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
Learning to trust is a risky proposition. Our past experience as using addicts has taught us that our companions could not be trusted. Most of all, we couldn't trust ourselves.
Now that we're in recovery, trust is essential. We need something to hang onto, believe in, and give us hope in our recovery. For some of us, the first thing we can trust is the words of other members sharing in meetings; we feel the truth in their words.
Finding someone we can trust makes it easier to ask for help. And as we grow to trust in their recovery, we learn to trust our own.
A Spiritual principle a day
Before we find NA and a path toward empathy and healing, a lot of us find jails first. Some of us follow predecessors into a life we see no way out of. Others of us just see opportunities to take advantage, to make money, and to get one more that leads us down a similar path--and we take them because we're addicts. We push away those who care about us. We end up desperately trying to gain control because we have completely lost it. We live in constant fear and shame and do whatever we can to suppress those feelings. We refuse help. We end up locked up. For many of us, this cycle repeats, over and over.
Along the way, we get exposed to NA and life behind bars gives us time to consider our choices: We can continue down the path of self-destruction and harming others or we can follow one toward healing that is available to any addict through the Twelve Steps. We opt for the latter and begin to follow different predecessors. We are shown empathy by our fellow recovering addicts--through H&I, at NA meetings run by other inmates, or when just a couple of us get together and make a meeting. We work a program in whatever way we can. Our hearts open, particularly to those we're locked up with who we see struggling with their disease. We think of those from our past who are still running. We pray they find the hope and freedom that we've found.
Word travels fast inside, so it's no secret that we're in recovery and available to help. We do our best to draw people to us, instead of pushing them away. We try to be a good role model, and when the opportunity strikes, we reach out to the still-suffering addict. We seek healthy companionship and solidarity with one another. We empathize with the pain of each other's pasts and with the struggles recovery entails.
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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