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
August 05, 2026 |
The shape of our thoughts |
| Page 227 |
| "By shaping our thoughts with spiritual ideals, we are freed to become who we want to be." |
| Basic Text, p. 105 |
| Addiction shaped our thoughts in its own way. Whatever their shape may once have been, they became misshapen once our disease took full sway over our lives. Our obsession with drugs and self molded our moods, our actions, and the very shape of our lives. Each of the spiritual ideals of our program serves to straighten out one or another of the kinks in our thinking that developed in our active addiction. Denial is counteracted by admission, secretiveness by honesty, isolation by fellowship, and despair by faith in a loving Higher Power. The spiritual ideals we find in recovery are restoring the shape of our thoughts and our lives to their natural condition. And what is that "natural condition"? It is the condition we truly seek for ourselves, a reflection of our highest dreams. How do we know this? Because our thoughts are being shaped in recovery by the spiritual ideals we find in our developing relationship with the God we've come to understand in NA. No longer does addiction shape our thoughts. Today, our lives are being shaped by our recovery and our Higher Power. |
| Just for Today: I will allow spiritual ideals to shape my thoughts. In that design, I will find the shape of my own Higher Power. |
"Approaching Step Two with an open mind was a real challenge for me," a member shared. The concept that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity presents a real dilemma for some of us. "Thankfully, a thorough First Step pried my mind open enough to convince me that my way wasn't working," the member continued. "That surrender set me up for Step Two, and I came to believe that maybe this NA thing would work for me."
Each of us grapples with the meaning of "spiritual, not religious" within the context of our own worldview. The Basic Text promises that there aren't any catches to the proposal that we find a Higher Power of our own understanding, and our experience bears that out. Some of us come with deeply held convictions based in a religious tradition. Others have secular beliefs that we may be equally committed to. No matter what our view or experience is prior to NA, we find that an open mind is an important asset, allowing us to consider ideas that are new to us.
In recovery, we find that being open to spiritual concepts enriches our own beliefs. We're not being asked to swallow novel ideas whole, as we may have feared, or to replace a current belief system with some prepackaged dogma. Rather, open-mindedness allows us to learn from others' experiences, taking what feels right for us and leaving the rest. It's a graft, not a transplant. Instead of closing our minds to new ideas, an open mind frees us to try them out. If the graft takes, it may enhance our previously held beliefs. If not, it might still clarify our own ideas. In either case, growth results from keeping our minds open.