The Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text

[Chance]

I have been doing a huge amount of studying from the NA Basic Text and trying my best to apply this to my daily life. However being human I find myself falling short many times, of course it is my old ideals that stand in the way. One of the things that I have really come to live, like so many other things is the Just For Today!

This part of the program really helps me to realize that I am always going to be human and that only through understanding and application does this deal work. It says through understanding! I know that for me I can understand most of it but actually it comes through the application that it truly works. I guess that is that action part of the program right!?!

Tell yourself:

* Just For Today: My thoughts will be on my recovery, living and enjoying life without the use of drugs.

* Just For Today: I will have faith in someone in N.A. who believes in me and wants to help me in my recovery.

* Just For Today: I will have a program. I will try to follow it to the best of my ability.

* Just For Today: Through N.A. I will try to get a better perspective on my life.

* Just For Today: I will be unafraid, my thoughts will be on my new associations, people who are not using and who have found a new way of life. So long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear.

In my own opinion I think that this is a very huge step in living the Program of Narcotics Anonymous. Of course we have all phases of the Program; the steps, sponsorship, the traditions, and it is just like a piece of pie they all pull together in order to make recovery possible.

I know here lately that I have quit doing several things in my program, especially during the Christmas time. I had to get back to the basics of the program and start applying them in my life again. It is so easy to get off track! One thing that I am grateful for today is knowing when I am getting off track, then I have to turn a little bit in order to get back on the road. So grateful tonight and just needed to share.

Thanks for allowing a junkie like me to recover and be a part of the great whole.

With Love and Respect

Vic

[Heartinpieces]

Thanks for posting this Vic. I have been really happy lately and haven't been to a meeting for about a week! That alone tells me I'm getting off track, so my asssss will be in a meeting tomorrow morning before it falls off!

Happy New Year!
xo
heart

[Timebuster]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us Vic.

These are a few words from Chapter 6
Recovery Process

This chapter has help me with my stinking thinking on many occasions.


We battle to understand that we have the right to self-inspection. We don't fight each other or outsiders, we find our own disease. Our disease can convince us that spending time finding a belief that works for us, doing an inventory, or making amends is the ultimate selfishness. We have the right to relax our fear of others and we experience our progress emotionally. Hey, recovery is great! We begin to experience curiosity, openness and positive expectations daily. Fear after fear bites the dust. The healing that we feel on the inside allows us to become more open to others. The objective of ongoing recovery is to keep the growth process alive and happening daily.

Practicing principles is the best way to achieve ongoing recovery. When someone complains that they feel like they are not growing in recovery, one of us must remind them that it us their choices that make up their lives. It may be that they have slacked-off on some aspect of their spiritual maintenance but may never look for it unless guided to it by someone who cares. When we each get back to what is important to us, we see colorful and vivid images instead of the usual bland, gray world. We can not always hit our own 'reset button' and we soon learn that our need for one another is very real. Clean addicts are the ultimate weapon in our fight to get a second life. Through them, we see the world with new eyes. Doors open to us. Solutions and fresh ideas spring into our minds.

In NA, we are learning to change ‘who we are’ on the inside so we can live better on the outside. Like active addiction, recovery develops its own momentum. Coming face to face with oneself has never been easy and searching for the truth is even harder. It begins with a simple acknowledgment that we have a disease and we need help from others like ourselves. If we have the benefits of accepting the disease concept and have done a complete First Step, we find it easier to recognize when our disease pops up no matter how much time we have in recovery. As individuals, we may have many pet theories about the disease concept but our combined experience is available at any meeting. If we find ourselves depressed for no apparent reason, we need to re-evaluate our lives. Asking for help is a good way to start and is the best way to keep getting help. With this help, we may see that we have resentment against someone who has harmed us but we do not want to cause harm in return. Our disease makes it hard to ask for help because it would rather keep us angry or confused. We give up, show up, sit down, but most importantly we do not pick up a drug or some substitute. Our basic choice in any situation is either freedom or bondage but it is only available if we can see the choice is ours.

We had searched high and low for the ultimate meaning of life in the belief that it would give us the elusive feelings of control or understanding. We were convinced that finding that elusive prize would allow us to settle down, take root, and break our self-destructive patterns. We never took the time nor gave ourselves a chance to heal. This may sound like someone in this stage of recovery is neglecting their program. That's not true! They work steps, expand their understanding of the Narcotics Anonymous Program and most importantly stay clean. However, there is more to learn on this path of recovery. Most often, we have to slow down, not speed up, to get with the program.


We find ourselves in crises yet may not even realize that we often create our own crises. Some of us have become accident-prone to justify getting and taking medication. We may fight with people for no good reason and experience that familiar hung-over sensation even without using drugs. When we lived our lives based on lies, we experienced pain and destruction. When we use truth to guide our lives, we find joy and freedom. Once we understand this concept, we can apply it in all areas of our lives. The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions are the keys to living free from our addiction. In Narcotics Anonymous, miracles happen when we know what we need to do and find the strength to do it. It doesn't matter whether our natural response is to ‘rage’ outwardly or ‘stuff it’ inwardly, we must learn to manage without using drugs. This is part of what we call having a choice. We claim the right to determine our reactions to people, places and things that used to control us. This is why spiritual growth is so important to our recovery.

When we finally surrendered to our addiction and worked the First Step, we fully expected the world to come crashing down around us. The First Step tells us that if we continue to remain alone - we will suffer from the horrors of addiction: degradation, dereliction, insanity and death. We have run for so long that we thought our anonymity shielded us from destruction. When we admitted that we could not manage our lives, we see some opportunities for change. We begin to see change as a solution that is spiritual in nature and will allow us to live happier lives. Some of us will not get through this period clean. Those addicts who relapse often have a hard time coming back and staying clean. Remorse over what they have thrown away causes them to dwell in the past and abandon the present. The addicts who make it back are the ones who can humble themselves, return to the basics and start living their lives anew. It is difficult, but it is better than the alternatives. Addicts who have put together some time after such a relapse, tell us they realize that their recovery is something they can never take for granted. The relapse process begins whenever we chose to practice the reverse of the recovery process. If we do not go to meetings, read the literature, and spend time with recovering addicts - we have begun negotiating the relapse process. The more we continue to leave off the things that work, the more certain we can be of the outcome. Relapse will occur.

The thoughts of using come to many of us frequently during early recovery. These thoughts can seem so real that we can almost taste the stuff. Some addicts even fantasize themselves right out of the rooms. We must accept that using thoughts are common to us and realize that we are not alone or unique when we experience them. It is quite normal for such thoughts to come especially during emotional crises. Some say that the time to worry would be when this did not happen. Arguments, the death of a loved one, losing a job, separation or divorce are some of the more recognizable situations that seem to trigger these thoughts. Many members share that sometimes they have these thoughts simply because they heard a familiar song on the radio, a blizzard hit town, or they ran into an old friend. We may find ourselves on dangerous ground because we find that our reservations actually increased our desire to use. Many have relapsed not realizing that this selective fantasizing is what took them out.


Even if we do not use, we can still give our addiction power. Becoming obsessed with multiple relationships, gambling, food, work, perfectionism, adrenaline addiction, danger highs, stealing, road rage, abuse, manipulating others, lying, or buying things to make us feel better robs us of our strength. We must face the truth. If we do not surrender and renew our commitment to recovery, we will be lost. The disease of addiction rules through fear and deception. We become convinced that we are alone and that the only answers lie in escape, manipulation and control. Giving up the burden of our secrets is essential to ongoing recovery. Looking within, we find many unfamiliar emotions. We must feel and work through these emotions, we have to grieve and rejoice or cry and laugh. Working the Steps, we write about the situation, how we feel, how things came to be, what it looks like and how we would like to see it resolved. It may take quite some time before we feel ‘back to normal.’ Maintaining close ties with our sponsor and home group during this phase of recovery is invaluable. We find support among our fellow addicts. Taking care to be good to ourselves, we accept where we are right now and love ourselves for who we are. We get to the other side of the situation and find that we have grown from the experience.


Peace and Love
Ivan