Just for Today

Tell yourself:

JUST FOR TODAY my thoughts will be on my recovery,

living and enjoying life without the use of drugs.

JUST FOR TODAY I will have faith in someone in NA who

believes in me and wants to help me in my recovery.

JUST FOR TODAY I will have a program. I will try to follow it

to the best of my ability.

JUST FOR TODAY, through NA, I will try to get a better

perspective on my life.

JUST FOR TODAY I will be unafraid. My thoughts will be on

my new associations, people who are not using and
who have found a new way of life. So long as I follow
that way, I have nothing to fear.

Reprinted from the Little White Booklet, Narcotics Anonymous.

© 1986 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc., PO Box 9999, Van Nuys, CA 91409
ISBN 0-912075-65-1 10/00
 We Do Recover

When at the end of the road we find that we can no longer

function as a human being, either with or without drugs, we all
face the same dilemma. What is there left to do? There seems
to be this alternative: either go on as best we can to the bitter
ends—jails, institutions or death—or find a new way to live. In
years gone by, very few addicts ever had this last choice.
Those who are addicted today are more fortunate. For the first
time in man’s entire history, a simple way has been proving
itself in the lives of many addicts. It is available to us all. This is
a simple spiritual—not religious—program, known as Narcotics
Anonymous.

Reprinted from the White Booklet, Narcotics Anonymous.

© 1986 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc., PO Box 9999, Van Nuys, CA 91409
ISBN 0-912075-65-1 6/04
 The Twelve Traditions of NA
We keep what we have only with vigilance, and just as
freedom for the individual comes from the Twelve Steps, so
freedom for the group springs from our Traditions.
As long as the ties that bind us together are stronger than
those that would tear us apart, all will be well.
1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery
depends on NA unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—
a loving God as He may express Himself in our group
conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do
not govern.
3. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters
affecting other groups or NA as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry the
message to the addict who still suffers.
6. An NA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the NA
name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest
problems of money, property, or prestige divert us from our
primary purpose.
7. Every NA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining
outside contributions.
8. Narcotics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional,
but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. NA, as such, ought never be organized, but we may create
service boards or committees directly responsible to those
they serve.
10. Narcotics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence
the NA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than
promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at
the level of press, radio, and films.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions,
ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

(over)
 Understanding these Traditions comes slowly over a period
of time. We pick up information as we talk to members and visit
various groups. It usually isn’t until we get involved with service
that someone points out that “personal recovery depends on
NA unity,” and that unity depends on how well we follow our
Traditions. The Twelve Traditions of NA are not negotiable.
They are the guidelines that keep our Fellowship alive and free.
By following these guidelines in our dealings with others,
and society at large, we avoid many problems. That is not to
say that our Traditions eliminate all problems. We still have to
face difficulties as they arise: communication problems,
differences of opinion, internal controversies, and troubles
with individuals and groups outside the Fellowship. However,
when we apply these principles, we avoid some of the pitfalls.
Many of our problems are like those that our predecessors
had to face. Their hard won experience gave birth to the
Traditions, and our own experience has shown that these
principles are just as valid today as they were when these
Traditions were formulated. Our Traditions protect us from the
internal and external forces that could destroy us. They are
truly the ties that bind us together. It is only through
understanding and application that they work.

Twelve Traditions reprinted for adaptation by permission of AA World Services, Inc.

Reprinted from the Basic Text, Narcotics Anonymous, Fifth Edition.
© 1988 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc., PO Box 9999, Van Nuys, CA 91409
ISBN 0-912075-65-1 6/03
 How It Works
If you want what we have to offer, and are willing to make the
effort to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. These
are the principles that made our recovery possible:
1. We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that
our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves
could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the
care of God as we understood Him.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of
ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human
being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects
of character.
7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became
willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible,
except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were
wrong promptly admitted it.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our
conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying
only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry
that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps,
we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice
these principles in all our affairs.

(over)
 This sounds like a big order, and we can’t do it all at once.
We didn’t become addicted in one day, so remember—easy
does it.
There is one thing more than anything else that will defeat
us in our recovery; this is an attitude of indifference or
intolerance toward spiritual principles. Three of these that are
indispensable are honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness.
With these we are well on our way.
We feel that our approach to the disease of addiction is
completely realistic, for the therapeutic value of one addict
helping another is without parallel. We feel that our way is
practical, for one addict can best understand and help another
addict. We believe that the sooner we face our problems within
our society, in everyday living, just that much faster do we
become acceptable, responsible, and productive members
of that society.
The only way to keep from returning to active addiction is
not to take that first drug. If you are like us you know that
one is too many and a thousand never enough. We put great
emphasis on this, for we know that when we use drugs in any
form, or substitute one for another, we release our addiction
all over again.
Thinking of alcohol as different from other drugs has caused
a great many addicts to relapse. Before we came to NA, many
of us viewed alcohol separately, but we cannot afford to be
confused about this. Alcohol is a drug. We are people with the
disease of addiction who must abstain from all drugs in order
to recover.

Twelve Steps reprinted for adaptation by permission of AA World Services, Inc.

Reprinted from the Little White Booklet, Narcotics Anonymous.
© 1986 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc., PO Box 9999, Van Nuys, CA 91409
ISBN 0-912075-65-1 10/00
 Why Are We Here?
Before coming to the Fellowship of NA, we could not
manage our own lives. We could not live and enjoy life as other
people do. We had to have something different and we thought
we had found it in drugs. We placed their use ahead of the
welfare of our families, our wives, husbands, and our children.
We had to have drugs at all costs. We did many people great
harm but most of all we harmed ourselves. Through our
inability to accept personal responsibilities we were actually
creating our own problems. We seemed to be incapable of
facing life on its own terms.
Most of us realized that in our addiction we were slowly
committing suicide, but addiction is such a cunning enemy of
life that we had lost the power to do anything about it. Many of
us ended up in jail or sought help through medicine, religion,
and psychiatry. None of these methods was sufficient for us.
Our disease always resurfaced or continued to progress until
in desperation we sought help from each other in Narcotics
Anonymous.
After coming to NA, we realized we were sick people. We
suffered from a disease from which there is no known cure. It
can, however, be arrested at some point and recovery is then
possible.

Reprinted from the Little White Booklet, Narcotics Anonymous.

© 1986 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc., PO Box 9999, Van Nuys, CA 91409
ISBN 0-912075-65-1 10/00
 What Is the
Narcotics Anonymous
Program?
NA 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. This
is a program of complete abstinence from all drugs. There is
only one requirement for membership, the desire to stop using.
We suggest that you keep an open mind and give yourself a
break. Our program is a set of principles written so simply that
we can follow them in our daily lives. The most important thing
about them is that they work.
There are no strings attached to NA. We are not affiliated
with any other organizations. We have no initiation fees or
dues, no pledges to sign, no promises to make to anyone.
We are not connected with any political, religious, or law
enforcement groups, and are under no surveillance at any
time. Anyone may join us regardless of age, race, sexual
identity, creed, religion, or lack of religion.
We are not interested in what or how much you used or who
your connections were, what you have done in the past, how
much or how little you have, but only in what you want to do
about your problem and how we can help. The newcomer is
the most important person at any meeting, because we can
only keep what we have by giving it away. We have learned
from our group experience that those who keep coming to our
meetings regularly stay clean.

Reprinted from the Little White Booklet, Narcotics Anonymous.

© 1986 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc., PO Box 9999, Van Nuys, CA 91409
ISBN 0-912075-65-1 10/00
 Who Is an Addict?
Most of us do not have to think twice about this question.
We know! Our whole life and thinking was centered in drugs
in one form or another—the getting and using and finding
ways and means to get more. We lived to use and used
to live. Very simply, an addict is a man or woman whose
life is controlled by drugs. We are people in the grip of a
continuing and progressive illness whose ends are always
the same: jails, institutions, and death.

Reprinted from the Little White Booklet, Narcotics Anonymous.

© 1986 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc., PO Box 9999, Van Nuys, CA 91409
ISBN 0-912075-65-1 10/00