Flyout Menu

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.

Learn More
Find NA Near You

Resource of the Month

tooltip2
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. 

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

November 19, 2025

The language of empathy
Page 337
“…the addict would find from the start as much identification as each needed to convince himself that he could stay clean, by the example of others who had recovered for many years. “
Basic Text, p. 88
Many of us attended our first meeting and, not being entirely sure that NA was for us, found much to criticize. Either we felt as though no one had suffered like we had or that we hadn't suffered enough. But as we listened we started to hear something new, a wordless language with its roots in recognition, belief, and faith: the language of empathy. Desiring to belong, we kept listening.

We find all the identification we need as we learn to understand and speak the language of empathy. To understand this special language, we listen with our hearts. The language of empathy uses few words; it feels more than it speaks. It doesn't preach or lecture–it listens. It can reach out and touch the spirit of another addict without a single spoken word.

Fluency in the language of empathy comes to us through practice. The more we use it with other addicts and our Higher Power, the more we understand this language. It keeps us coming back.

Just for Today: I will listen with my heart. With each passing day, I will become more fluent in the language of empathy.

A Spiritual Principle a Day

November 19, 2025

Healing with Empathy
Page 334
“One of the benefits of reaching out is finding that our most painful experiences can help someone else.“
Living Clean, Chapter 1, “Growing Pains”
Being clean doesn't give us immunity from life's struggles. Fortunately for us, we don't have to navigate life on our own. When we ask for support and allow people to be there for us, we access perhaps the Fellowship's greatest resource: each other. If cleantime and other successes have caused us to lose touch with this asset, life's difficulties can provide a gentle nudge in its direction. When we summon the courage to reach out for support, our NA communities respond with empathy. It helps to have someone to lean on, to sit with us as we sit with our feelings, to cheer us on as we put one foot in front of the other, and to empathize as we heal, regroup, and start again.

Our fellow members understand our urge to run away or to find some temporary relief in food, sex, or spending. We can identify with that impulse to shut down or be massively controlling or lean into other character defects to manage our troubles and feelings. We empathize because we've been there emotionally–or at least in the neighborhood. We can connect deeply and share the burden of each other's sorrows and emotional pain. Even if we don't have direct experience with a specific way in which life has shown up for a fellow member, we're all capable of listening, bringing a hot dish, or taking the kids out for ice cream. Sometimes, a reminder that there will be sunshine after the rain helps us get through the day.

When we share with an addict in pain, we're able to get outside ourselves. The empathy we experience creates identification, gratitude, and perspective. “The therapeutic value of one addict helping another” is beneficial to both the helper and the helped–we know this because we've been both. One member's comment to another captures this dynamic: “Someone told me that my struggle would give me the strength I'd be needing down the line. That strength was for you, and when my experience helped you, I got to heal on a whole new level. Your call for help was a real mitzvah.”
———     ———     ———     ———     ———
The well of empathy runs deep in NA, and I will keep returning to it. I will share my burdens with another addict today, knowing it will provide a source of healing for both of us.

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