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NA members hold nearly 76,000 meetings weekly in 143 countries. We offer recovery from the effects of addiction through working a twelve-step program, including regular attendance at group meetings. The group atmosphere provides help from peers and offers an ongoing support network for addicts who wish to pursue and maintain a drug-free lifestyle.
Our name, Narcotics Anonymous, is not meant to imply a focus on any particular drug; NA’s approach makes no distinction between legal and illegal drugs including alcohol. Membership is free, and we have no affiliation with any organizations outside of NA including governments, religions, law enforcement groups, or medical and psychiatric associations. Through all of our service efforts and our cooperation with others seeking to help addicts, we strive to reach a day when every addict in the world has an opportunity to experience our message of recovery in their own language and culture. This website is the contribution by members living in Ventura County towards that worldwide effort.
We are not alone, you are not alone.
The Narcotics Anonymous message is “that an addict, any addict, can stop using drugs, lose the desire to use and find a new way to live.”
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. We suggest that you keep an open mind and give yourself a break. Our program is a set of principles written so simply that we can follow them in our daily lives. The most important thing about them is that they work.
September 24, 2026 |
A growing concept of God |
| Page 278 |
| "The only suggested guidelines are that this Power be loving, caring, and greater than ourselves. We don't have to be religious to accept this idea. The point is that we open our minds to believe." |
| Basic Text, p. 24 |
| In a lifelong process of coming to believe, our understanding of God will change. The understanding we have when new in recovery will not be the same when we have a few months clean, nor will that understanding be the same when we have a few years clean. Our initial understanding of a Power greater than ourselves will most likely be limited. That Power will keep us clean but, we may think, nothing more. We may hesitate to pray because we have placed conditions on what we will ask our Higher Power to do for us. "Oh, this stuff is so awful, even God couldn't do anything," we might say, or "God's got a lot of people to take care of. There's no time for me." But, as we grow in recovery, so will our understanding. We'll begin to see that the only limits to God's love and grace are those we impose by refusing to step out of the way. The loving God we come to believe in is infinite, and the power and love we find in our belief is shared by nearly every recovering addict around the world. |
| Just for Today: The God I am coming to understand has a limitless capacity for love and care. I will trust that my God is bigger than any problem I may have. |
| Copyright (c) 2007-2026, NA World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
September 24, 2026 |
Letting Love In |
| Page 276 |
| "It is a loving act to let others love us." |
| Living Clean, Chapter 4, "Death, Dying, and Living with Grief" |
| NA recovery allows us to accept love even when our lives have been shattered by loss. Emotional pain makes this feel especially risky, but we take a chance, gather our courage, and lean on our fellow members. In times like these, we grow to appreciate all that recovery has to offer. Too often, pride, low self-esteem, and fear of rejection block us from reaching out or accepting help from others. Not wanting to be a burden or to appear needy, we isolate and tell ourselves that we can handle this alone. We overestimate our nuisance value and deny others the opportunity to love, support, and serve us. We're embarrassed by our pain. It's inconvenient and uncomfortable to be so vulnerable. We hide behind a cloak of self-sufficiency and independence. Of course, there's no right or wrong way to grieve. It's not unreasonable to want to spend some time alone with our thoughts and our Higher Power. Intense feelings of loss can make it hard to find a balance between solitude and isolation. We do our best to be honest with ourselves. Letting others love us when we're grieving helps us avoid the trap of old ideas. Accepting love, whether gracefully or begrudgingly, is in itself an act of love. And the consequences often prove astounding. "My best friend relapsed and died," one member shared. "I thought people didn't want to hear about how I felt, but after I shared, I got so much love and support that it truly renewed my faith in NA. It's why I'm clean today." |
| I will trust the process, feel the pain, and allow others to feel it with me today. I will let others love me, even when I'd rather they didn't. |
| Copyright (c) 2007-2026, NA World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved |