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 of freedom.

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. 

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”

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.

Daily Meditations

Just for Today

July 30, 2025

Regular inventory

Page 220

Continuing to take a personal inventory means that we form a habit of looking at ourselves, our actions, attitudes, and relationships on a regular basis.

Basic Text, p. 42

Taking a regular inventory is a key element in our new pattern of living. In our addiction, we examined ourselves as little as possible. We weren't happy with how we were living our lives, but we didn't feel that we could change the way we lived. Self-examination, we felt, would have been a painful exercise in futility.

Today, all that is changing. Where we were powerless over our addiction, we've found a Power greater than ourselves that has helped us stop using. Where we once felt lost in life's maze, we've found guidance in the experience of our fellow recovering addicts and our ever-improving contact with our Higher Power. We need not feel trapped by our old, destructive patterns. We can live differently if we choose.

By establishing a regular pattern of taking our own inventory, we give ourselves the opportunity to change anything in our lives that doesn't work. If we've started doing something that causes problems, we can start changing our behavior before it gets completely out of hand. And if we're doing something that prevents problems from occurring, we can take note of that, too, and encourage ourselves to keep doing what works.

Just for Today: I will make a commitment to include a regular inventory in my new pattern of living.

A Spiritual Principle a Day

July 30, 2025

Open Mind, Open Heart, Open Spirit

Page 218

Open-mindedness leads us to the very insights that have eluded us during our lives.

Basic Text, Chapter 9: Just for Today–Living the Program

When many of us arrive in NA, we fancy ourselves as reasonably open-minded people. For one thing, many of us tried lots of different drugs! More seriously, we may have an anything goes or live and let live type of attitude and have been tolerant toward others who aren't like us. But were our minds even a tiny bit open to others' insights and opinions or to feedback about our behavior? Could we even listen? Were we able to admit that we might be wrong or didn't know something? Did we believe that we needed to change–and even if so, did we believe we actually could? Probably not so much.

Our experience tells us that open-mindedness is at the very foundation of change for us. While some NA members may insist that we have to “change everything about ourselves,” practicing open-mindedness does not mean that everything we know–or think we know– is worthless. Instead, we gain some carefully wrought insight into what behaviors and perspectives we want to keep in our lives and what is no longer serving us today–and we learn to share these insights with others. Asking questions, listening to the answers, and then letting those answers resonate helps us to identify our old ideas and patterns, see our behavior more clearly, and act differently when it's called for.

Open-mindedness is also one of the most indispensable tools for carrying the message to other addicts and for having productive discussions regarding NA service. We learn to listen more to our sponsees and service buddies, rather than planning out what we want to say. In the process, hopefully, we grow more comfortable with the concept of I don't know. As one member put it, “We're not here to be right, we're here to be better.”

Open-mindedness prevents us from running away from problems, ourselves, and each other. Many of us believe that striving to be open-minded keeps us closer to our Higher Power or to the higher self we want to be.

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I aim to keep my mind and my heart open. I will listen more and speak less. And I will allow my insights and opinions to evolve as my recovery does.

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…” 

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