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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.
May 03, 2026 |
Sharing our gratitude |
| Page 129 |
| "My gratitude speaks when I care and when I share with others the NA way." |
| Gratitude Prayer |
| The longer we stay clean, the more we experience feelings of gratitude for our recovery. These feelings of gratitude aren't limited to particular gifts like new friends or the ability to be employed. More frequently, they arise from the overall sense of joy we feel in our new lives. These feelings are enhanced by our certainty of the course our lives would have taken if it weren't for the miracle we've experienced in Narcotics Anonymous. These feelings are so all-encompassing, so wondrous, and sometimes so overwhelming that we often can't find words for them. We sometimes openly weep with happiness while sharing in a meeting, yet we grope for words to express what we are feeling. We want so badly to convey to newcomers the gratitude we feel, but it seems that our language lacks the superlatives to describe it. When we share with tears in our eyes, when we choke up and can't talk at all--these are the times when our gratitude speaks most clearly. We share our gratitude directly from our hearts; with their hearts, others hear and understand. Our gratitude speaks eloquently, though our words may not. |
| Just for Today: My gratitude has a voice of its own; when it speaks, the heart understands. Today, I will share my gratitude with others, whether I can find the words or not. |
| Copyright (c) 2007-2026, NA World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
May 03, 2026 |
The Attraction of Goodwill |
| Page 128 |
| "Like so many things in recovery, how we do the work is as important as the work we do." |
| Guiding Principles, Tradition Eleven, Opening Essay |
| Many of us have had the experience of encountering a newcomer at a meeting or working with a sponsee who just can't seem to get this recovery thing. We have wished that we could just pour experience, strength, and hope into their minds and hearts, but we know it simply doesn't work that way. By participating in the hospitals and institutions and public relations service committees, many of us get a front-row seat to newcomers' awakening when we take H&I meetings to inmates or present PR panels to local schools. Initially, some students might attend to get out of class and prisoners to get out of their cells. Regardless of the motivation, many can't help but identify. We see the looks on their faces change from indifference and apathy to relief and understanding. The NA message has a way of penetrating through that tough exterior and getting right to the heart of the still-suffering addict. Sharing openly and honestly, from the heart, is the most attractive thing we have to offer. If we were to run around like fanatics, proclaiming the spoils of recovery based on our specific gains and achievements, this would be a misrepresentation of the truth. The practice of goodwill in Tradition Eleven comes when we exercise discretion and deliver a simple message: Narcotics Anonymous can work for anyone with a desire to stop using. When the message is clear, recovery can take root. |
| Today I will be mindful of how I represent myself inside and outside of the rooms, knowing that my story is not the Narcotics Anonymous program and that I might be the only Basic Text some people ever see. |
| Copyright (c) 2007-2026, NA World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved |