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
0%
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 07, 2026 |
Feeling God's will |
| Page 325 |
| "I sincerely believed that a Higher Power could restore my sanity and that I would stop trying to figure out what God's will was, just accept things for what they were, and be grateful." |
| . |
| The longer we stay clean, the less surely we "know" what our Higher Power's will for us is--and the less it matters. Knowledge of our Higher Power's will becomes less a "knowing" thing and more a "feeling" thing. We still practice the Eleventh Step faithfully. But rather than look for "signs" from our Higher Power, we begin to rely more on our intuition, trusting our feelings about what will make us comfortable. After staying clean a few years, what we do seem to know is when we are acting against God's will for us. When we are going against God's will, we get that old uncomfortable feeling in our gut. That queasiness is a warning that, if we continue in this direction, ahead lie many sleepless nights. We need to pay attention to such feelings, for they are often signals that we are acting contrary to our Higher Power's will for us. Our Eleventh Step clearly states the true goal of prayer and meditation: improvement of our conscious contact with the God of our understanding, bringing us clearer knowledge of our Higher Power's will for us and the power to carry it out. We know God's will most clearly by how it feels, not by "signs" or words--and it feels right. |
| Just for Today: I will pray for the knowledge of my Higher Power's will for me and the power to carry it out. I will pay attention to my feelings, and act when they feel right.
|
So many of us have had the experience of calling our sponsor to complain about that terrible person at work or that loathsome family member or that insufferable fool at the area service committee meeting. If not for them, how peaceful and pleasant our lives would be! Our patient and loving sponsor gently asks, "Have you prayed for them?" So cliched!
Of course, sponsors tend to speak from experience--they know that when we pray for the people who bother us, we are often the ones who change. Sure, sometimes people around us do become more tolerable; people grow and change all the time--even insufferable fools. But when we pray for the people who bother us, we increase our own tolerance and compassion.
While everyone in the world has room for growth, tolerance is a much surer way for us to experience peace and harmony than simply waiting for those around us to get better. Some people will take a long time to change; others may never improve at all. If those around us aren't going to become more tolerable, our best solution may simply be to become more tolerant. This doesn't mean accepting unacceptable behavior; we still set healthy boundaries as appropriate. Our sponsor can help us sort out the tolerable from the unacceptable. We remind ourselves that we don't need to be friends with everyone--we just need to be able to play nice with others when we're at work, at family gatherings, and at service committee meetings.