Narcotics Anonymous is a free, non-profit fellowship of people for whom drugs have become a major problem. NA’s program is open to addicts of all ages, nationalities, cultures, creed, gender identity, and religions. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using.
Our message is that an addict, any addict, can stop using drugs, lose the desire to use, and find a new way to live
Narcotics Anonymous offers one promise to our members, FREEDOM from active addiction.
We focus on the disease of addiction rather than any particular drug.
Our message is broad enough to attract addicts from any social class or nationality. When new members come to meetings, our sole interest is in their desire for freedom from active addiction and how we can be of help.
We cannot change the nature of the addict or addiction.
We can help to change that old lie “Once an addict, always an addict,” by striving to make recovery more available.
As addicts we are people whose use of any mind-altering mood-changing substance causes a problem in any area of our life.
Most of us did not consider ourselves addicted before coming to NA. As long as we could stop using for a while, we thought we were alright. We looked at the stopping, not the using. As our addiction progressed, we thought of stopping less and less. Only in desperation did we ask ourselves, “Could it be drugs?”
We did not choose to become addicts. We suffer from a disease that expresses itself in ways that are anti-social and that makes detection, diagnosis and treatment difficult.
Our disease isolated us from people except when we were getting, using and finding ways and means to get more. Hostile, resentful, self-centred and self-seeking, we cut ourselves off from the outside world.