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
September 28, 2026 |
Hope |
| Page 282 |
| "Gradually, as we become more God-centered than self centered, our despair turns to hope." |
| Basic Text, p. 95 |
| As using addicts, despair was our relentless companion. It colored our every waking moment. Despair was born of our experience in active addiction: No matter what measures we tried to make our lives better, we slid ever deeper into misery. Attempts we made to control our lives frequently met with failure. In a sense, our First Step admission of powerlessness was an acknowledgment of despair. Steps Two and Three lead us gradually out of that despair and into new hope, the companion of the recovering addict. Having accepted that so many of our efforts to change have failed, we come to believe that there is a Power greater than ourselves. We believe this Power can--and will--help us. We practice the Second and Third Steps as an affirmation of our hope for a better life, turning to this Power for guidance. As we come to rely more and more on a Higher Power for the management of our day-to-day life, the despair arising from our long experiment with self-sufficiency disappears. |
| Just for Today: I will reaffirm my Third Step decision. I know that, with a Higher Power in my life, there is hope. |
When studying Tradition Eight, we often focus on understanding terms like "special workers" and "service offices," overlooking the significance of "nonprofessional." It's as though we can't see the forest for the trees. The heart of this Tradition and its relevance to our personal recovery lies in our nonprofessional approach, which makes it possible for us to relate and connect. Most of us interacted with all sorts of people who had a professional interest in helping us before coming to NA--counselors, therapists, psychologists, police officers, probation or corrections personnel. There's a very long list of people whose job it was to try to handle or manage us when we were so very unmanageable.
And yet we still ended up here, in NA. In our very first meeting, we were greeted by people who weren't "on the clock." These NA members shared the message of recovery with us not because it was their job to do so, but because that's how we stay clean and recover. Our approach is nonprofessional. It doesn't require formal training, degrees, or certifications; we have our experience with addiction and recovery. That's all we need.
This process of sharing freely shows us that we are not alone. As newcomers, we discover our connection. When we stay and share the message, we are reminded of our connection over and over, each time we share with another member. Addiction thrives on isolation and alienation, and no amount of cleantime will render us immune to the tendency to disconnect. Connecting is an active process, and we do it by sharing freely with other addicts.