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
July 31, 2026 |
Freedom from active addiction |
| Page 221 |
| "Narcotics Anonymous offers only one promise and that is freedom from active addiction, the solution that eluded us for so long." |
| Basic Text, p. 106 |
| NA offers no promises other than freedom from active addiction. It is true that some of our members meet with financial success in recovery. They buy nice houses, drive new cars, wear fine clothes, and form beautiful families. These outward signs of prosperity are not the lot of all of our members, however. A great many of us never achieve financial success. This does not necessarily reflect on the quality of our recovery. When we are tempted to compare ourselves to these other, seemingly more affluent members, it is good to remember why we came to the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous. We came because our lives had fallen down around us. We were emotionally, physically, and spiritually defeated. Our Basic Text reminds us that "in desperation we sought help from each other in Narcotics Anonymous." We came because we were beaten. For addicts, even one day clean is a miracle. When we remember why we came to Narcotics Anonymous and in what condition we arrived, we realize that material wealth pales in comparison to the spiritual riches we have gained in recovery. |
| Just for Today: I have been given a spiritual gift greater than material wealth: my recovery. I will thank the God of my understanding for my freedom from active addiction. |
When many of us arrive in NA, we fancy ourselves as reasonably open-minded people. For one thing, many of us tried lots of different drugs! More seriously, we may have an anything goes or live and let live type of attitude and have been tolerant toward others who aren't like us. But were our minds even a tiny bit open to others' insights and opinions or to feedback about our behavior? Could we even listen? Were we able to admit that we might be wrong or didn't know something? Did we believe that we needed to change--and even if so, did we believe we actually could? Probably not so much.
Our experience tells us that open-mindedness is at the very foundation of change for us. While some NA members may insist that we have to "change everything about ourselves," practicing open-mindedness does not mean that everything we know--or think we know-- is worthless. Instead, we gain some carefully wrought insight into what behaviors and perspectives we want to keep in our lives and what is no longer serving us today--and we learn to share these insights with others. Asking questions, listening to the answers, and then letting those answers resonate helps us to identify our old ideas and patterns, see our behavior more clearly, and act differently when it's called for.
Open-mindedness is also one of the most indispensable tools for carrying the message to other addicts and for having productive discussions regarding NA service. We learn to listen more to our sponsees and service buddies, rather than planning out what we want to say. In the process, hopefully, we grow more comfortable with the concept of I don't know. As one member put it, "We're not here to be right, we're here to be better."
Open-mindedness prevents us from running away from problems, ourselves, and each other. Many of us believe that striving to be open-minded keeps us closer to our Higher Power or to the higher self we want to be.