Narcotics Anonymous offers addicts a program of recovery that is more than just a life without drugs. Not only is this way of life better than the hell we lived, it is better than any life that we have ever known.
Basic Text, p. 107
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Few of us have any interest in recovering what we had before we started using. Many of us suffered severely from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Getting high and staying high seemed like the only possible way to cope with such abuse. Others suffered in less noticeable but equally painful ways before addiction took hold. We lacked direction and purpose. We were spiritually empty. We felt isolated, unable to empathize with others. We had none of the things that give life its sense and value. We took drugs in a vain attempt to fill the emptiness inside ourselves. Most of us wouldnt want to recover what we used to have.
Ultimately, the recovery we find in NA is something different: a chance at a new life. Weve been given tools to clear the wreckage from our lives. Weve been given support in courageously setting forth on a new path. And weve been given the gift of conscious contact with a Power greater than ourselves, providing us with the inner strength and direction we so sorely lacked in the past.
Recovering? Yes, in every way. Were recovering a whole new life, better than anything we ever dreamed possible. We are grateful.
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Just for today: Ive recovered something I never had, something I never imagined possible: the life of a recovering addict. Thank you, Higher Power, in more than words can say.
N.A. offers hope that the pain, confusion, emptiness, and spiritual and moral weakness which led me to seek any means of escape possible in the first place can be overcome. God is in the process of revealing to me that He does have the power to lift that burden, if I will do my part of the work involved in recovery.
No, what I had before I started using isn't something that I ever want to have again, but hope that my life can be better is what has led me here today.
