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.
A newcomer walks into his or her first meeting, shaking and confused. People are milling about. Refreshments and literature are set out. The meeting starts after everyone has drifted over to their chairs and settled themselves in. After taking a bewildered glance at the odd assortment of folks in the room, the newcomer asks, "Why should I bet my life on this group? After all, they're just a bunch of addicts like me."
Though it may be true that not many of our members had much going for us when we got here, the newcomer soon learns that the way we are living today is what counts. Our meetings are filled with addicts whose lives have turned completely around. Against all odds, we are recovering. The newcomer can relate to where we've been and draw hope from where we are now. Today, every one of us has the opportunity to recover.
Yes, we can safely entrust our lives to our Higher Power and to Narcotics Anonymous. So long as we work the program, the payoff is certain: freedom from active addiction and a better way of life.
We don't all enter the rooms of NA certain that we are addicts like those people. Some of us are dubious. Now that we have a couple of weeks clean, we remember our using days a bit differently: Was it that bad? Do we really have a "disease"? Sure, we have a problem with drugs, but it's not like we were ever arrested for it. We have a roof over our head and teeth in our mouth. Never have we exchanged sex for drugs, and all our student loan payments have been on time. Was our bottom so terrible? Was it terrible enough to warrant a daily surrender? An oldtimer offers some unhelpful advice: "Maybe you aren't done yet." That sounds ominous, and we definitely have some sort of problem, so . . .
We stay clean and get a sponsor. We pick up the NA Step Working Guides and, at our sponsor's direction, begin to answer the questions as honestly and thoroughly as possible. By the time we get to the section on surrender, we've already written about our "disease" at length: our profound dishonesty and denial, our manipulation of the people who loved and trusted us, all the laws we broke (even if we didn't get caught), the powerlessness over our addiction, our obsessiveness, our compulsiveness, our obsessive-compulsiveness, the unmanageability we've created in our lives, and the reservations we may be holding onto.
Seeing it all there on the page, all that proof in black and white--it's undeniable. I am an addict. In an ideal world, that's the moment of surrender we never look back from. Sure, that happens for many of us. That's the beginning of our process of surrendering, opening the door to recovery. Others of us end up getting loaded, doing more "research," hitting a lower bottom, and surrendering later. Still others never make it back.
Address:
P.O. Box 23596
Ventura, CA 93002
24-Hour Phone line: 1-888-817-7425
Email: webmaster.gcana@gmail.com
Here are some tips to help you understand how to get started:
Simply find a meeting on our meeting directory page.
No need to make an appointment, but maybe show up a bit early, and have a seat anywhere you like.
Have a listen, share, or don’t share.
Mostly just learn you are not alone.
None of us could do this alone, we do this together.
For us drugs had become a major problem.
To help each other stay clean, we recovering addicts meet regularly.
No initiation fees or promises are required.
You are already a member if you have the desire to stop using.
If you want to do something about your problem:
We want to know how we can help.
We all thought we were powerless to do anything about our addiction.
Experience has shown us, if we keep coming to meetings regularly, we stay clean.