For the Newcomer
NA is a nonprofit fellowship or society of men and women for whom drugs had become a
major problem. We are recovering addicts who meet regularly to help each other to stay clean.
There are no dues or fees. The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop using.
You don’t have to be clean when you get here, but after your first meeting we suggest that
you keep coming back and come clean. You don’t have to wait for an overdose or jail sentence
to get help from NA, nor is addiction a hopeless condition from which there is no recovery. It is
possible to overcome the desire to use drugs with the help of the Twelve Step program of
Narcotics Anonymous and the fellowship of recovering addicts.
Addiction is a disease that can happen to anyone. Some of us used drugs because we enjoyed
them, while others used to suppress the feelings we already had. Still others suffered from
physical or mental ailments and became addicted to the medication prescribed during our
illnesses. Some of us joined the crowd using drugs a few times just to be cool and later found
that we could not stop.
Many of us tried to overcome addiction, and sometimes temporary relief was possible, but it
was usually followed by an even deeper involvement than before.
Whatever the circumstances, it really doesn’t matter. Addiction is a progressive disease such
as diabetes. We are allergic to drugs. Our ends are always the same: jails, institutions, or death.
If life has become unmanageable and you want to live without it being necessary to use drugs,
we have found a way.
Am I an addict?
This may not be an easy thing to do. All through our usage, we told ourselves, “I can handle
it.” Even if this was true in the beginning, it is not so now. The drugs handled us. We lived to
use and used to live. Very simply, an addict is a person whose life is controlled by drugs.
Perhaps you admit you have a problem with drugs, but you don’t consider yourself an addict.
All of us have preconceived ideas about what an addict is. There is nothing shameful about being
an addict once you begin to take positive action. If you can identify with our problems, you may
be able to identify with our solution. The following questions were written by recovering addicts
in Narcotics Anonymous.
Only you can answer this question, so if you have doubts about whether or not you’re an addict, take a few
moments to read the questions from here and answer them as honestly as you can.
(Text Taken from IP #7 and # 16)
