Hardships

" But you don't understand!" we spluttered, trying to cover up. "I'm different! I've really got it rough!" We used these lines over and over in our active addiction, either trying to escape the consequences of our actions or avoid following the rules that applied to everyone else. We may have cried them at our first meeting. Perhaps we've even caught ourselves whining them recently.

So many of us feel different or unique. As addicts, we can use almost anything to alienate ourselves. But there's no excuse for missing out on recovery, nothing that can make us ineligible for the program,not a life-threatening illness, not poverty, not anything. There are thousands of addicts who have found recovery despite the real hardships they've faced. Through working the program, their spiritual awareness has grown, in spite of or perhaps in response to those hardships.

From Isolation To Connection

Addiction is an isolating disease, closing us off from society, family, and self. We hid. We lied. We scorned the lives we saw others living, surely beyond our grasp. Worst of all, we told ourselves there was nothing wrong with us, even though we knew we were desperately ill. Our connection with the world, and with reality itself, was severed. Our lives lost meaning, and we withdrew further and further from reality.

The NA program is designed especially for people like us. It helps reconnect us to the life we were meant to live, drawing us out of our isolation. We stop lying to ourselves about our condition; we admit our powerlessness and the unmanageability of our lives.

Keep It Simple

We addicts can be very picky. We think there’s only one way to do things. It’s our way,But we call it the right way. When we think like this, three things happen. First, we put down other people. Second, we end up doing all the work. Third, everyone feels bad. The other person feels hurt that we don’t respect him or her. And we feel angry because we “had” to do all the work.

We need to know that there are many ways to do things. It’s okay when others don’t do things our way.

Surrender To Win

Complete defeat-what a concept! That must mean surrender. Surrender-to give up absolutely. To quit with no reservations. To put up our hands and quit fighting. Maybe to put up our hand at our first meeting and admit we're addicts.

How do we know we've taken a First Step that will allow us to live drug-free? We know because, once we have taken that gigantic step, we never have to use again-just for today. That's it. It's not easy, but it's very simple.

We work the First Step. We accept that, yes, we are addicts. "One is too many, and a thousand never enough." We've proven that to ourselves enough times. We admit that we cannot handle drugs in any form. We admit it; we say it out loud, if necessary.

How Does It Work?

What are the two favorite words of most addicts? "I know!" Unfortunately, many of us arrive in NA thinking we have all the answers. We have a lot of knowledge about what's wrong with us. But in and of itself, knowledge never helped us stay clean for any length of time.

Members who have achieved long-term recovery will be the first to admit that the longer they are here, the more they have to learn. But they do know one thing: By following this simple Twelve Step program, they have been able to stay clean. They no longer ask "why"; they ask "how"? The value of endless speculation pales in comparison to the experience of addicts who've found a way to stay clean and live clean.

The Love of the Fellowship

When we were using, few of us could tolerate looking someone in the eye-we were ashamed of who we were. Our minds were not occupied with anything decent or healthy, and we knew it. Our time, money, and energy weren't spent building loving relationships, sharing with others, or seeking to better our communities. We were trapped in a spiral of obsession and compulsion that went only in one direction: downward.

In recovery, our journey down that spiral path has been cut short. But what is it that has turned us around, drawing us back upward into the open spaces of the wide, free world? The love of the fellowship has done this.