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
Pain and misery were realities in our using lives. We were unwilling either to accept our living situation or to change what was unacceptable in our lives. We attempted to escape life's pain by taking drugs, but using only compounded our troubles. Our altered sense of reality became a nightmare.
Through living the program of Narcotics Anonymous, we learn that our dreams can replace our nightmares. We grow and change. We acquire the freedom of choice. We are able to give and receive love. We can share honestly about ourselves, no longer magnifying or minimizing the truth. We accept the challenges real life offers us, facing them in a mature, responsible way.
Although recovery does not give us immunity from the realities of life, in the NA Fellowship we can find the support, genuine care, and concern we need to face those realities. We need never hide from reality by using drugs again, for our unity with other recovering addicts gives us strength. Today the support, the care, and the empathy of recovery give us a clean, clear window through which to view, experience, and appreciate reality as it is.
A Spiritual Principle a Day
One of the most painful lessons we learn in recovery is that we are each on our own path. No matter how much we want to help, close friends or partners sometimes relapse. Sponsees or other members we've tried to help may choose to get loaded. The same goes for members with significant cleantime whom we admire, and sometimes our sponsor (who's just another addict like we are) will be suffering in the rooms and keeping it to themselves--and will end up using again. The pain we feel in these situations takes many forms: grief, anger, betrayal, confusion, fear for our own recovery.
But we also feel deep compassion for another addict's pain. We try to let that compassion, rather than our pain, drive our actions.
NA members have different ideas about what compassion looks like. Some of us believe that if an addict is using and not coming to meetings, no contact should be made. Tough love. Others reach out to still-using addicts believing it's absolutely necessary to maintain that connection.
In some meetings, an empty chair is set out to represent the still-suffering addict, and--as a sort of collective compassion--we pray that seat gets filled. The most important thing we can do is to stay clean ourselves so that when the time comes, we will be there for any addict who is seeking help. The power of living by example should never be underestimated. Whatever our judgments, we can all agree that addicts should always be welcomed to meetings regardless of how many times they've relapsed, what they look or smell like, or what our history with them has been. As a Fellowship, our job is to practice compassion no matter what.
