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
When we think of being desperate, we envision an undesirable state: a poor, bedraggled soul frantically clawing at something sorely needed, a desperate look in the eyes. We think of hunted animals, hungry children, and of ourselves before we found NA.
Yet it was the desperation we felt before coming to NA that compelled us to accept the First Step. We were fresh out of ideas, and so became open to new ones. Our insanity had finally risen higher than our wall of denial, forcing us to get honest about our disease. Our best efforts at control had only worn us out; hence, we became willing to surrender. We had received the gift of desperation and, as a result, were able to accept the spiritual principles that make it possible for us to recover.
Desperation is what finally drives many of us to ask for help. Once we've reached this state, we can turn around and start anew. Just as the desperate, hunted animal seeks a safe haven, so do we: in Narcotics Anonymous.
A Spiritual Principle a Day
Hope and resilience so often seem to be interconnected.
In active addiction, our resilience was largely based on our dishonesty. Many of us bounced back from difficulties thanks to our capacity for manipulation, shadiness, and flat-out denial. Hope kept us going, too--even if our only hope was to not get caught. When our kid, a coworker, or current friend-with-benefits confronted us with the truth, trying to make us see how we hurt or disappointed them, we could not and would not deal with that. Same with law enforcement: "I swear, officer, that's not mine--these aren't even my pants." Anything that poked a hole in the story we told ourselves was to be soundly rejected. Or else, it was the beginning of the end--which clearly it was because here we are reading an entry from an NA book of spiritual principles.
Our resilience lands us--and then keeps us--in NA. When our powerlessness and unmanageability are revealed to us in Step One, we stay, despite the desire to escape. Through meetings, our first service commitment, relationships with other recovering addicts, and a Higher Power, we find hope that we can stay clean.
Instead of avoiding the truth, our solution is now to uncover it. The process of working the Twelve Steps thoroughly--whether it's the very first time we are diving in or the hundredth--involves actively and methodically confronting our disease, our ego, our flaws, our fears, and our mistakes. As a result, we often experience considerable pain, regret, and shame. But hope is here, too, among those revelations--hope for serenity, for courage, and for wisdom. We may not experience a "surge" of hope, as in the quotation above, but a spark will do just fine to keep us bouncing back and moving forward.
