One Disease - One Program

[godsonmyside]

One Disease - One Program

In the early days, it was not uncommon for our members to go to many places seeking recovery. Then in the late seventies and early eighties, something different started happening.

Sponsor of the Opposite Sex - In many of our smaller, growing communities, it was hard to establish, much less maintain, standards of conduct emphasizing our desire for spiritual growth. People on the path will fall prey to all sorts of mishaps, even in love. Talking about spiritual principles is not foreplay. Many of the emotions of heightened awareness and excitement make it easy to side tracked from recovery into the ordinary things of life. If a sponsor is a guide to principled living, then sex is no matter. If it becomes a matter, we need to be real enough to separate the two human experiences: the desire for satisfaction from the desire for a new life.
NA Sponsor -There was a time when it was hard to find an NA member with more than a few years clean. Each one of our fledgling communities in the seventies and eighties went through a period of establishment as the dream of NA recovery became a reality. Members began to be able to draw on other members for strength. NA sponsors became more widely available.
90 in 90 - Ninety meetings in ninety days allows a person to contact and re-contact other members over a sufficient period of time to experience the beginnings of some definite changes. That others really have had the exact same experiences and confusion we have had sinks into our minds and hearts. We discover we care for some of these people and as we take an interest in their well being, we begin to experience the loss of self-obsession. We get curious about the NA Way of Live and may begin to really work the NA 12 Step Program of recovery.
Get involved - As we become more caught up in what members are doing, we discover feelings and attitudes that may have been sleeping in us for quite a while. We begin to care. As we shift our focus from purely selfish concerns, we actually make the inner movement from someone who is 'around' the program to someone who is 'in' the program. This is when we actually become involved in the program. We make commitments and keep them. We show up on time. We become known to other members and a part of our NA community.
Stay away from the opposite sex - Early on, it was hard to tell what was meant by avoiding emotional relationships for a year. It sounded like well-meaning institution speak for "do not get pregnant or catch a venereal disease while in our hospital, we are responsible for you!" Actually, considering we will die, that means everything gets messed up, even our sex lives! Putting time and energy into one thing can only occur at the expense of others. Get recovery first, then you can enjoy the other things in life without obsession or compulsion. Sex and emotional involvements produce endorphines and we can learn to 'fix' on love as easy as dope or money!
No relationships for a year - Getting a year clean is a real event in the life of any addict! Consider if recovery were an obstacle course, would you knowingly throw rail road ties and concrete blocks along the pathway in front of you? Would you avoid doing homework and cut your exams in school? Would you keep your job if you took off three or four days a week? Almost nothing has as much power over our emotions, self-image and pleasure circuits as a romantic relationship.
Do not pick up - Making 'not using' an option short circuits most of the diseases power over us, at least for a while. While this may seem like 'conditioning' in some negative respect, it is actually 'conditioning' in its best respect! Substitute going to meetings, visiting members, going to NA dances and functions, reading recovery literature for using. Substitute almost anything for using. Do not use. Really!
Get and use phone numbers - Our greatest resource and the primary service of NA is clean addicts. Staying in touch by phone or internet makes recovery part of our daily life. Quickly and naturally, we find a way of clearing away habits of thought that might lead us back to using and discussing clean ways of looking at life. This is how addicts can adapt to living without using.

Come early/stay late is something many members miss out on. If we are never among the first members to show up for a meeting, we get the association that the meeting is there for us without us ever being there for the meeting. Help set up a meeting regularly. Then stay late to help clean it up "better than we found it." You will never really feel a part of NA unless you do these chores. Those who get involved with their home group and become so involved they are among the first members to show up at the weekly meeting get a deep sense of involvement. Watching the new members come in and the rounds of exchanged greetings, gives us a real sense of the fellowship. Staying late and helping with the clean up also deepens this sense of being a part of the NA Fellowship. Leave our meeting place better than we find it. This basic has helped us enjoy a great range of meeting places. It speaks well of our validity as a recovery program and makes us experience the positive feelings of being responsible at the same time.

pray in AM... help

pray in PM.. Thanks

help another addict

Making and keeping commitments to other addicts, groups and meetings.

Home group involvement ... what it is and why it is

Group Conscience meetings... not business meetings.. Attendance a must

Listen and take direction... follow it too

Share in every meeting... at least the first 3 to share to insure no bullshit.

Get with the old-timers and newcomers too.

Give out and get phone numbers

Get to the meeting early.

Go out after the meeting for coffee, food addicts house.

Fellowship with all

Get into service structure

Serve the home group

Read any and all lit about NA

Go to out of town meetings

Support struggling groups/meetings

Start new meetings

Do local PI/H&I work

Stay away from people, places and things that might get you loaded

Watch out for indirect obsession

Do not act our on feelings

Make a decision... where you gonna serve

Contact your sponsor every day

No major decisions in the first year

Do not do anything without talking to your sponsor first

Write about your feelings

Stay for the whole meeting

Do not leave during the meeting... you might miss something that will save your life

A full meeting is from the opening prayer to the closing prayer

Put up newcomers

Give people rides

Go that one extra mile... stay on the phone one extra minute...

Speak in language that reflects the NA way of life

Read the meeting readings

Speak after 90/90

speak on your anniversary

No drug a logs

Do not give therapeutic type feedback in meetings

Do not make comments after people share

Do not chair a meeting like a therapist runs group therapy

Gotta give it away to keep it

Willing to go to any length to stay clean

Do things we do not want or like to do

Have group conscience meetings on a regular basis

People share willingly in the meetings.. no raising of hands, just introduce

Do not call on people in meetings

Go around the room if needed so people will share

Fill all of the meeting/group trusted servant positions

Go to all NA events in the town, area and region

Support other NA in the town

Doing something good for someone and not telling anyone that you did it

http://www.nawol.org/2003_ch14%20TOUGH.htm

[andyaddict]

Patiently searching for the swastika emoticon to show my support.

[godsonmyside]

I liked what I was reading from the NA Way of Life. Of course, I forgot the link. So I edited and put the link for its originalitiy!!!!!!

[namommy]

I must be losing it!! Do you mean the NA Way Magazine that comes from World? I just read it on Friday, and I don't remember that. Now I gotta go find it and read it again.

[godsonmyside]

NA Way of Life wrtten by other members!!

[andyaddict]

THAT COMES FROM THE "NA Way of Life?!?"

Eeeewwww... I'm gonna have to go have a little talk with Bo, some of that XXXX XXXX ( expletives ) has got to go.

There’s loads of good stuff in there, but there’s a lot of separatist, purist jargon mixed in with it. Spirituality and the practice of spiritual principle is not confined within the boundaries of the NA fellowship. It is evidence in all we do and everywhere we go. Each and every member can be thought of as drawing energy from the God of their understanding when sharing with a group. If this were true, putting a 90 day limitation on such a message would run contrary to our principles.

There are many other holes in the preceding; there are many wonderful revelations as well. I hope each takes the time to find their own truth amongst the mix as they grow and mature in recovery.

andyaddict
Los Angeles

[godsonmyside]

Ther are alot of suggestions here, some apply some are not my suggestion as well. I don't believe you should wait 90 meetings to speak, most things in there a good. In my area I picked up on the dont leave during the meeting part. We have people in/out in/out during 90 minutes. The getting involved parts. I heard Greg P. talk about if you feel you don't fit in with other NA members, then do what members who fit in are doing.
Thanks, Todd

[Recoveree]

Originally Posted by namommy

I must be losing it!! Do you mean the NA Way Magazine that comes from World? I just read it on Friday, and I don't remember that. Now I gotta go find it and read it again.

No not the NA Way magazine. The NA WAy of Life.jJust some writings by some NA members who follow the 'teachings' of Bo and Grover and other disgruntled former members of who served in WS, mostly some years back.

It is not 'NA Fellowship Approved" literature. As in any stuff members write, there are good things to be gleaned from it but for me, the negativity of the work as a whole turns me off. The constant bashing of World Services by people who are not involved anymore is anything but unity. They also seem to focus on some events that happened over 20 years ago and keep talking about it as if it is still happening..
By the way, guess who owns the copyright to their literature.

[servicejunkie]

I'm an addict named Mike. I know several of the hundreds of addicts who have participated in putting together that book, including some of the leaders. Yes, some of the OTHER literature by this group is a little bit biased, particularly "the traditions war" book, or the story of the basic text book (and these books do discuss many CURRENT tradition violations at NAWS). The NA way of life book really doesn't even discuss world services and barely goes into our history. If the president of the US came out a few years after his term of office with lots of direct proof of constitutional violations, shady dealings, lies, deceit, manipulation, ext......, that's something that we should maybe consider taking a look at. We should listen to what most --ALL-- the founding fathers of NA as we know it today have to say!! These guys have seen alot of people's lives and recovery destoyed by some of these practices, and feel that people should know the TRUTH about what HAS happened and STILL IS happening in the fellowship. And the reality of it is, alot of our literature is not truly "fellowship approved", including our 4th and 5th edition basic texts and the clarity statement amoung other things!! Heck, those editions are really ILLEGAL if you look into the court precedings that have taken place in the past (six figures in 7th tradition funds spent, and the judge ruled totally against World Services.) "Not anything but unity"--- they have only formed the worlds LARGEST home group, with the most clean time, and with members from like 8-10 different countries!!! Sounds like unity to me!!! If anyone wants to check out some of the best history in this fellowship, check out www.nawol.org , alot of these people are really misunderstood by the fellowship, they don't mean harm, and we would probably not be here in recovery if they had not laid the groundwork for us!! We should at least hear what the have to say.

[godsonmyside]

Mike,
I have been on there and agree with you!! As had been said that if you thinks something should be different, Invite a loving Godd in and write, these guys go all over the country to hold workshops. I've met a couple of them years ago right here at a convention. They are living their Dream, I can actually nothing but learn from what they have to offer.
Todd J.

[Gooch]

Originally Posted by andyaddict

There’s loads of good stuff in there, but there’s a lot of separatist, purist jargon mixed in with it.

You just described every recovering addict I ever met! no matter how spiritual, I or they think they are.

Originally Posted by andyaddict

I hope each takes the time to find their own truth amongst the mix as they grow and mature in recovery.

Yup yup!

I was clean a long time before i ever heard about the counterfeit texts, or some of the other outrageous attempts to dopefiend the message.

It's not so amazing that the energies we used to use to cop, use, and feed our disease, can be so easily transferred to trying to pass along the greatest high we ever conceived..

We work the steps and come to an understanding of the progran for ourselves right? Then when we share the messsage in our own words based on our experience, it reaches some and pisses others off.

Its a win win, no win situation.

I would like it if everybody could get this recovery thing, so I do my best to be so tolerant of the addict who might otherwise identify himself or share a load of psycho babble, that I think the addict who does identify himself as an addict and shares his experience, strength, and hope of the ridgid hard cores who finallly got their message through to him may need censoring ?

[Shakur T.]

Seems like a waste of time to me...This is about staying clean, learning a new way to live and carrying the message to those who still suffer. I'm glad that we in this area don't get into this type of thing.

Why do we talk about unity in one breath, and who we should listen to in the next breath. Damn, we just have to have drama, don't we?

"separatist, purist jargon".... I'm lost. I've been clean for almost 16 years and this is all new to me.

[servicejunkie]

I would like to appologize if I came out over opinionated or even arrogant in my above post. Everyone doesn't have to agree with me, thank god everyone doesn't. I can truly appreciate all of our differences, thats what makes the unity and unconditional love in NA an amazing thing. I don't have to allow the corporate/government stuff that goes on affect me or my recovery, I am informed and don't have to be manipulated. I can recover as long as WE have WE. The great thing about this literature is that --ANY-- addict can participate in writing it or improving it!!! Truly written for addicts BY addicts, and I know andy will help make it better by giving his two cents. I definately agree, some of those suggestions are a little hardcore, NOBODY could possible do ALL those things!!

[Imagine]

This is a great thread, thanks to everyone for sharing. I am Jerome and I am an addict. As far as some of the suggestions being "Hardcore" I was a hardcore user and my addiction wanted me dead. I had to be just as hardcore with my recovery if I was going to live, that's how it has to be for this addict. Progress over Perfection is all I hope for. The great thing about our program is that it works for us all, and all we have to do is to work it, in the way that works for us. Going to meeting, getting a sponsor, and working the steps is how we find our own program of recovery. Thanks for letting me share, I love you all.......................Peace.