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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.
April 30, 2026 |
God does for us |
| Page 124 |
| "Ongoing recovery is dependent on our relationship with a loving God who cares for us and will do for us what we find impossible to do for ourselves." |
| Basic Text, p. 99 |
| How often have we heard it said in meetings that "God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves"? At times we may get stuck in our recovery, unable, afraid, or unwilling to make the decisions we know we must make to move forward. Perhaps we are unable to end a relationship that just isn't working. Maybe our job has become a source of too much conflict. Or perhaps we feel we need to find a new sponsor but are afraid to begin the search. Through the grace of our Higher Power, unexpected change may occur in precisely the area we felt unable to alter. We sometimes allow ourselves to become stuck in the problem instead of moving forward toward the solution. At these times, we often find that our Higher Power does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Perhaps our partner decides to end our relationship. We may get fired or laid off. Or our sponsor tells us that he or she can no longer work with us, forcing us to look for a new one. Sometimes what occurs in our lives can be frightening, as change often seems. But we also hear that "God never closes a door without opening another one." As we move forward with faith, the strength of our Higher Power is never far from us. Our recovery is strengthened by these changes. |
| Just for Today: I trust that the God of my understanding will do for me what I cannot do for myself. |
| Copyright (c) 2007-2026, NA World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
April 30, 2026 |
The Value of Consistency |
| Page 124 |
| "When we attend meetings regularly, people get to know us and see us over time." |
| Living Clean, Chapter 2, "Connection to Others" |
| The principle of consistency offers great benefits at any phase in our recovery, even though how it might look in practice evolves over time. Early on, consistency tends to mean a meeting a day for the first 90 days, as our Basic Text suggests. A likely outcome of completing a "90-in-90" challenge is knowing and being known by quite a few other NA members. Making ourselves visible in this way exposes our disease to people who see it for what it is. The compassion, concern, and care we receive from other members is a vital part of knowing we are not alone, especially in early recovery. Consistency allows people to know and care for us, and it can save our lives. The value of practicing consistency changes the longer we're around. Our lives improve, and we are able to practice consistency in other areas: NA service, family relationships, friendships, and any other place we go. Those of us who were able to show up physically for our family and friends find, over time, that we are able to be more fully present in the spaces we inhabit. "I used to just send someone who looked like me," one speaker recalled. "My family got a person with my face, my eyes, my smile. But behind all that was empty. Showing up for real in NA taught me how to bring the real me to other places I go. I'm not sending the imposter anymore." The magic of consistency in NA goes beyond just showing up. Simply dragging our body to meetings on a regular basis, whether that's daily or slightly less often, wouldn't be enough on its own. Something special happens in our meetings, though--we see and recognize each other beyond the surface level. We hear others share and we relate; we share with others and tell on our disease. Consistency helps keep us from going back into hiding, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Our recovery depends on it. |
| Simply having my butt in a seat at a meeting won't keep me clean or magically make me recover. But it's a damn good place to start! |
| Copyright (c) 2007-2026, NA World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved |