If you are wondering if NA can help, these are some of the questions we have asked ourselves:
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- Are we sure we want to stop using?
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- Do we understand that we have no real control over drugs?
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- Do we recognize that in the long run, we didn’t use drugs— they used us?
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- Did jails and institutions take over the management of our lives at different times?
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- Do we fully accept the fact that our every attempt to stop using or control our using failed?
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- Do we know that our addiction changed us into something we didn’t want to be: dishonest, deceitful, self-willed people at odds with ourselves and our fellow man?
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- Do we really believe that, as drug users, we have failed?
When we were using, reality became so painful that oblivion was preferable. We tried to keep other people from knowing about our pain. We isolated ourselves, and lived in prisons built out of our loneliness. Through this desperation we sought help in Narcotics Anonymous. When we come to Narcotics Anonymous we are physically, mentally, and spiritually bankrupt. We have hurt long enough that we are willing to go to any length to stay clean.
Our only hope is to live by the example of those who have faced our dilemma, and have found a way out. Regardless of who we are, where we came from, or what we have done, we are accepted in Narcotics Anonymous. Our addiction gives us a common ground for understanding one another.
As a result of attending a few meetings, we begin to feel like we finally belong. It is in these meetings that we are introduced to the Twelve Steps of Narcotics Anonymous. We learn to work them in the order they are written and to use them on a daily basis. The steps are our solution. They are our survival kit. They are our defence, for addiction is a deadly disease. Our steps are the principles that make our recovery possible.
We hold NA meetings in:
Billericay, Essex
Bradford, West Yorkshire
Ipswich, Suffolk
Saxmundham, Suffolk
Middleton, Manchester