"Through abstinence and through working the Twelve Steps of Narcotics Anonymous, our lives have become useful."
Basic Text, p. 8
Before coming to Narcotics Anonymous, our lives were centered around using. For the most part, we had very little energy left over for jobs, relationships, or other activities. We served only our addiction.
The Twelve Steps of Narcotics Anonymous provide a simple way to turn our lives around. We start by staying clean, a day at a time. When our energy is no longer channeled into our addiction, we find that we have the energy to pursue other interests. As we grow in recovery, we become able to sustain healthy relationships. We become trustworthy employees. Hobbies and recreation seem more inviting. Through participation in Narcotics Anonymous, we help others.
Narcotics Anonymous does not promise us that we will find good jobs, loving relationships, or a fulfilling life. But when we work the Twelve Steps to the best of our ability, we find that we can become the type of people who are capable of finding employment, sustaining loving relationships, and helping others. We stop serving our disease, and begin serving God and others. The Twelve Steps are the key to transforming our lives.
Just for today: I will have the wisdom to use the Twelve Steps in my life, and the courage to grow in my recovery I will practice my program to become a responsible, productive member of society.
pg. 118 _________________ If you're in fear; you're not in faith.
Narcotics Anonymous does not promise us that we will find good jobs, loving relationships, or a fulfilling life. But when we work the Twelve Steps to the best of our ability, we find that we can become the type of people who are capable of finding employment, sustaining loving relationships, and helping others.
nuff said, again i find this to be true....
__________________
Faith: the substance of things hoped for, the belief in things unseen
like it big v, i was at a convention the other weekend and heard one of the most powerful thing i ever heard in a meeting, it was a H&I workshop, this guy shred from the floor he had been doing service at an institution for a lot of yrs, and there were times he wondered why he bothered, he said he found out the other week, where he met a guy he had first met at a H&I meeting which he was chairing, when he first met this guy he was serving life without possibility of parole, well my friends he said, thanks to this fellowship i met the same guy last week at a convention, and i hugged this guy a free man. I tell you the tears fell down my cheeks freely and i was again in awe at the power of this programme, i know you probably have many stories like that in your yrs, but this touched my heart, please share it with others, godbless hope you well. And we will have to get busy with the pics thing again.
Hey Nick good to see you brother, yeah lets do some pics maybe some activitys we been involved in i'll post i hope som pics of me dredging for gold this weekend, hopefully I can get out my back has been hurting pretty bad now for about aweek and just now starting to get usable now.
Last night laying in bed I got a good feeling roll over me that maybe thats what this is all about, service. I find myself in more and more service as time goes by it's slowly evolving. I also think that getting out of ourselves is helpful. The main thing is to keep this thing alive and growing the more of us who stay clean the more of us there are to help others out there stuck in the rut of addiction.
But along with doing service comes another feeling not exactly sure yet what it is, maybe it's responsibilty i've never been to comfortable with that LOL
We never know what God has in store for us do we Nick, this guy getting out of prison must have been a miracle there somewhere.
Like I told a freind of mine if he would just let this one certain thing go something miraculous might happen, well so far it has he was in alot of trouble with the law, got arrested the whole sheebang, well so far 2 months later no charges have been filed YET , they have 1 year but I think a power greater then himself is telling him something and wanting to use him for a better cause, we shall see.
Brett we know the program does not lie, we lie to ourselves......
gladd, sometimes it's called " the monkey on our back" or " Boulder on our shoulder" it has other names and basically we do feed and tend our addiction in many forms and ways alot of that has to stop, we stop feeding it and it weekens or at least goes dormant, it's still alive inside though never forget that!
One of the many things service work dose for me is gives me purpose. Some times I want to just stay home and I know that people are depending on me to do what I have signed up for , so being responsable becomes much easier when I am accountable to others.
I like the saying " service work is like wetting your pants, every one can see what you have done but your the one who feels the warmth"
And Nick, thanks for sharing that H&I Miracle with us. Moved me.
And yes, BigV, that makes two of us. I also have this inbuilt natural tendency to resist responsibility... lol...
__________________
"If we do an honest examination of exactly what we are giving, we are better able to evaluate the results we are getting."Chapter 10 - Emotional Pain - NA Way of Life.
