Serving West Tn, Desoto County, West Memphis & Forest City
What Is the Narcotics Anonymous Program? NA is a nonprofit fellowship or society of men and women for whom drugs had become a major problem. We are recovering addicts who meet regularly to help each other stay clean. This is a program of complete abstinence from all drugs. There is only one requirement for membership, the desire to stop using.
Questions we have asked ourselves:
Do we understand that we have no real control over drugs?
Do we recognize that in the long run, we didn’t use drugs—they used us?
Did jails and institutions take over the management of our lives at different times?
Do we fully accept the fact that our every attempt to stop using or to control our using failed?
Do we know that our addiction changed us into someone we didn’t want to be: dishonest, deceitful, self-willed people at odds with ourselves and our fellow man?
Do we really believe that we have failed as drug users?
Do we understand that we have no real control over drugs?
Do we recognize that in the long run, we didn’t use drugs—they used us?
Did jails and institutions take over the management of our lives at different times?
Do we fully accept the fact that our every attempt to stop using or to control our using failed?
Do we know that our addiction changed us into someone we didn’t want to be: dishonest, deceitful, self-willed people at odds with ourselves and our fellow man?
Do we really believe that we have failed as drug users?
JUST FOR TODAY
Thoughts of how bad it was--or could be--can consume our hopes for recovery. Fantasies of how wonderful it was--or could be--can divert us from taking action in the real world. That's why, in Narcotics Anonymous, we talk about living and recovering "just for today."
In NA, we know that we can change. We've come to believe that our Higher Power can restore the soundness of our minds and hearts. The wreckage of our past can be dealt with through the steps. By maintaining our recovery, just for today, we can avoid creating problems in the future.
Life in recovery is no fantasy. Daydreams of how great using was or how we can use successfully in the future, delusions of how great things could be, overblown expectations that set us up for disappointment and relapse--all are stripped of their power by the program. We seek God's will, not our own. We seek to serve others, not ourselves. Our self-centeredness and the importance of how great things could or should be for us disappears. In the light of recovery, we perceive the difference between fantasy and reality.
