed to meetings regardless of how many times they've relapsed, what they look or smell like, or what our history with them has been. As a Fellowship, our job is to practice compassion no matter what.
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During the moment of silence at my next meeting, I'll pray for a specific addict who's suffering: I am here for you. I'm saving a chair for you.

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“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

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