Welcome to Narcotics Anonymous of NJ. Our Message Is…
That an addict, any addict can stop using drugs,
lose the desire to use, and find a new way to live.
Helpline
If you feel you have a problem with drugs, call our helpline
Events
See upcoming NA events and activities in NJ
Narcotics Anonymous 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 stay clean.
– Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text, page 9
Recovery from addiction is possible and available through the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions of Narcotics Anonymous.
Narcotics Anonymous is FREEDOM from active addiction.
Narcotics Anonymous is an international, community-based association of recovering drug addicts with over 61,000 weekly meetings in over 131 countries worldwide.
Just for Today
Finding balance in recovery is quite a bit like sitting down with a set of scales and a pile of sand. The goal is to have an equal amount of sand on each side of the scales, achieving a balance of weight.
We do the same thing in recovery. We sit down with the foundation of our clean time and the Twelve Steps, then attempt to add employment, household responsibilities, friends, sponsees, relationships, meetings, and service in equal weights so that the scales balance. Our first try may throw our personal scales out of kilter. We may find that, because of our over-involvement in service, we have upset our employer or our family. But when we try to correct this problem by resigning from NA service altogether, the other side of the scales go out of balance.
We can ask for help from members who have stabilized their scales. These people are easy to recognize. They appear serene, composed, and self-assured. They'll smile in recognition at our dilemma and share how they slowed down, added only a few grains of sand at a time to either side of the scales, and were rewarded with balance in recovery.
A Spiritual Principle a Day
Many of us can say: "Relapse is a part of my story."
From our own experience and from listening to each other share, we know the possibility that we might not stay clean is very real. What causes an addict in recovery to choose to get high again? It can be anything, really, but an unaware "I got this" can be especially dangerous. We tire of hearing the message, sharing the message, and, frankly, each other. The sun goes down and comes back up on what seems like the same day. We become increasingly cranky and unfulfilled. Having become disillusioned with life clean but without recovery, maybe we even quit going to meetings. Eventually, we reach outside of ourselves to fix our insides and use again. When we come back to the rooms, we tell our story of complacency and sitting on that stepwork.
While there are endless versions of the relapse story, we all have heard the ones that don't have happy Narcotics Anonymous endings. Not everybody makes it back to NA and has the opportunity for another go at recovery. Knowing we could die out there--or not die but bring ruin to our livelihood and relationships--doesn't keep us clean. So . . . what does?
We know the answer to the question. It's pushing through with the basics of Steps, service, sponsor, and Higher Power. It's breathing life into our recovery in whatever ways we can. Start a new meeting? Take on another sponsee? Read the daily "SPAD" entry? It's doing what we all have done in the past, again, just for today. It's carrying the message to a newcomer to remind ourselves of where we came from and what was so freely given to us. It's not picking up, even when we want to. It's staying, even when we don't want to. Perseverance can be an antidote to complacency. We want to live, so we have to keep on living.
We don't need a new relapse story, or one at all. It's preventable, not inevitable.
