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
The idea of sponsorship may be new to us. We have spent many years without direction, relying only on self-interest, suspecting everyone, trusting no one. Now that we're learning to live in recovery, we find we need help. We can't do it alone anymore; we must take the risk of trusting another human being. Often, the first person we take that risk with is our sponsor--someone we respect, someone we identify with, someone we have reason to trust.
As we open up to our sponsor, a bond develops between us. We disclose our secrets and develop confidence in our sponsor's discretion. We share our concerns and learn to value our sponsor's experience. We share our pain and are met with empathy. We get to know one another, respect one another, love one another. The more we trust our sponsor, the more we learn to trust ourselves.
Trust helps us move away from a life of fear, confusion, suspicion, and indirection. In the beginning, it feels risky to trust another addict. But that trust is the same principle we apply in our relationship with a Higher Power--risky or not, our experience tells us we can't do without it. And the more we take the risk of trusting our sponsor, the more open we will feel about our lives.
A Spiritual principle a day
None of us chose to have the disease of addiction. We also didn't choose our upbringing or the demographic groups we belong to, our identity or culture, or to have our particular set of character defects (and assets). These aspects of ourselves don't tell our whole story, not nearly. This truth also doesn't negate responsibility for our personal autonomy, our free will to make decisions that may in many ways be informed by these characteristics. Personal autonomy is having the capacity and willingness to act on our own behalf. As recovering addicts, our goal for personal autonomy is to have the capacity and willingness to do so while living by spiritual principles--as opposed to the self-centeredness that drove a lot of our decision making in active addiction.
Through the Twelve Steps of NA, we investigate the hand we were dealt and what we did with those cards. This work opens many doors for us to make self-aware choices that align with our true values and a higher purpose. "In Step Four, I had an epiphany many of us have, realizing that holding on to my resentments was a choice that was holding me back," a member wrote. "And my experience with Step Seven shows me that when I'm about to act out on a shortcoming, I have a choice. For me, autonomy is that moment of grace where I pray, 'Help me choose differently because I want to live differently.'"
We are as we do, not as we feel or think we are. We aren't all our outsides or insides. We can be kind without feeling kind. We can feel kind and not act on it. Our choices reflect our priorities--how we treat the people in our lives (from our sponsor, to someone we want to date, to a server in a cafe), how we spend our time and money, how we act when no one's looking. We're no longer living by default or vicariously through others; we've carved out who we authentically are and can make choices that reflect that version of us. We are autonomous, responsible for our own feelings, words, and actions. And just as no one can "make" us do anything, we can't make choices for others either.
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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