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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:

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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

May 11, 2025

Balancing the scales
Page 137
“A lot of our chief concerns and major difficulties come from our inexperience with living without drugs. Often when we ask an old timer what to do, we are amazed at the simplicity of the answer.“
Basic Text, p. 43
Finding balance in recovery is quite a bit like sitting down with a set of scales and a pile of sand. The goal is to have an equal amount of sand on each side of the scales, achieving a balance of weight.

We do the same thing in recovery. We sit down with the foundation of our clean time and the Twelve Steps, then attempt to add employment, household responsibilities, friends, sponsees, relationships, meetings, and service in equal weights so that the scales balance. Our first try may throw our personal scales out of kilter. We may find that, because of our over-involvement in service, we have upset our employer or our family. But when we try to correct this problem by resigning from NA service altogether, the other side of the scales go out of balance.

We can ask for help from members who have stabilized their scales. These people are easy to recognize. They appear serene, composed, and self-assured. They'll smile in recognition at our dilemma and share how they slowed down, added only a few grains of sand at a time to either side of the scales, and were rewarded with balance in recovery.
Just for Today: I seek balance in my life. Today, I will ask others to share their experience in finding that balance.

A Spiritual Principle a Day

May 11, 2025

Honest Self-Appraisal in the Steps
Page 136
“The steps help us to increase our ability to be honest with ourselves and others.“
Living Clean, Chapter 1, “Growing Pains”
To say that honesty wasn't a top priority when we were using may be an understatement. We gain a new awareness of honesty's value once we clean up. With a clear head and a restored conscience, we find that dishonesty comes at a price. Regret is no joke, so we try to avoid it. Practicing honesty with ourselves can be a little more complicated. Self-deception creates some major blind spots that have a nasty habit of reemerging. Fortunately, our ability to be honest with ourselves deepens as we work the Twelve Steps.

We admit our powerlessness and begin to reckon with our unmanageability. We come to recognize that we're, frankly, screwed on our own and decide to accept some help. Taking action that's aligned with that decision begins with an honest evaluation of how we've lived our lives so far. Sometimes we get as many insights in sharing our inventories as we do in writing them. We go on to dig a bit deeper, examining how aspects of our character had become disproportionate to their intended purpose. We turn this bag of dirty tricks over to a Higher Power–and over and over and over again as we strive to be better people with help from that Power, whatever we conceive that to be. Taking another look at the harm we caused, we make an earnest effort to right our past wrongs.

Continuing on this path takes daily commitment and, honestly, we all slack off from time to time. Our experience with the Steps means we're quicker to notice when old patterns of thinking and behavior creep back up on us. Oh, I'm doing that again. We may find that we've shut down emotionally, become disconnected from our spiritual lives, resumed a hurtful interior monologue, or taken up some other outmoded approach to life. We put in the work to restore wholehearted honesty to our lives and in our relationships, including those with ourselves and with a Higher Power. We tune in to reality, to the truth, to our higher selves. And we help others to do the same–to live and to thrive through the daily application of spiritual principles.
———     ———     ———     ———     ———
I will engage in some honest self-assessment today. I will shore up my foundation and restore my zest for learning how to live.

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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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