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
By the time we reached the end of our road, many of us had lost all hope for a life without the use of drugs. We believed we were destined to die from our disease. What an inspiration it was, then, coming to our first meeting and seeing a room full of addicts who were staying clean! A clean addict is, indeed, a vision of hope.
Today, we give that same hope to others. The newcomers see the joyful light in our eyes, notice how we carry ourselves, listen to us speak in meetings, and often want what we have found. They believe in us until they learn to believe in themselves.
Newcomers hear us carry a message of hope to them. They tend to see us through "rose-colored glasses." They don't always recognize our struggle with a particular character defect or our difficulties with improving our conscious contact with our Higher Power. It takes them time to realize that we, the "oldtimers" with three or six or ten years clean, often place personalities before principles or suffer from some other unsightly character defects.
Yes, the newcomer sometimes places us on a pedestal. It is good, though, to openly admit the nature of our struggles in recovery for, in time, the newcomer will be walking through those same trials. And that newcomer will remember that others walked through that difficulty and stayed clean.
A Spiritual Principle a Day
Living clean and working the Steps gives us loads of practical experience with applying spiritual principles. Open-mindedness unlocks some doors for us in Step Two, and we learn the benefits of being flexible in our thinking. The trust required to turn our will and lives over in Step Three gives us new confidence in the quiet knowing we might call our faith or intuition. With these and other experiences to draw from, it gets easier to align our actions with spiritual principles. With enough practice, spiritual solutions become second nature. We find ourselves more flexible in our thinking and more ready than ever to engage in creative problem solving.
We practice listening to our intuition and learn to sift out impulses that are rooted in the disease. We tune in to what some call our higher selves, the better angels of our nature, or simply good judgment to find inspiration that's more closely aligned with our spiritual center. One member shared, "With some time clean and some Steps under my belt, I realized that my head wasn't always trying to kill me." Sometimes we're inspired to give up our seat on a crowded bus, to take a panel into a treatment center, or to get back to our education--age be damned!
Creative action of the spirit can lead us in any number of directions. We continue to be amazed by our creative capacity to craft spiritual solutions to the challenge of living life on life's terms. We stumble upon new career paths, find new ways to serve, and learn new lessons. When we are engaged in living in the world and participating with other humans, our focus shifts from our self-centeredness to a more global perspective. That shift might be just what we need to live in the solution as regular contributors to the greater good.
