"The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using"
I understand that someone in chronic pain can have this desire and so is a member.
But how can someone taking narcotics daily be in recovery?
and better yet...how can they lead a meeting in home group or institution where new comers will naturally see them as role models when they have narcotics in their system?
I am seeing this more and more.
The concern that we let everyone be themselves, and God forbid we should hurt someone feelings seems to have blurred the message.
What exactly are we saying? Our primary purpose is to carry the message to the still suffering addict. OK, but is the message "Any addict can lose the desire to use drugs and find a new way to live" or is the message "Any addict can find a willing doctor and continue to use narcotics with our blessing"

Hey Don! yes we cannot move down the road we went a couple months ago with "controversary " on issues that divide rather than unite..Was interesting in a talk I heard last weekend on "Thou shall not lie! Not sure what this has to do with price of apples but feel its in the realm of the "spirit of" things....Does our HP look at the exact law or '"spirit of" the law in situations? E.G.  the discussion talked of this example....World War 11 and you are hiding Jewish Families fron the Gestapo and the SS Storm troopers in your home.They come in your house and ask if you are hiding them? If you do not lie and say yes,those people are shot and die,If you say no ,did you deliberately and maliciously lie and are you accountable to the God of your understanding for a lie? We are human and can only surmise in our small minds what actions will be taken on things we do in our lives now. Sounds like common sense but you can see even here where you could get caught up in the "law of and not the spirit of....I think if we had all the answers we wouldn't have to rely on a Higher Power? I know for this addict,controversaries,my already struggling shortcomings of "having to be right" and blaming certainly detract from my recovery therefore I choose to surrender my ego and let my HP do the talking and I;ll try and do the walking!!'each day" one day at a time....Jimi Hendrix says in Third Stone from the Sun;;;earth your people I do not understand ,so to you I say, never let me hear surf music again!!(paraphased) Jimi, Im with you,never let me hear controversial clarity statement discussion again!!!! Please all, enjoy your recovery,live it for today to the best of your ability ,in your HP's grace and its gonna be okay!!!!!

I was on Methadone 1985-1987.  Since I got clean in 1989. I always had this fantasy that if I had cancer or surgery and needed morphine I'd pass or take less than everyone else. I've had surgery twice in recovery; both abdominal.

I went to the ER 1 Saturday and when they gave me the first shot of Morphine before surgery, it wasn't enough. The second one was enough, the pain was gone and I was high as they wheeled me into surgery Saturday around noon.

I woke connected to the button Sunday morning and used it like they told me. Every 15 minutes. By Monday morning I couldn't rest due to the morphine disturbing my patterns and hallucinations. I was off that evening.

I went home Thursday morning with pain meds and talked about everyone I took with my sponsor and why. I was off of them by the next Wednesday.

I had a person that I sponsored with 10 years clean, relapse, retrun to prison and die due to his pain medication addiction. I advised him to involve me and his wife in his use of pain meds. He chose to keep secrets, boost her pills (yes she was on pain pills too) and eventually return to his drug of choice (NOT PAIN meds).

The book is clear that our addict minds manufacture pain! I have to keep it in I statements when I'm talking about anything and do what I know. As soon as I start giving others advice that I'm not qualified to give I alienate them.

I often get a good response to absolute language because it can be affirming to hear someone knows!

I have read and believe that AA's strength is it's singular focus on the use of alcohol and the relationship of the alcoholic to alcohol.

NA's strength is it's focus on our mind's response to life: Addiction.

If I had any stories where that seemed to be the case, I would post it.

While reading all this here at this topic thread, this just passed my mind - in OA, it's not told to overeaters to abstain from eating at all, and their taking their meals doesn't constitute relapse. I guess it's the same with a sex addict, that they must never have sex with their partners at all to be in recovery from sex addiction. Likewise, at times, addicts have to take medication, I mean medication for pain like one of my recovering friends from the fellowship is taking now in his final stages of cancer and life, or another member friend of mine who has a severe schizophrenic condition besides being an addict. Just something to think about... it's very easy for me to judge others without having experienced such a situation myself, and when I see my friend suffer with unbearable pain, dying slowly, I just wish that he takes his morphine all the time so that his last few days go in peace... Believe me, the way this guy approaches life, his cancer, death, the way he talks, the acceptance, I haven't seen in most of the multiple-year oldtimers for a long time now...

And most importantly, I feel it's not the drug that creates problems for an addict... it's the disease of addiction! And being dishonest can easily afflict any of us even without taking pain medication or anti-depressant, in any area of our lives, if we do not work the program...

Sometime back, I suffered severe dental pain due to an abscess there, I had to take certain pain medication for 3 days to be able to bear it. Believe me, nothing was different for me. I still made meetings. I still woke up with my Serenity Prayer and JFT reading, I still tried to apply my Steps throughout those days. Period.

As for substitution therapies and all, I just do not know what to say...

-- Edited by Tahir on Thursday 1st of July 2010 02:44:09 PM

another thought while we are at it - what about those who are physically abstinent from using drugs but are into other addictions like gambling, sex etc.? Can they lead recovery or NA service activities?

And to take it further, deviating from other 12-step fellowships, we address our addiction as a whole rather than relate to but one symptom of our disease alone - our drug use. Obsession, compulsion, self-centeredness, denial, our defects of character... these are the main parts of our disease that lead to some addictive behavior, be it using drugs, or gambling, or acting out on our defects. Doesn't any of these releases our addiction all over again? So who is "clean" then? How many or how few among us? Who is to lead our activities then?

Our disease is progressive, we do not have to use drugs for it to progress, of course the progression could be due to our using, but it could be due to using our defects, not necessarily our drugs. Could it not be so? Just a little obsessing over this issue here... lol...

This is a very delicate and unusual topic, if a person is using prescribed drug by an informed profressional who am I to say this person is not in recovery. I would have to look at how the addict is living life. Is the addict being honest openminded and willing, or is he being dishonest, closeminded and unwilling. It says in the 1st step that we admitted we where powerless over our addiction and that our lives had become unmanaegable. It doesn't care about the drugs. in actuality it says in our literature that we don't care what or how much you used... but only what you want to do about your problemn and how we can help.
It is not mine to judge another addicts recovery, if the group conscience decides that this addict is able to hold a trusted servents position, then it is my job to be the voice of the group conscience. "for our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority ... a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience."  So i guess the answer is it depends on the individual and the group conscience. At least that is how I see it.

Well this is Narcotics Anonymous, and seems like my identification as an addict is as a drug addict.
My life becomes very complicated when I begin thinking that every other possibe addiction to an event or object is my addiction too.the most impoirtant thing NA has taught me is that

The most important tactic for resolution ive learned in NA is that when an object or event or feeling makes my life un-manageable, then it is the dis-ease at work,,,,

and that can include too much love ?????


Ive noticed that in the course of service, people that took service positions lasted when lives were manageable but didnt when not.

The UK and Eurpoean Fellowship had decided at their Regional meeting (EDM) that the use of methadone, etc. did not constitute clean time.
Strange thing is that when I was there, I bucked that treand and sponsored a youngster that was on methadone.
I got him to think of it, he consulted his doc. and went on a taper and then three months later, was off it and is still off meth, a year later.

My own experince in that case was that when he was on full dose, he was aggressive, very talkative, incorrigeable etc.
so simple messages about the nature of recovery did not enter his mind.
This was contrasted by the opposite behaviour as he tapered off,,,,,,

Then this other addict, an NA friend wished he'd known of NA rather than meth..
he says he was on meth. for 14 years or so and believes he has lived a wated life...
All I could do was console him by saying that , when we get clean and live this 12 Step Tradition, life gives us a second chance.


Let me also share that in my association with the NHS (National Health Services) in England, I noticed that there was a trend by this government agency to move away from the methodone route towards the total abstinence route for recovery from addiction.
The NHS is a government body that adresses the health needs of all citizens and for free.
For many addicts that want to quit, the NHS is the first point of contact.
Previously they put addicts thru counselling and then meth. but now are looking at the total abstinence programs as a viable alternative.

The main contention of the NHS researchers was that addicts on methadone were restricted form becoming free, responsible and productive memers of society.
I took part in field work where NA participated in a congress of all those in the field, organized by NHS.
NA was being seen as the best alternative to the meth.programs.

And we in the NA community were active in our co-operation....

And based on what I heard from other old-timers there, I was also very interested in knowing more about how we could better carry the message in those realms.

Most importantly, the Basic Text clearly proclaims that

" MANY BOOKS HAVE BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT THE NATURE OF ADDICTION.
THIS BOOK PRIMARILY CONCERNS ITSELF WITH THE NATURE OF RECOVERY.
IF YOU ARE AN ADDICT AN HAVE FOUND THIS BOOK, PLEASE GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK
AND READ IT".

The message is clear; what is recovery ???

thanks for those insights Rosie (Bruce?) anyway your comments are well thought out and sincere.
I started this because it has been simmering inside of me as a conflict. I think that says more about the current state of my recovery than anything else.
Ultimately I believe that love, acceptance and tolerance are the pillars of the fellowship so I hold my tongue and pray for acceptance and humility. I am most deeply in recovery when I behave in this manner.
thanks y'all

Hi Bruce buddy,,, welcome back mate,,
nice to have you back and share that stuff....

gosh man, youve had a great impact on my thinking,,,

You can not be unconcious to have a concious contact with HP -