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

March 07, 2026

Priorities

Page 69

The good times can also be a trap; the danger is that we may forget that our first priority is to stay clean.

Basic Text, p. 43

Things can get really good in our recovery. Perhaps we've found our “soul mate,” built a rewarding career, started a family. Maybe our relationships with our family members have healed. Things are going so well, we barely have time to attend meetings. Perhaps we begin to reintegrate into society so successfully that we forget that we don't always react to situations like others do.

Maybe, just maybe, we've put some priorities ahead of themselves. Is meeting attendance still a priority with us? Do we still sponsor? Do we phone our sponsor? What step are we working? Are we still willing to drag ourselves out of bed at some ungodly hour for a Twelfth Step call? Do we remember to practice principles in all our affairs? If others in NA reach out to us, are we available? Do we remember where we came from, or have the “good times” allowed us to forget?

To stay clean, we must remember that we are only one drug away from our past. We stay grateful for the good times, but we don't let them divert us from our continuing recovery in Narcotics Anonymous.

Just for Today: I'm grateful for the good times, but I've not forgotten from where I've come. Today, my first priority is staying clean and growing in my recovery.

A Spiritual Principle a Day

March 07, 2026

Maturity in Recovery

Page 69

As we learn to show up without anger, resentment, or fear, we develop an emotional maturity that we might not have expected.

Living Clean, Chapter 5, “Family”

There's a saying about addicts that makes sense to many of us: “Our emotional maturity was halted at the age we were when we began using.” Although this idea is by no means provable, it may be useful in examining our behavior. Most of us can identify some pretty immature responses to life in our using days and early recovery–lashing out, taking everything personally, and worrying about what others think of us. Even for those of us with time in recovery, our prehistoric brain still has its moments of eat or be eaten. We can react to situations, especially in family relationships, rather childishly at times, no matter how much cleantime we have.

Science has volumes to say about how our brains and, thus, our behaviors have been affected by family relationships, abandonment and neglect, traumatic experiences, and drug use. Though Narcotics Anonymous doesn't weigh in on scientific findings, many members seek help from practitioners who do. Do some of us find outside help beneficial? Absolutely. Is it sufficient for our recovery from addiction? Not in our experience. Although we have no opinion on other paths to wellness, we subscribe to the spiritual solution that NA offers us: working the Twelve Steps.

Through stepwork, we identify our role in past conflicts in relationships and gain a better understanding of our tendencies toward self-centeredness. We examine what still provokes us today, causing us to act out in our current relationships with other recovering addicts, family members, and people outside of NA. No doubt, we have ample opportunities to amend our behavior. Perhaps most consequentially, we learn to focus on being of service to others as a strategy to stop our adolescent self-obsession in its tracks.

No matter what age we were when we first picked up, we're all works in progress. If we stay, we can grow. If we stay, we can grow up.

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I am by no means a finished product, but today I will try to counteract my reactiveness in relationships by coming from a place of openness, acceptance, and courage.

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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