Three of these that are indispensable are honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. With these we are well on our way. We feel that our approach to the disease of addiction is completely realistic, for the therapeutic value of one addict helping another is without parallel. We feel that our way is practical, for one addict can best understand and help another addict. We believe that the sooner we face our problems within our society, in everyday living, just that much faster do we become acceptable, responsible, and productive members of that society.
The only way to keep from returning to active addiction is not to take that first drug. If you are like us you know that one is too many and a thousand never enough. We put great emphasis on this, for we know that when we use drugs in any form, or substitute one for another, we release our addiction all over again. Thinking of alcohol as different from other drugs has caused a great many addicts to relapse. Before we came to NA, many of us viewed alcohol separately, but we cannot afford to be confused about this.
Alcohol is a drug. We are people with the disease of addiction who must abstain from all drugs in order to recover. How It Works. We see it in all the things that are wrong with our lives. Again, our experiences are individual and vary widely from addict to addict. Some of us realized our lives had become unmanageable because we felt out of control emotionally or began to feel guilty about our drug use.
Some of us have lost everything-our homes, our families, our jobs, and our self-respect. Some of us never learned how to function as human beings at all.
Some of us have spent time in jails and institutions. And some of us have come very close to death. Whatever our individual circumstances, our lives have been governed by obsessive, compulsive, self-seeking behavior, and the end result has been unmanageability. Perhaps we arrived in NA without recognizing the problems we had for what they were. Because of our self-centeredness, we were often the last ones to realize that we were addicts. Many of us were persuaded by friends or family to begin attending NA meetings.
Other members received even stronger encouragement from the courts. No matter how it occurred, our long-standing illusions had to be shattered. Honesty had to replace denial before we could face the truth of our addiction.
Many of us recall the moment of clarity when we came face to face with our disease. All the lies, all the pretenses, all the rationalizations we had used to justify where we stood as a result of our drug use stopped working.
Who and what we were became more clear. We could no longer avoid the truth. We have found that we cannot recover without the ability to be honest. Many of us came to NA after spending years practicing dishonesty. However, we can learn to be honest, and we must begin to try. Learning to be honest is an ongoing process; we are able to become progressively more honest as we work the steps and continue to stay clean.
In the First Step, we begin to practice the spiritual principle of honesty by admitting the truth about our drug use. Then we go on to admit the truth about our lives. We face what is, not the way things could be or should be. It doesn't matter where we come from or how good or bad we think we've had it: when we finally turn to Narcotics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps, we begin to find relief.
As we begin working the First Step, it is important to ask ourselves some basic personal questions: Can I control my use of drugs? Am I willing to stop using? Am I willing to do whatever it takes to recover? Given a choice between finding a new way of life in NA and continuing in our addiction, recovery begins to appeal to us. We begin to let go of our reservations.
Most of us do have some reservations when we first get clean. Even so, we need to find ways of addressing them. Reservations can be anything: a belief that, because we never had a problem with one particular drug, we can still use it; placing a condition on our recovery.
With the help of other recovering addicts, we can find ways to put our reservations behind us. The most important thing for us to know about reservations is that, by keeping them, we are reserving a place in our program for relapse. Recovery begins when we start to apply the spiritual principles contained in the Twelve Steps of NA to all areas of our lives. We realize. Total abstinence from all drugs is the only way we can begin to overcome our addiction.
While abstinence is the beginning, our only hope for recovery is a profound emotional and spiritual change. Our experience shows that it is necessary for us to be willing to do anything it takes to obtain this precious gift of recovery. In recovery, we will be introduced to spiritual principles such as the surrender, honesty, and acceptance required for the First Step.
If we faithfully practice these principles, they will transform our perceptions and the way we live our lives. When we first begin to practice these principles, they may seem very unnatural to us.
It may take a deliberate effort on our part to make the honest admission called for in Step One. Even though we are admitting our addiction, we may still wonder if this program will really work. Acceptance of our addiction is something that goes beyond our conscious admission. When we accept our addiction, we gain the hope of recovery.
We begin to believe on a deep level that we, too, can recover. We begin to let go of our doubts and truly come to terms with our disease. We become open to change. We surrender. As we work the First Step, we find that surrender is not what we thought it was.
In the past, we probably thought of surrender as something that only weak and cowardly people did. We saw only two choices: either keep fighting to control our using or just cave in completely and let our lives fall to pieces. We felt we were in a battle to control our using and that, if we surrendered, the drugs would win.
In recovery, we find that surrender involves letting go of our reservations about recovery and being willing to try a different approach to living life. The process of surrender is extremely personal for each one of us. Only we, as individuals, know when we've done it.
We stress the importance of surrender, for it is the very process that enables us to recover. When we surrender, we know in our hearts that we've had enough. We're tired of fighting. A relief comes over us as we finally realize that the struggle is over. No matter how hard we fought, we finally reached the point of surrender where we realized that we couldn't stop using drugs on our own. We were able to admit our powerlessness over our addiction. We gave up completely. Even though we didn't know exactly what would happen, we gathered up our courage and admitted our powerlessness.
We gave up the illusion that we could control our using, thereby opening the door to recovery. Many of us begin the process of surrender when we identify ourselves at an NA meeting with our name and the words, "I am an addict.
The paradox of this admission is evident once we work the First Step. As long as we think we can control our drug use, we are almost forced to continue. The minute we admit we're powerless, we never have to use again. This reprieve from having to use is the most profound gift we can receive, for it saves our lives. Through our collective experience, we have found that we can accomplish together what we cannot do alone. It is necessary for us to seek help from other recovering addicts.
As we attend meetings regularly, we can find great comfort in the experiences of those traveling this path with us. Coming to NA has been described by many members as "coming home. We finally find a place where we belong.
Though we are sure to be helped by the sharing we hear at meetings, we need to find a sponsor to help us in our recovery. Beginning with the First Step, a sponsor can share with us his or her own experience with the steps. Listening to our sponsor's experience and applying it to our own lives is how we take advantage of one of the most beautiful and practical aspects of recovery: the therapeutic value of one addict helping another.
We hear in our meetings that "I can't, but we can. Through our developing relationship with our sponsor, we learn about the principle of trust. By following the suggestions of our sponsor instead of only our own ideas, we learn the principles of open-mindedness and willingness. Our sponsor will help us work the steps of recovery. Talking honestly with our sponsor about our drug use and how it affected our lives will help us work the First Step thoroughly.
We need always remember where we came from and where our addiction took us.
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