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
June 16, 2026 |
Accepting life |
| Page 174 |
| "Some things we must accept, others we can change. The wisdom to know the difference comes with growth in our spiritual program." |
| Basic Text, p. 95 |
| It's relatively easy to accept the things we like--it's the things we don't like that are hard to accept. But remaking the world and everyone in it to suit our tastes would solve nothing. After all, the idea that the world was to blame for all our problems was the attitude that kept us using--and that attitude nearly killed us. In the course of working the steps, we begin to ask ourselves hard questions about the roles we ourselves have played in creating the unacceptable lives we've lived. In most cases, we've found that what needed changing was our own attitude and our own actions, not the people, places, and things around us. In recovery, we pray for wisdom to know the difference between what can and can't be changed. Then, once we see the truth of our situation, we pray for the willingness to change ourselves. |
| Just for Today: Higher Power, grant me the wisdom to know the difference between what can be changed and what I must accept. Please help me gratefully accept the life I've been given. |
More often than not, a last-ditch effort to stay out of jail, keep a job, or hang on to a relationship drives us through the doors of NA. We'd stopped using plenty of times before but staying stopped seemed beyond us. We knew something had to change, and, honestly, we had nothing to lose.
When we looked around at that first meeting, we saw people who understood our plight because they had been there. They'd experienced the high price of low living. The NA program worked for them; maybe it will work for us, too. Desperation may have brought us to NA, but inspiration keeps us coming back.
Trust hadn't been on our radar, but we are somehow willing to accept a few suggestions. Just a few days in, and we're committed to attending a meeting a day for 90 days. We even reach out to other members between meetings. With each passing day, we feel a little better and trust in this NA way a little more. And our actions show it.
We've begun to trust the process, but we'll need a guide--a sponsor--if we want to give this a fair shot. "You don't have to trust everyone," we're told, "but you've got to learn to trust someone." This seems like solid advice. The source, a more experienced member, seems trustworthy. "How about you?" we respond. "Will you sponsor me?"
It takes time for most of us to shed our armor, but sponsors have a way of gaining our trust little by little. "One of us shares some truth about our life and experience, and the other returns the favor," as one member put it. In the process, we develop trust and, eventually, intimacy. It's a pattern of behavior we can replicate in other relationships, as sponsees, sponsors, partners, and friends.