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.
Some of us enter recovery with a working understanding of a Higher Power. For a lot of us, however, "God" is a troublesome word. We may doubt the existence of any sort of Power greater than ourselves. Or we may remember uncomfortable experiences with religion and shy away from "the God stuff."
Starting over in recovery means we can start over in our spiritual life, too. If we're not comfortable with what we learned when we were growing up, we can try a different approach to our spirituality. We don't have to understand everything all at once or find the answers to all our questions right away. Sometimes it's enough just to know that other NA members believe and that their belief helps keep them clean.
April 23, 2024 |
The Value of Our Individuality |
Page 117 |
"We are mindful of our behavior and our surroundings without giving up our individuality." |
Living Clean, Chapter 6, "Moving Beyond 'Social Acceptability'" |
Rock bottom means different things to different addicts. We come to NA in various states of unwellness, some more visible than others. No matter what kind of shape we appear to be in when we get here, we each find ourselves at the edge of our own learning curve. Although our minds may try to get ahead of us with all kinds of knotty questions, our journeys almost always start with going to meetings and staying clean between them. It may occur to us that we wouldn't have used with a lot of these people—unless it was their stuff, of course; no need to be rude. We can't imagine them using with each other either, but there they go again, hanging out together in the parking lot for an hour after the meeting. We find this mildly troubling. As using addicts, we thought we could suss out any situation and be who we needed to be. Here . . . what? Am I supposed to be myself? That seems to be the idea. Yikes! In fact, that's part of our charge: to figure out who we are and be that on purpose. In It Works: How and Why, we read about the value of our diversity and the "rough-and-tumble liveliness" found in NA. This rings true. We're told there's no one right way to be an addict in recovery. This seems reassuring or disconcerting, depending on our mood. We aspire to be as comfortable in our uniqueness as some of those eccentric oldtimers. Like them, we grow secure in our own individuality and learn to express it in context-appropriate ways. Accepting that our value lies in being ourselves frees up all that energy we used to spend shape-shifting. We no longer feel a need to blend in with the wallpaper or shine like the brightest star. We get to be ourselves, each of us uniquely contributing to the lively whole. We don't need to fit in—because we belong. |
——— ——— ——— ——— ——— |
Fellowship encourages me to be wholly myself, which I'll do to the best of my ability. |
Copyright (c) 2007-2023, NA World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
april, 2024
april, 2024
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.