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
There's an old saying we sometimes hear in our meetings: 'If you want to make God laugh, make plans.' When we hear this we usually laugh, too, but there's a nervous edge to our laughter. We wonder if all of our carefully laid plans are doomed to fail. If we're planning a big event--a wedding, a return to school, or perhaps a career change--we begin to wonder if our plans are the same as our Higher Power's plans. We are capable of working ourselves into such a frenzy of worry over this question that we refuse to make any plans at all.
But the simple fact is that we really don't know whether our Higher Power's plans for our lives are carved in stone or not. Most of us have opinions about fate and destiny but, whether we believe in such theories or not, we still have a responsibility to live our lives and make plans for the future. If we refuse to accept responsibility for our lives, we're still making plans--plans for a shallow, boring existence. What we make in recovery are plans, not results. We'll never know whether the marriage, the education, or the new job is going to work out until we try it. We simply exercise our best judgment, check with our sponsor, pray, use all the information at hand, and make the most reasonable plans we can. For the rest, we trust in the loving care of the God of our understanding, knowing that we've acted responsibly.
A Spiritual Principle a Day
So many of us have had the experience of calling our sponsor to complain about that terrible person at work or that loathsome family member or that insufferable fool at the area service committee meeting. If not for them, how peaceful and pleasant our lives would be! Our patient and loving sponsor gently asks, "Have you prayed for them?" So cliched!
Of course, sponsors tend to speak from experience--they know that when we pray for the people who bother us, we are often the ones who change. Sure, sometimes people around us do become more tolerable; people grow and change all the time--even insufferable fools. But when we pray for the people who bother us, we increase our own tolerance and compassion.
While everyone in the world has room for growth, tolerance is a much surer way for us to experience peace and harmony than simply waiting for those around us to get better. Some people will take a long time to change; others may never improve at all. If those around us aren't going to become more tolerable, our best solution may simply be to become more tolerant. This doesn't mean accepting unacceptable behavior; we still set healthy boundaries as appropriate. Our sponsor can help us sort out the tolerable from the unacceptable. We remind ourselves that we don't need to be friends with everyone--we just need to be able to play nice with others when we're at work, at family gatherings, and at service committee meetings.
