Welcome to the County Line Area
of Narcotics Anonymous
Serving: Agoura Hills, Moorpark, Newbury Park, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, and Westlake Village in Ventura County, California
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Serving: Agoura Hills, Moorpark, Newbury Park, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, and Westlake Village in Ventura County, California
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.
For more information on Narcotics Anonymous,
please go to the: Narcotics Anonymous World Services Website
November 09, 2026 |
The best-laid plans |
| Page 327 |
| "It is our actions that are important. We leave the results to our Higher Power." |
| Basic Text, p. 91 |
| There's an old saying we sometimes hear in our meetings: 'If you want to make God laugh, make plans.' When we hear this we usually laugh, too, but there's a nervous edge to our laughter. We wonder if all of our carefully laid plans are doomed to fail. If we're planning a big event--a wedding, a return to school, or perhaps a career change--we begin to wonder if our plans are the same as our Higher Power's plans. We are capable of working ourselves into such a frenzy of worry over this question that we refuse to make any plans at all. But the simple fact is that we really don't know whether our Higher Power's plans for our lives are carved in stone or not. Most of us have opinions about fate and destiny but, whether we believe in such theories or not, we still have a responsibility to live our lives and make plans for the future. If we refuse to accept responsibility for our lives, we're still making plans--plans for a shallow, boring existence. What we make in recovery are plans, not results. We'll never know whether the marriage, the education, or the new job is going to work out until we try it. We simply exercise our best judgment, check with our sponsor, pray, use all the information at hand, and make the most reasonable plans we can. For the rest, we trust in the loving care of the God of our understanding, knowing that we've acted responsibly. |
| Just for Today: I will make plans, but I will not plan the results. I will trust in my Higher Power's loving care. |
Before coming to NA, we were chiefly motivated by selfishness with a reckless, feverish focus on finding ways and means to get more drugs. A desire to stop using brings us to the rooms; it may be desperate or minimal, inspired by a nudge from the judge, our parents, our conscience, or the consequences of continuing to use. We had little use for integrity when we got here. And goodwill? Never heard of it.
And yet, recovery is available to us all. We start learning to serve when we have precious little time clean. As our journey continues, service becomes a staple of our program. We come to understand the meaning of integrity as we serve with other recovering addicts. We learn about goodwill by watching their walk. We explore how integrity fits into our new lifestyle and begin to examine our motives on a deeper level.
Sometimes the driving force behind our initial interest in participating in a service committee or taking a commitment is motivated by our desire to look good or our need for the validation of others. We may be doing the right thing, but we may not be doing it for the right reason. It's a start.
The seeds of goodwill are planted as we continue to serve. We greet newcomers at our home group, help fill literature orders at a local service committee, or attend the regional service committee for the first time as we develop our relationship with service. We continue showing up and find that why we stay committed is different from what brought us to that commitment in the first place. Freedom springs from the newfound passion when we find our niche in service. When we serve from a place of selflessness and goodwill, we tend to find fulfillment and gratification in our efforts, in and out of NA.
The foundation of our program is rooted in goodwill. As we continue to give of our time and effort with more principled intentions, our understanding of generosity broadens, and our personal freedom grows proportionally.