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:

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

September 18, 2024

Honest relationships

Page 272

One of the most profound changes in our lives is in the realm of personal relationships.

Basic Text, p. 57

Recovery gives many of us relationships that are closer and more intimate than any we’ve had before. As time passes, we find ourselves gravitating toward those who eventually become our friends, our sponsor, and our partners in life. Shared laughter, tears, and struggles bring shared respect and lasting empathy.

What, then, do we do when we find that we don’t agree with our friends on everything? We may discover that we don’t share the same taste in music as our dearest friend, or that we don’t agree with our spouse about how the furniture should be arranged, or even find ourselves voting differently than our sponsor at a service committee meeting. Does conflict mean that the friendship, the marriage, or the sponsorship is over? No!

These types of conflict are not only to be expected in any long-lasting relationship but are actually an indication that both people are emotionally healthy and honest individuals. In any relationship where both people agree on absolutely everything, chances are that only one person is doing the thinking. If we sacrifice our honesty and integrity to avoid conflicts or disagreements, we give away the best of what we bring to our relationships. We experience the full measure of partnership with another human being when we are fully honest.

Just for Today: I will welcome the differences that make each one of us special. Today, I will work on being myself.

A Spiritual Principle a Day

September 18, 2024

Living Life in Balance

Page 270

Sometimes we get confused and think that to live spiritually means that we are happy and get what we want, and that if we’re not happy or don’t get our way, something is out of balance.

Living Clean, Chapter 3, “Spirituality Is Practical”

For many of us, our lives get so much better so quickly in the early years of recovery that it’s only natural to think we’ve found the key to happiness, unencumbered by life’s difficulties. It’s nice while it lasts, but ultimately, as one member puts it, “Life is more than killing time between meetings, and I eventually experienced hardships despite working a pretty good program.” Life is not always fair–that’s a fact. Sometimes we lose loved ones, homes, and relationships even when we’re spiritually centered.

The results of day-to-day life are not always what we would have hoped for. Nevertheless, we learn how to walk through situations by living according to spiritual principles. If we don’t get the job we wanted or a long-term relationship comes to an end, we hold on and stay clean. Our world may still be thrown out of balance from time to time but, as long as we stay clean, we can survive sadness, disappointment, and uncertainty and return to balance again and again. We experience the full range of human emotions and marvel at the strength of our spiritual foundation.

Life is in session, and we get to choose how we want to participate.

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Today I will not equate my program of recovery with the circumstances of life on life’s terms. I will show up in my life even when things don’t go my way and remind myself how much I have to be grateful for.

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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