What is Narcotics Anonymous?
N.A. 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. We have learned from our group experience that those who keep coming to our meetings regularly stay clean.
For Professionals
Narcotics Anonymous is an international, community-based, association of recovering addicts who meet regularly to help each other stay clean. We have over 70,000 weekly meetings in over 144 countries worldwide.
For Newcomers
The simple message of Narcotics Anonymous is… “That an addict, any addict, can stop using drugs, lose the desire to use and find a new way to live”
Connecticut NA History Project
Explore the history of Narcotics Anonymous in Connecticut. This captivating history project sheds light on the transformative journey of addiction recovery in Connecticut.
Just for Today
Some days it doesn't pay to turn on the news, we hear so many stories about violence and mayhem. When we used, many of us grew accustomed to violence. Through the fog of our addiction, we rarely got too disturbed by the state of the world. When we are clean, however, many of us find we are particularly sensitive to the world around us. As recovering people, what can we do to make it a better place?
When we find ourselves disturbed by the turmoil of our world, we can find comfort in prayer and meditation. When it seems like everything is turned upside down, our contact with our Higher Power can be our calm in the midst of any storm. When we are centered on our spiritual path, we can respond to our fears with peace. And by living peaceably ourselves, we invite a spirit of peace to enter our world. As recovering people, we can affect positive change by doing our best to practice the principles of our program.
Spiritual Principle a Day
Our literature describes how the Second Step helps us to fill the gap created when we admit our powerlessness in Step One. If we are powerless over our disease, what can we do about it? For many of us, simply seeing there are other addicts like us who have lost the desire to use is enough to open our minds to the possibility that something might be able to help us, too—even if we don't know what that something might be.
The catch to accepting help from a power greater than ourselves is that we have to stop exerting our own power first. Practicing powerlessness over our disease means that we stop trying to manage and control it. So many of us have shared about trying to limit our using, hiding our stash from ourselves, using only certain substances or on certain days of the week, and many other ways of trying to be clever or tricky enough to outsmart our addiction. If anyone had success with those types of tricks, they're probably not NA members. (Yet?)
That's the way it is with addiction. If we try to overpower or outmaneuver our disease, we're bound to fail. It might not even happen right away, but eventually we find ourselves surrounded by unmanageability, wondering what happened to our well-laid plans. Rather than exerting great control over ourselves to behave in a highly predictable and consistent manner, we let go of the illusion of control and open ourselves to a power from elsewhere. Unlimited examples of experience, strength, and hope are available to us when we share with other addicts in recovery.
