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
Play Video

“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

September 26, 2024

Seeing ourselves in others
Page 280
“It will not make us better people to judge the faults of another.“
Basic Text, p. 38
How easy it is to point out the faults of others! There’s a reason for this: The defects we identify most easily in others are often the defects we are most familiar with in our own characters. We may notice our best friend’s tendency to spend too much money, but if we examine our own spending habits we’ll probably find the same compulsiveness. We may decide our sponsor is much too involved in service, but find that we haven’t spent a single weekend with our families in the past three months because of one service commitment or another.

What we dislike in our fellows are often those things we dislike most in ourselves. We can turn this observation to our spiritual advantage. When we are stricken with the impulse to judge someone else, we can redirect the impulse in such a way as to recognize our own defects more clearly. What we see will guide our actions toward recovery and help us become emotionally healthy and happy individuals.
Just for Today: I will look beyond the character defects of others and recognize my own.

A Spiritual Principle a Day

September 26, 2024

Open-Mindedness and the Third Tradition
Page 278
“Tradition Three asks us to practice open-mindedness toward ourselves, toward others, and toward the possibility of change.“
Guiding Principles, Tradition Three, “For Members”
Tradition Three, which states that the desire to stop using is the only requirement for Narcotics Anonymous membership, is direct, inclusive, and thorough. We can even say that it’s radical in what it invites us to do: leave our judgments about who qualifies for NA membership at the door. As individual addicts, we decide if we qualify, and we leave that decision to others to make for themselves.

As with all spiritual principles applied to any single Step or Tradition, open-mindedness is not an “I got this” position we take. It’s an ongoing process that demands work. The excerpts from our literature that are read aloud in meetings continually confront our views about who is an addict or what is recovery. We need to keep reading them, hearing them, and acting on them. They support NA’s values of inclusiveness and acceptance of all addicts no matter where we come from or what we look like; what substances, delivery method, or quantities we used; what’s on our resumes (criminal or otherwise); whom we are attracted to; what our spiritual pursuits have been in the past (if any); and so on. We are all welcome here in theory–and, ideally, we’re welcomed by each other in practice.

At the practical core of this Tradition is not only open-mindedness but also compassion for ourselves and for others. We begin to reject our preconceived notions of belonging, relieved that even a slight desire is enough. We become willing to be part of a group that will have us as a member. For many of us, that’s tough going, as in the past we’ve resisted becoming a member of anything. Our dual low self-respect and lack of humility told us that a group that welcomes us and is so open to anybody probably is for losers anyway, so why bother?

We bother because we’re desperate and we want our lives to improve. As we grow, open-mindedness further expands our investment in others’ health and well-being. It’s the gateway to empathy and unconditional love. Our open-mindedness helps keep others in the room who doubt that they qualify as addicts, who fear being part of a group, or who think that they can’t stay clean.
———     ———     ———     ———     ———
I will put my membership to good use by actively practicing open-mindedness. I’ll do what I can to make space for others to grow.

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 Soundcloud Youtube
Copyright 2024 NA World Services, Inc. All rights reserved.