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.

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 28, 2025

Facing feelings

Page 90

We may fear that being in touch with our feelings will trigger an overwhelming chain reaction of pain and panic.

Basic Text, p. 30

While we were using, many of us were unable or unwilling to feel many emotions. If we were happy, we used to make us happier. If we were angry or depressed, we used to mask those feelings. In continuing this pattern throughout our active addiction, we became so emotionally confused that we weren't sure what normal emotions were anymore.

After being in recovery for some time, we find that the emotions we had suppressed suddenly begin to surface. We may find that we do not know how to identify our feelings. What we may be feeling as rage may only be frustration. What we perceive as suicidal depression may simply be sadness. These are the times when we need to seek the assistance of our sponsor or other members of NA. Going to a meeting and talking about what is happening in our lives can help us to face our feelings instead of running from them in fear.

Just for Today: I will not run from the uncomfortable emotions I may experience. I will use the support of my friends in recovery to help me face my emotions.

A Spiritual Principle a Day

March 28, 2025

Trust in Our Message and Our Bond

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Over and over, we see members from rival nations or neighborhoods, from different faiths or families, come to love and trust each other in the rooms of NA.

Guiding Principles, Tradition Ten, Closing Reflection

Our Traditions enable NA to bring addicts from all walks of life together in a single Fellowship. We often remark how addiction does not discriminate, so neither should we. Tradition Three ensures an open policy of membership, and Tradition Ten helps us learn to leave our outside baggage at the door when we join together in recovery. Unity, anonymity, common welfare–our Traditions are rich with principles guiding us to better embrace one another “regardless of.”

It all sounds great in theory, but it's the practice that really matters. As in NA, many other organizations value principles like unity and acceptance; they appear in their mission statements and may inspire principled actions to varying degrees. That, of course, is none of our business. We keep our focus where it should be: on what happens in NA. In our groups and service bodies, and as individuals, are we embodying the principles we hold dear? As we stay clean and carry the message, the connections between our experience as recovering addicts, our primary purpose, and NA unity become much clearer.

An H&I trusted servant wrote, “I served on a jail panel with a couple of other members, and we joked that we were like characters in a bad TV show–a former gang member, a retired cop, and me, a defense attorney. We shared together twice a month for a few years, and now we are bonded for life.”

No matter what our differences are, carrying the message joins us together in a special way. We addicts are uniquely qualified to help other addicts. We have been there! This helps newcomers trust our message–and grow to trust us, too–in spite of our surface-level differences. Sharing and serving together with other members helps us deepen that trust. Our message is truly a tie binding us together that is stronger than anything that might tear us apart.

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Carrying the message is a bond of sharing, serving, and recovering together. I will trust in that bond with my fellow addicts today.

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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