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
Many of us feel that without NA we would surely have died from our disease. Hence, its existence is our very lifeline. However, disunity is an occasional fact of life in Narcotics Anonymous; we must learn to respond in a constructive way to the destructive influences that sometimes arise in our fellowship. If we decide to be part of the solution instead of the problem, we are headed in the right direction.
Our personal recovery and the growth of NA is contingent upon maintaining an atmosphere of recovery in our meetings. Are we willing to help our group deal constructively with conflict? As group members, do we strive to work out difficulties openly, honestly, and fairly? Do we seek to promote the common welfare of all our members rather than our own agenda? And, as trusted servants, do we take into consideration the effect our actions might have on newcomers?
Service can bring out both the best and the worst in us. But it is often through service that we begin to get in touch with some of our more pressing defects of character. Do we shrink from service commitments rather than face what we might find out about ourselves? If we bear in mind the strength of the ties that bind us together--our recovery from active addiction--all will be well.
A Spiritual principle a day
When we heard the Twelve Traditions read aloud the first several times--maybe even the first 1,000 times--the First Tradition sounded like some sort of recovery jargon to our newcomer ears. Am I supposed to put NA's common welfare ahead of my own? Really? To many of us, "common welfare" was a new concept. Because we'd consistently been self-obsessed in our disease, we hadn't thought of ourselves as part of any whole, and that was fine with us.
During our first days clean, the NA Fellowship's collective whole wasn't something we imagined being a part of or even caring about. In time, we began to surrender to the truth that we need each other to stay clean. We got a glimpse of the reciprocal relationship between personal recovery and NA unity. We realized that we're part of a worldwide Fellowship, made up of tens of thousands of groups, with literature available in scores of languages. Wow, all I wanted to do was quit using drugs!
"I can't, but we can" underpins the First Tradition. As our recovery deepens, our capacity to surrender to the principle of unity evolves and becomes more fluid. Surrendering to the needs of the group takes precedence over our desire to get our way at whatever cost. Many of us who struggle with the idea of a "god" working in our lives can surrender to the idea that the power of the group supports us. We begin to understand how our investment in something greater than ourselves through service improves our own lives and increases our feelings of self-worth. And something as basic as seeing a keytag with its "clean and serene" message etched in an unfamiliar language becomes awe-inspiring to us.
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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