Welcome to the Central Coast Area of Narcotics Anonymous
Serving: Paso Robles, Cambria, Atascadero, San Luis Obispo, Arroyo Grande, Santa Maria, Lompoc
Just for today daily meditation
When our members celebrate their recovery anniversaries, they often say that they've "grown up" in NA. Well, then, we think, what does that mean? We start to wonder if we're grownups yet. We check our lives and yes, all the trappings of adulthood are there: the checkbook, the children, the job, the responsibilities. On the inside, though, we often feel like children. We're still confused by life much of the time. We don't always know how to act. We sometimes wonder whether we're really grown-ups at all, or whether we're children who've somehow been put into adult bodies and given adult responsibilities.
Growth is not best measured by physical age or levels of responsibility. Our best measure of growth is our spiritual condition, the basis of our recovery. If we're still depending on people, places, and things to provide our inner satisfaction, like a child depending on its parents for everything, we do indeed have some growing to do. But if we stand secure on the foundation of our spiritual condition, considering its maintenance our most important responsibility, we can claim maturity. Upon that foundation, our opportunities for growth are limitless.
A Spiritual principle a day
When we were using, denial shielded us from recognizing the part we played in our own destruction. We blamed our circumstances or the people around us for our drug use. Every once in a while, some light would shine through the cracks in our denial. A quiet voice within us said, "If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting." By the time we stumbled into the rooms of NA, self-deception was often second nature. We may have been so used to blaming others that it took work for us to spot this mindset and still more work for us to fully appreciate its implications.
Personal inventories help us understand our distorted sense of reality. We decipher "our part"--no more, no less--and take responsibility for it. Yes, we may have been intentionally hurtful at times. Just as often, though, our intentions were good, or at least very human. We attempted to wrestle some sense of security and significance from an uncertain world, we put ourselves in a position to be hurt, or we clung to others in hopes that they might save us from ourselves. Understanding the patterns in our thinking and behavior helps us recognize them when they crop up again, as they often do.
Some of us are survivors of unspeakable trauma. We have real emotional wounds caused by wartime combat, physical or sexual assault, natural disasters, or extreme poverty. We are not at fault for these horrific experiences. We find ways to reckon with our trauma in our own time and often with help from resources outside NA. Our responsibility begins when the Steps uncover a need for more work. Real healing takes courage and persistence.
Recovery gives us the opportunity to know ourselves, to answer to our own conscience, and to own our part instead of blaming forces outside ourselves. We take responsibility and reap the rewards that come from being accountable for our actions: We're capable of feeling the whole range of human emotions and ready to face life on life's terms.
WHAT IS THE NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS PROGRAM?
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.
For more information on Narcotics Anonymous,
please go to the:
Narcotics Anonymous World Services Website,
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