Narcotics Anonymous Message Board

Dave R · Dave R

"It will not make us better people to judge the faults of another." Basic Text, p. 38 = How easy it is to point out the faults of others! There's a reason for this: The defects we identify most easily in others are often the defects we are most familiar with in our own characters. We may not...

Dave R · Dave R

"We may fear that being in touch with our feelings will trigger an overwhelming chain reaction of pain and panic." Basic Text, p. 30 = A common complaint about the Fourth Step is that it makes us painfully conscious of our defects of character. We may be tempted to falter in our program of...

Dave R · Dave R

"The only suggested guidelines are that this Power be loving, caring, and greater than ourselves. We don't have to be religious to accept this idea. The point is that we open our minds to believe." Basic Text, p. 24 = In a lifelong process of coming to believe, our understanding of God w...

Dave R · Dave R

"Life takes on a new meaning when we open ourselves to this gift." Basic Text, p. 102 = Neglecting our recovery is like neglecting any other gift we've been given. Suppose someone gave you a new car. Would you let it sit in the driveway until the tires rotted? Would you just drive it, ign...

Dave R · Dave R

"Prayer takes practice, and we should remind ourselves that skilled people were not born with their skills." Basic Text, p. 45 = Many of us came into recovery with no experience in prayer and worried about not knowing the "right words." Some of us remembered the words we'd l...

Dave R · Dave R

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Serenity Prayer = Recovery involves change, and change means doing things differently. The problem is, many of us resist doing things diffe...

Dave R · Dave R

"We may think that we have done enough by writing about our past. We cannot afford this mistake." Basic Text, p. 32 = Some of us aren't too keen on writing out our Fourth Step; others take it to an obsessive extreme. To our sponsor's growing dismay, we inventory ourselves again and again...

Dave R · Dave R

"We had to have something different, and we thought we had found it in drugs." Basic Text, p. 13 = Many of us have always felt different from other people. We know we're not unique in feeling that way; we hear many addicts share the same thing. We searched all our lives for something to mak...

Dave R · Dave R

"My life is well-rounded and I am becoming a more comfortable version of myself, not the neurotic, boring person that I thought I'd be without drugs." = Is there really life without drugs? Newcomers are sure that they are destined to lead a humdrum existence once they quit using. T...

Dave R · Dave R

"We learn to become flexible... As new things are revealed, we feel renewed." Basic Text, p. 102 = "Flexibility" was not a part of the vocabulary we used in our using days. We'd become obsessed with the raw pleasure of our drugs and hardened to all the softer, subtler, more i...

Dave R · Dave R

"In NA, our joys are multiplied by sharing good days; our sorrows are lessened by sharing the bad. For the first time in our lives, we don't have to experience anything alone." IP No. 16, For the Newcomer = When we practice using the steps and the other tools of our program to work through o...

Dave R · Dave R

"One of the most profound changes in our lives is in the realm of personal relationships." Basic Text, p. 57 = Recovery gives many of us relationships that are closer and more intimate than any we've had before. As time passes, we find ourselves gravitating toward those who eventually...

Dave R · Dave R

"Emotional balance is one of the first results of meditation, and our experience bears this out." Basic Text, p.47 = Though each of us defines "emotional balance" a little differently, all of us must find it. Emotional balance can mean finding and maintaining a positive o...

Dave R · Dave R

"...we think that if we can just get enough food, enough sex, or enough money, we'll be satisfied and everything will be alright." Basic Text, p. 80 = In our addiction, we could never get enough drugs, or money, or sex, or anything else. Even too much was never enough! There was a spiritu...

Dave R · Dave R

"Eventually we are shown that we must get honest, or we will use again." Basic Text, p. 85 = Everyone has secrets, right? Some of us have little secrets, items that would cause only minor embarrassment if found out. Some of us have big secrets, whole areas of our lives cloaked in thick, m...

Dave R · Dave R

"We learn that a simple, loving hug can make all the difference in the world..." Basic Text, p. 91 = Perhaps there have been times in our recovery when we were close to someone who was in great pain. We struggled with the question, "What can I do to make them feel better?" We fel...

Dave R · Dave R

"One of the biggest stumbling blocks to recovery seems to be placing unrealistic expectations on... others." Basic Text, p. 82 = Many of us come into Narcotics Anonymous feeling pretty poorly about ourselves. By comparison, the recovering addicts we meet at meetings may seem almos...

Dave R · Dave R

"We need not lose faith when we become rebellious." Basic Text, p. 35 = Many of us have lived our entire lives in revolt. Our initial response to any type of direction is often negative. Automatic rejection of authority seems to be a troubling character defect for many addicts. A thoro...

Dave R · Dave R

"Where there has been wrong, the program teaches us the spirit of forgiveness." Basic Text, p. 12 = In NA, we begin to interact with the world around us. We no longer live in isolation. But freedom from isolation has its price: The more we interact with people, the more often we'll find...

Dave R · Dave R

"We have learned from our group experience that those who keep coming to our meetings regularly stay clean." Basic Text, p. 9 = The NA program gives us a new pattern of living. One of the basic elements of that new pattern is regular meeting attendance. For the newcomer, living clean i...

agedout · agedout

Hey folks, I'm wondering about the process most groups use for electing Trusted Servants - specifically, is there an order that most groups follow or that world follows? I'm looking for something like the following: 1. read the Trusted Service position description, length of term, clean time re...

Dave R · Dave R

"We try to remember that when we make amends we are doing it for ourselves." Basic Text, p. 41 = As long as we still owe amends, our spirits are cluttered with things we don't need. We're carrying the extra load of an apology owed, a resentment held, or unexpressed remorse. It's like havi...

Dave R · Dave R

"Humility is a by-product that allows us to grow and develop in an atmosphere of freedom and removes the fear of becoming known by our employers, families, or friends as addicts." Basic Text, pp. 75-76 = Many of us may not have understood the idea that "anonymity is the spiritual fo...

Dave R · Dave R

"Daily practice of our Twelve Step program enables us to change from what we were to people guided by a Higher Power." Basic Text, p. 86 = Who have we been, and who have we become? There are a couple of ways to answer this question. One is very simple: We came to Narcotics Anonymous as addi...

Dave R · Dave R

"Hopeless living problems have become joyously changed. Our disease has been arrested, and now anything is possible." Basic Text, p. 106 = The NA program has given us more freedom than we ever dreamed possible. Sometimes, though, in the daily routine, we lose track of how much weve b...

Dave R · Dave R

"We examine our actions, reactions, and motives. We often find that we've been doing better than we've been feeling." Basic Text, p.43 = The way we treat others often reveals our own state of being. When we are at peace, we're most likely to treat others with respect and compassion. H...

Dave R · Dave R

"The steps offer a big change from a life dominated by guilt and remorse. Our futures are changed because we dont have to avoid those who we have harmed. As a result...we receive a new freedom that can end isolation." Basic Text, p. 39 = Many of us come to Narcotics Anonymous full of regr...

Dave R · Dave R

"These defects grow in the dark and die in the light of exposure." Basic Text, p.32 = The Fifth Step asks us to share our true nature with God, with ourselves, and with another human being. It doesn't encourage us to tell everyone every little secret about ourselves. It doesn't ask us to d...

JR · JR

Anyone know when the northern ca convention was in 1990! I got clean that weekend but am not sure of the dates of that convention. Been going with March 28th but to be honest I am not sure and want to know if I should change my clean date.

Dave R · Dave R

"Change from self-destructive patterns of life became necessary." Basic Text, p. 15 = Active addiction is a smoldering death-wish. Each of us courted death every time we used. Our lifestyles, too, put us at risk. The life of an addict is sold cheaply with every day and every dose. In...

Topic		Started By	Replies	Views	Last Post
	JFT September 26 Seeing ourselves in others (Preview) "It will not make us better people to judge the faults of another." Basic Text, p. 38 = How easy it is to point out the faults of others! There's a reason for this: The defects we identify most easily in others are often the defects we are most familiar with in our own characters. We may not...	Dave R	0	481	Sep 26, 2015 by Dave R
	JFT September 25 The Fourth Step--fearing our feelings (Preview) "We may fear that being in touch with our feelings will trigger an overwhelming chain reaction of pain and panic." Basic Text, p. 30 = A common complaint about the Fourth Step is that it makes us painfully conscious of our defects of character. We may be tempted to falter in our program of...	Dave R	0	544	Sep 25, 2015 by Dave R
	JFT September 24 (Preview) "The only suggested guidelines are that this Power be loving, caring, and greater than ourselves. We don't have to be religious to accept this idea. The point is that we open our minds to believe." Basic Text, p. 24 = In a lifelong process of coming to believe, our understanding of God w...	Dave R	0	482	Sep 24, 2015 by Dave R
	JFT September 22 Keeping the gift (Preview) "Life takes on a new meaning when we open ourselves to this gift." Basic Text, p. 102 = Neglecting our recovery is like neglecting any other gift we've been given. Suppose someone gave you a new car. Would you let it sit in the driveway until the tires rotted? Would you just drive it, ign...	Dave R	0	520	Sep 22, 2015 by Dave R
	JFT September 21 Prayer (Preview) "Prayer takes practice, and we should remind ourselves that skilled people were not born with their skills." Basic Text, p. 45 = Many of us came into recovery with no experience in prayer and worried about not knowing the "right words." Some of us remembered the words we'd l...	Dave R	0	544	Sep 21, 2015 by Dave R
	JFT September 20 Courage to change (Preview) "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Serenity Prayer = Recovery involves change, and change means doing things differently. The problem is, many of us resist doing things diffe...	Dave R	1	790	Sep 20, 2015 by Davethewave
	JFT September 17 Going beyond Step Five (Preview) "We may think that we have done enough by writing about our past. We cannot afford this mistake." Basic Text, p. 32 = Some of us aren't too keen on writing out our Fourth Step; others take it to an obsessive extreme. To our sponsor's growing dismay, we inventory ourselves again and again...	Dave R	1	555	Sep 19, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT September 13 Something different (Preview) "We had to have something different, and we thought we had found it in drugs." Basic Text, p. 13 = Many of us have always felt different from other people. We know we're not unique in feeling that way; we hear many addicts share the same thing. We searched all our lives for something to mak...	Dave R	1	519	Sep 19, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT September 12 New horizons (Preview) "My life is well-rounded and I am becoming a more comfortable version of myself, not the neurotic, boring person that I thought I'd be without drugs." = Is there really life without drugs? Newcomers are sure that they are destined to lead a humdrum existence once they quit using. T...	Dave R	1	616	Sep 19, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT September 11 Bend with the wind (Preview) "We learn to become flexible... As new things are revealed, we feel renewed." Basic Text, p. 102 = "Flexibility" was not a part of the vocabulary we used in our using days. We'd become obsessed with the raw pleasure of our drugs and hardened to all the softer, subtler, more i...	Dave R	1	570	Sep 19, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT September 19 Fellowship (Preview) "In NA, our joys are multiplied by sharing good days; our sorrows are lessened by sharing the bad. For the first time in our lives, we don't have to experience anything alone." IP No. 16, For the Newcomer = When we practice using the steps and the other tools of our program to work through o...	Dave R	0	540	Sep 19, 2015 by Dave R
	JFT September 18 Honest relationships (Preview) "One of the most profound changes in our lives is in the realm of personal relationships." Basic Text, p. 57 = Recovery gives many of us relationships that are closer and more intimate than any we've had before. As time passes, we find ourselves gravitating toward those who eventually...	Dave R	0	527	Sep 18, 2015 by Dave R
	JFT September 16 Emotional balance (Preview) "Emotional balance is one of the first results of meditation, and our experience bears this out." Basic Text, p.47 = Though each of us defines "emotional balance" a little differently, all of us must find it. Emotional balance can mean finding and maintaining a positive o...	Dave R	0	557	Sep 16, 2015 by Dave R
	JFT September 15 Filling the emptiness (Preview) "...we think that if we can just get enough food, enough sex, or enough money, we'll be satisfied and everything will be alright." Basic Text, p. 80 = In our addiction, we could never get enough drugs, or money, or sex, or anything else. Even too much was never enough! There was a spiritu...	Dave R	0	577	Sep 15, 2015 by Dave R
	JFT September 14 Secrets are reservations (Preview) "Eventually we are shown that we must get honest, or we will use again." Basic Text, p. 85 = Everyone has secrets, right? Some of us have little secrets, items that would cause only minor embarrassment if found out. Some of us have big secrets, whole areas of our lives cloaked in thick, m...	Dave R	0	577	Sep 14, 2015 by Dave R
	JFT September 10 More powerful than words (Preview) "We learn that a simple, loving hug can make all the difference in the world..." Basic Text, p. 91 = Perhaps there have been times in our recovery when we were close to someone who was in great pain. We struggled with the question, "What can I do to make them feel better?" We fel...	Dave R	1	550	Sep 10, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT September 9 Feet of clay (Preview) "One of the biggest stumbling blocks to recovery seems to be placing unrealistic expectations on... others." Basic Text, p. 82 = Many of us come into Narcotics Anonymous feeling pretty poorly about ourselves. By comparison, the recovering addicts we meet at meetings may seem almos...	Dave R	1	582	Sep 9, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT September 8 Rebellion (Preview) "We need not lose faith when we become rebellious." Basic Text, p. 35 = Many of us have lived our entire lives in revolt. Our initial response to any type of direction is often negative. Automatic rejection of authority seems to be a troubling character defect for many addicts. A thoro...	Dave R	1	658	Sep 9, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT September 7 Resentment and forgiveness (Preview) "Where there has been wrong, the program teaches us the spirit of forgiveness." Basic Text, p. 12 = In NA, we begin to interact with the world around us. We no longer live in isolation. But freedom from isolation has its price: The more we interact with people, the more often we'll find...	Dave R	1	736	Sep 7, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT September 6 Regular meeting attendance (Preview) "We have learned from our group experience that those who keep coming to our meetings regularly stay clean." Basic Text, p. 9 = The NA program gives us a new pattern of living. One of the basic elements of that new pattern is regular meeting attendance. For the newcomer, living clean i...	Dave R	1	533	Sep 7, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	Election of TS (Preview) Hey folks, I'm wondering about the process most groups use for electing Trusted Servants - specifically, is there an order that most groups follow or that world follows? I'm looking for something like the following: 1. read the Trusted Service position description, length of term, clean time re...	agedout	1	565	Sep 5, 2015 by Davethewave
	JFT September 4 Cluttered spirits (Preview) "We try to remember that when we make amends we are doing it for ourselves." Basic Text, p. 41 = As long as we still owe amends, our spirits are cluttered with things we don't need. We're carrying the extra load of an apology owed, a resentment held, or unexpressed remorse. It's like havi...	Dave R	1	541	Sep 4, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT September 3 Humility expressed by anonymity (Preview) "Humility is a by-product that allows us to grow and develop in an atmosphere of freedom and removes the fear of becoming known by our employers, families, or friends as addicts." Basic Text, pp. 75-76 = Many of us may not have understood the idea that "anonymity is the spiritual fo...	Dave R	1	704	Sep 3, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT September 2 Higher powered (Preview) "Daily practice of our Twelve Step program enables us to change from what we were to people guided by a Higher Power." Basic Text, p. 86 = Who have we been, and who have we become? There are a couple of ways to answer this question. One is very simple: We came to Narcotics Anonymous as addi...	Dave R	1	588	Sep 2, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT August 31 Gratitude (Preview) "Hopeless living problems have become joyously changed. Our disease has been arrested, and now anything is possible." Basic Text, p. 106 = The NA program has given us more freedom than we ever dreamed possible. Sometimes, though, in the daily routine, we lose track of how much weve b...	Dave R	1	645	Aug 31, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT August 30 Doing good, feeling good (Preview) "We examine our actions, reactions, and motives. We often find that we've been doing better than we've been feeling." Basic Text, p.43 = The way we treat others often reveals our own state of being. When we are at peace, we're most likely to treat others with respect and compassion. H...	Dave R	1	600	Aug 30, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT August 29 Don't look back (Preview) "The steps offer a big change from a life dominated by guilt and remorse. Our futures are changed because we dont have to avoid those who we have harmed. As a result...we receive a new freedom that can end isolation." Basic Text, p. 39 = Many of us come to Narcotics Anonymous full of regr...	Dave R	1	538	Aug 29, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	JFT August 28 The light of experience (Preview) "These defects grow in the dark and die in the light of exposure." Basic Text, p.32 = The Fifth Step asks us to share our true nature with God, with ourselves, and with another human being. It doesn't encourage us to tell everyone every little secret about ourselves. It doesn't ask us to d...	Dave R	1	547	Aug 29, 2015 by cdbuckberry
	NA northern ca conventions (Preview) Anyone know when the northern ca convention was in 1990! I got clean that weekend but am not sure of the dates of that convention. Been going with March 28th but to be honest I am not sure and want to know if I should change my clean date.	JR	1	549	Aug 29, 2015 by Mike M
	JFT August 27 Choosing life (Preview) "Change from self-destructive patterns of life became necessary." Basic Text, p. 15 = Active addiction is a smoldering death-wish. Each of us courted death every time we used. Our lifestyles, too, put us at risk. The life of an addict is sold cheaply with every day and every dose. In...	Dave R	1	667	Aug 28, 2015 by cdbuckberry
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