“We suspect that if we do not use what we have, we will lose what we have.”
Basic Text, p. 78
Addiction gave a pattern to our lives, and with it a meaning—a dark, diseased meaning, to be sure, but a meaning nonetheless. The Narcotics Anonymous recovery program gives us a new pattern of living to replace our old routines. And with that new pattern comes a new meaning to our lives, one of light and hope.
What is this new pattern of living? Instead of isolation, we find fellowship. Instead of living blindly, repeating the same mistakes again and again, we regularly examine ourselves, free to keep what helps us grow and discard what doesn’t. Rather than constantly trying to get by on our own limited power, we develop a conscious contact with a loving Power greater than ourselves.
Our life must have a pattern. To maintain our recovery, we must maintain the new patterns our program has taught us. By giving regular attention to these patterns, we will maintain the freedom we’ve found from the deadly disease of addiction, and keep hold of the meaning recovery has brought to our lives.
Just for today:I will begin a new pattern in my life: the regular maintenance of my recovery.
“We emphasize setting our house in order because it brings us relief.”
Basic Text, p. 97
Focusing on what others are doing can provide momentary relief from having to take a look at ourselves. But one of the secrets of success in Narcotics Anonymous is making sure our own house is in order. So what does “setting our house in order” mean, anyway?
It means we work the steps, allowing us to look at our role in our relationships with others. When we have a problem with someone, we can take our own inventory to find out what our part in the problem has been. With the help of our sponsor, we strive to set it right. Then, each day, we continue taking our inventory to avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future.
It’s pretty simple. We treat others as we would like others to treat us. We promptly make amends when we owe them. And when we turn our lives over to the care of our Higher Power on a daily basis, we can start to avoid running on the self-will so characteristic of our active addiction. Guided by a Power that seeks the best for everyone, our relationships with others will surely improve.
Just for today:I will set my own house in order. Today, I will examine my part in the problems in my life. If I owe amends, I will make them.
“Before we got clean, most of our actions were guided by impulse. Today, we are not locked into this type of thinking.”
Basic Text, p. 90
Ever been tempted to do something even when you knew the results would be disastrous? Ever thought about how much it was going to hurt to do what you were tempted to do, then proceed to do it anyway?
It is said that there are consequences to every action. Before we got clean, many of us simply didn’t believe this. But now we know exactly what it means. When we act, we know there will be consequences to pay. No longer can we decide to do something in ignorance when we know full well that we won’t like the price we’ll have to pay.
There’s a prize and a price. It’s okay to act despite the consequences if we’re willing to pay the price, but there’s always one to pay.
Just for today:I will think about the consequences of my actions before I take them.
“Our best thinking got us into trouble… Recovery is an active change in our ideas and attitudes.”
Basic Text, p. 55
In active addiction, the world probably looked like a horrible place. Using helped us tolerate the world we saw. Today, however, we understand that the world’s condition wasn’t really the problem. It was our ideas and attitudes about the world that made it impossible for us to find a comfortable place in it.
Our attitudes and our ideas are the eyeglasses through which we see our lives. If our “glasses” are smudged or dirty, our lives look dim. If our attitudes aren’t well focused, the whole world appears distorted. To see the world clearly, we need to keep our attitudes and ideas clean, free of things like resentment, denial, self-pity, and closed-mindedness. To insure our vision of life is in focus, we have to bring our ideas in line with reality.
In addiction, our best thinking kept us from clearly seeing either the world or our part in it. Recovery serves to correct the prescriptions in our attitudinal eyewear. By stripping away our denial and replacing it with faith, self-honesty, humility, and responsibility, the steps help us see our lives in a whole new way. Then the steps help us keep our spiritual lenses clean, encouraging us to regularly examine our ideas, our attitudes, and our actions.
Today, seen through the clean lenses of faith and recovery, the world looks like a warm, inviting place to live.
Just for today:I will view the world and my life through the clean spiritual lenses of my program.
“When we admit that our lives have become unmanageable, we don’t have to argue our point of view… We no longer have to be right all the time.”
Basic Text, p. 58
Nothing isolates us more quickly from the warmth and camaraderie of our fellow NA members than having to be “right.” Insecure, we pretend to be some kind of authority figure. Suffering from low self-esteem, we try to build ourselves up by putting others down. At best, such tactics push others away from us; at worst, they draw attack. The more we try to impress others with how “right” we are, the more wrong we become.
We don’t have to be “right” to be secure; we don’t have to pretend to have all the answers for others to love or respect us. In fact, just the opposite is true. None of us have all the answers. We depend upon one another to help bridge the gaps in our understanding of things, and we depend upon a Power greater than our own to make up for our personal powerlessness. We live easily with others when we offer what we know, admit what we don’t, and seek to learn from our peers. We live securely in ourselves when we cease relying on our own power and start relying on the God we’ve come to understand in recovery.
We don’t have to be “right” all the time, just recovering.
Just for today: God, I admit my powerlessness and the unmanageability of my life. Help me live with others as an equal, dependent upon you for direction and strength.
“Words cannot describe the sense of spiritual awareness that we receive when we have given something, no matter how small, to another person.”
Basic Text, p. 104
Sometimes it seems as though there is so much wrong with the world that we might as well forget trying to make a difference. “After all,” we think, “what in the world can I do? I’m just one person.” Whether our concerns are so broad that we desire global peace or so personal that we simply want recovery made available to every addict who wants it, the task seems overwhelming. “So much work to do, so little time,” we sigh, sometimes wondering how we’ll ever do any good.
Amazingly enough, the smallest contributions can make the biggest difference. To gain more from life than an ordinary, plodding existence requires very little effort on our parts. We ourselves are transformed by the deep satisfaction we experience when we lift the spirits of just one person. When we smile at someone who is frowning, when we let someone in front of us on the freeway, when we call a newcomer just to say we care, we enter the realm of the extraordinary.
Want to change the world? Start with the addict sitting next to you tonight, and then imagine your act of kindness multiplied. One person at a time, each one of us makes a difference.
Just for today:An act of kindness costs me nothing, but is priceless to the recipient. I will be kind to someone today.
“We did not choose to become addicts."
Basic Text, p. 3
When we were growing up, all of us had dreams. Every child has heard a relative or neighbor ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Even if some of us didn’t have elaborate dreams of success, most of us dreamed of work, families, and a future of dignity and respect. But no one asked, “Do you want to be a drug addict when you grow up?”
We didn’t choose to become addicts, and we cannot choose to stop being addicts. We have the disease of addiction. We are not responsible for having it, but we are responsible for our recovery. Having learned that we are sick people and that there is a way of recovery, we can move away from blaming circumstances—or ourselves—and into living the solution. We didn’t choose addiction, but we can choose recovery.
“…praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”
Step Eleven
How do we pray? With little experience, many of us don’t even know how to begin. The process, however, is neither difficult nor complicated.
We came to Narcotics Anonymous because of our drug addiction. But underlying that, many of us felt a deep sense of bewilderment with life itself. We seemed to be lost, wandering a trackless waste with no one to guide us. Prayer is a way to gain direction in life and the power to follow that direction.
Because prayer plays such a central part in NA recovery, many of us set aside a particular time each day to pray, establishing a pattern. In this quiet time, we “talk” to our Higher Power, either silently or aloud. We share our thoughts, our feelings, our day. We ask, “What would you have me do?” At the same time we ask, “Please give me the power to carry out your will.”
Learning to pray is simple. We ask for “knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.” By doing that, we find the direction we lacked and the strength we need to fulfill our God’s will.
Just for today:I will set aside some quiet time to “talk” with my Higher Power. I will ask for that Power’s direction and the ability to act on it.
“Everything we know is subject to revision, especially what we know about the truth.”
Basic Text, p. 94
Many of us thought we could recognize “The Truth.” We believed the truth was one thing, certain and unchanging, which we could grasp easily and without question. The real truth, however, was that we often couldn’t see the truth if it hit us square in the face. Our disease colored everything in our lives, especially our perception of the truth—in fact, what we “knew” about the truth nearly killed us. Before we could begin to recognize truth, we had to switch our allegiance from our addiction to a Higher Power, the source of all that is good and true.
The truth has changed as our faith in a Higher Power has grown. As we’ve worked the steps, our entire lives have begun to change through the healing power of the principles of recovery. In order to open the door for that change, we have had to surrender our attachment to an unchanging and rigid truth.
The truth becomes purer and simpler each time we encounter it. And just as the steps work in our lives every day—if we allow them—our understanding of the truth may change each day as we grow.
Just for today:I will open my eyes and my heart to the changes brought about by the steps. With an open mind, I can understand the truth in my life today.
“Although ‘politics makes strange bedfellows,’ as the old saying goes, addiction makes us one of a kind.”
Basic Text, p. 87
What a mixture of folks we have in Narcotics Anonymous! In any given meeting on any given night, we’ll find a variety of people who probably never would have sat down in a room together if it weren’t for the disease of addiction.
A member who is a physician described his unwillingness to identify at his first meeting by refusing to go into “that room full of junkies.” Another member with an extensive background in jails and institutions shared a similar story, except that her shock and surprise stemmed from the realization that “there were nice people there—wearing suits, yet!” These two friends recently celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary.
The most unlikely people form friendships, sponsor each other, and do service work together. We meet in the rooms of recovery together, sharing the bonds of past suffering and hope for the future. We meet on mutual ground with our focus on the two things we all have in common—addiction and recovery.
Just for today:No matter what my personal circumstances, I belong.
“…we could feel time, touch reality, and recognize spiritual values long lost to many of us.”
Basic Text, p. 88
In our active addiction, we were prepared to compromise everything we believed in just to get our hands on more drugs. Whether we stole from our families and friends, sold ourselves, or lied to our employers, we were ignoring the values that mattered most to us. Each time we compromised another dearly held belief, another chunk of the mortar holding our characters together fell away. By the time many of us came to our first meeting, nothing was left but the ruin of our former selves.
We will locate our lost values as we carry out our first honest self-examination. But in order to rebuild our characters, we’ll find it necessary to maintain those values, no matter how great the temptation to shove them aside. We will need to be honest, even when we think we could fool everyone by lying. If we ignore our values, we’ll discover that the biggest fibs we’ve told have been the ones we’ve told ourselves.
We don’t want to start the demolition of our spirits again after all the work we’ve put into their restoration. It’s essential that we stand for something, or we risk falling for anything. Whatever we find important to us, we honor.
Just for today:I stand for something. My strength is the result of living my values.
“Enforced morality lacks the power that comes to us when we choose to live a spiritual life.”
Basic Text, p. 45
In our active addiction, many of us lived our lives by default. We were unwilling or unable to make choices about how we wanted to act, what we preferred to do, or even where we would live. We allowed the drugs or other people to make our most basic decisions for us. Freedom from active addiction means, among other things, the freedom to make those choices for ourselves.
Freedom of choice is a wonderful gift, but it’s also a great responsibility. Choice allows us to find out who we are and what we believe in. However, in exercising it, we’re called on to weigh our own choices and accept the consequences. This leads some of us to seek out someone who will make our choices for us—our sponsor, our home group, our NA friends—just as our disease made our choices for us when we were using. That’s not recovery.
Seeking others’ experience is one thing; abdicating personal responsibility is something else. If we don’t use the gift of freedom we’ve been given, if we refuse to accept the responsibilities that go along with it, we’ll lose that gift and our lives will be diminished. We are responsible for our own recovery and our own choices. Difficult as it may seem, we must make those choices for ourselves and become willing to accept the consequences.
Just for today:I am grateful for the freedom to live as I choose. Today, I will accept responsibility for my recovery, make my own choices, and accept the consequences.
“This decision demands continued acceptance, ever-increasing faith, and a daily commitment to recovery.”
IP No. 14, One Addict’s Experience…
Sometimes, we really live the Third Step—and it’s great! We don’t regret the past, we aren’t afraid of the future, and we’re generally pleased with the present. Sometimes, though, we lose our vision of God’s will in our life.
Many of us dream of erasing the mistakes of our past, but the past cannot be erased. Many of us are grateful this is so, for our past experiences have brought us to the recovery we enjoy today. By working the program, we can learn to accept the past and reconcile ourselves with it by amending our wrongs. Those same Twelve Steps can help eliminate our worries over the future. When we practice NA principles on a daily basis in all our affairs, we can leave the results up to our Higher Power.
It seems as though our members with the strongest faith are the ones who are best able to live in the present moment. Enjoyment, appreciation, and gratitude for the quality of our lives—these are the results of faith in life itself. When we practice the principles of our program, today is the only day we need.
Just for today:I will make the most of today, and trust that yesterday and tomorrow are in God’s care.
“Our disease is so cunning that it can get us into impossible situations.”
Basic Text, p. 83
Some of us say, “My disease is talking to me.” Others say, “My head won’t turn off.” Still others refer to “the committee in my mind” or “the monkey on my back.” Let’s face it. We suffer from an incurable malady that continues to affect us, even in recovery. Our disease gives us warped information about what’s going on in our lives. It tells us not to look at ourselves because what we’ll see is too scary. Sometimes it tells us we’re not responsible for ourselves and our actions; other times, it tells us that everything wrong with the world is our fault. Our disease tricks us into trusting it.
The NA program provides us with many voices that counter our addiction, voices we can trust. We can call our sponsor for a reality check. We can listen to the voice of an addict trying to get clean. The ultimate solution is to work the steps and draw on the strength of a Higher Power. That will get us through those times when “our disease is talking.”
Just for today:I will ignore the “voice” of my addiction. I will listen to the voice of my program and a Power greater than myself.
“By surrendering control, we gain a far greater power.”
Basic Text, p. 44
When we were using, we did everything we could to run things our way. We used every scheme imaginable to bring our world under control. When we got what we wanted, we felt powerful, invincible; when we didn’t, we felt vulnerable, defeated. But that didn’t stop us—it only led to more efforts to control and manipulate our lives into a manageable state.
Scheming was our way of denying our powerlessness. As long as we could distract ourselves with our plans, we could put off accepting that we were out of control. Only gradually did we realize that our lives had become unmanageable and that all the conning and manipulating in the world was not going to put our lives back in order.
When we admit our powerlessness, we stop trying to control and manage our way to a better life—we surrender. Lacking sufficient power of our own, we seek a Power greater than ourselves; needing support and guidance, we ask that Power to care for our will and our lives. We ask others in recovery to share their experience with living the NA program instead of trying to program our own lives. The power and direction we seek is all around us; we need only turn away from self to find it.
Just for today:I will not try to scheme and manipulate my way to a manageable life. Through the NA program, I will surrender myself to my Higher Power’s care.
“We are not responsible for our disease, only for our recovery. As we begin to apply what we have learned, our lives begin to change for the better.”
Basic Text, p. 91
The further we go in recovery, the less we avoid responsibility for ourselves and our actions. By applying the principles of the Narcotics Anonymous program, we are able to change our lives. Our existence takes on new meaning as we accept responsibility and the freedom of choice responsibility implies. We do not take recovery for granted.
We take responsibility for our recovery by working the Twelve Steps with a sponsor. We go to meetings regularly and share with the newcomer what was freely given to us: the gift of recovery. We become involved with our home group and accept responsibility for our part in sharing recovery with the still-suffering addict. As we learn how to effectively practice spiritual principles in all areas of our lives, the quality of our lives improves.
Just for today:Using the spiritual tools I’ve gained in recovery, I am willing and able to make responsible choices.
“Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.”
Tradition Twelve
“Principles before personalities.” Many of us chant these words along with the reader whenever the Twelve Traditions are read. The fact that these words have become a cliche of sorts doesn’t make them any less important, either in service or in our lives. These words are an affirmation: “We listen to our conscience and do what’s right, no matter who’s involved.” And that principle serves as one of the cornerstones of recovery as well as our traditions.
What does “principles before personalities” really mean? It means we practice honesty, humility, compassion, tolerance, and patience with everyone, whether we like them or not. Putting principles before personalities teaches us to treat everyone equally. The Twelfth Step asks us to apply principles in all our affairs; the Twelfth Tradition suggests we apply them to our relations with everyone.
Practicing principles doesn’t stop with our friends or when we leave a meeting. It’s for every day, for everyone… in all areas of our lives.
Just for today:I will listen to my conscience and do what’s right. My focus will be on principles, not on people’s personalities.
“The most effective means of achieving self-acceptance is through applying the Twelve Steps of recovery.”
IP No. 19, *Self-Acceptance
Our addiction has been a source of shame to many of us. We have hidden ourselves from others, sure that if anyone got to know who we really were they would reject us. NA helps us learn self-acceptance.
Many of us find a great deal of relief just from attending meetings, hearing fellow addicts share their stories, and discovering that others have felt the same way we feel about ourselves. When others share honestly with us who they are, we feel free to do the same. As we learn to tell others the truth about ourselves, we learn to accept ourselves.
Self-disclosure, however, is only the beginning. Once we’ve shared the things that make us uncomfortable with our lives, we need to find a different way to live—and that’s where the steps come in. We develop a concept of a Higher Power. We inventory our lives, in detail, and discuss our inventory with our sponsor. We ask the God of our understanding to remove our character defects, the shortcomings that are the source of our troubles. We take responsibility for the things we’ve done and make amends for them. And we incorporate all these disciplines into our daily lives, “practicing these principles in all our affairs.”
By working the steps, we can become people we are proud to be. We can freely tell the truth about ourselves, for we have nothing to hide.
Just for today:I will walk the path to self-acceptance. I will show up, tell the truth, and work the steps.
