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When It Works: 12 Basics
Twelve Principles of NA
PRINCIPLE
SEVEN - FAITH
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spirit well-God will handle the rest.
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Our Middletown, Connecticut NAWOL group is honored to be part of the
process. We have no expectations
other than staying in the process and possibly helping other addicts.
"Faith is the evidence of our trust in God.
True faith is the result of surrender coupled with experience that God can and
will do for us if we ask for help."
While faith can feel like
an invisible, internal quality, the results are highly visible to those around
us. They can see our joy, gratitude and contentment. Our sad need for
justification, placing blame on others and selfish motivation makes people back
off from us. Just as others can see the evidence of faith, they can also see the lack of it. Trying to force out of others what can only be given freely stands in the
way of our own happiness.
When we realize how we have been
standing in the way of our own happiness by trying to force out of others what
can only be given freely, this, we can
begin to reverse the processes that have entrapped us. We begin by
accepting ourselves and others as they are.
By doing this, we are beginning to get real. In reality, we can find ourselves
and make contact with others without resorting to the games we used to play.
As we continue on our
spiritual journey, we realize that our growth comes from changes that occur
first inside and later show up in how we think, act, feel and speak. Our actions
and choices speak of our gratitude. As fear lessens, faith increases. While
Fear constantly robs us of time, energy and good feelings; faith rewards
us with these things. Faith is ordinarily
a subject that is discussed in
for meetings and is
also a part of our daily personal
recovery routine.
Since our service positions require some degree of knowledge
of our Twelve Steps and Traditions, it is worth noting that we are expected to
apply spiritual principles to our service. We all know of painful periods when
members forgot the spiritual in service and got so caught up in the `business'
of NA, all other considerations were set to the side. It has taken great faith
for us to survive these assaults on our spiritual body. Our knowledge of
spiritual principles is based in our spiritual condition and our progress into
the Twelve Steps.
Doing for ourselves frees
us and enables us to stand on our own. We used to manipulate others into doing
for us. The defects that held us back in life are cut away by active surrender
to facts, desire for something better and the willingness to do our part. Prayer
to the God of our understanding to remove our shortcomings severs our ties with
our old ways. A thief only steals that which they lack. When a thief feels
they have enough, they he
stops stealing. By changing our values and
filling our real need to feel good and enjoy life, we no longer envy and
seek to take what is not ours.
As we increase in personal
responsibility, we reduce our dependence on others. By doing what we can and
should do for ourselves we are freed of blaming others. Games of manipulation
and fear of losing control become troublesome and inconvenient when we learn we
are free to act directly. Before faith, we looked at life in terms of past pain
and present failure. After gaining faith, we look at life differently. For the
first time since childhood, the future may begin to hold some charm for us.
Deceit, falsification,
manipulation and plotting are unnecessary for those of
us who have come to know them ourselves
through faith in a loving and caring
God. who is able to help them. If
a person we
wants their our
own money, property and prestige, they we
must first discover that they we
already have some money, some property and some prestige. These things may exist
in such small quantities that it may never occur to us that we could be grateful
for them. However, it has been our experience that if we aren't grateful for
what we have, we will likely fail to acknowledge an increase and only long for
more. Gratitude is the antidote for avarice. Gratitude must be learned if we are
to feel grateful. Some of us write a gratitude list every morning to get in
touch with the positive in our lives, because not
having enough focusing on the negative has
become habitual. Taking care of and being grateful for what we already have is
the surest way to get more. If we are not taking care of what we have, then the
very people who could are willing and able to help us will think that
we are unable to handle more! As a kindness, they won't give us more than we can
handle.
As recovering addicts, we
know what happens when we get more than we need or can care for: the answer to
our prayers is at first a burden, then a
curse. We learn to ask God to remove our shortcomings because we no longer want
to fall short. We correctly suspect there are better ways to meet our needs and
can see the sense of letting go our grasp on the old so we can reach out for the
new with an open hand. Like our other spiritual principles, faith becomes more
than a word to us through our own experience and practice.
Unavoidably, we elect
people to serve who are in various stages of recovery and this actually means
that while someone may be comfortable with surrender to their disease in general
terms, they may be absolutely unable to admit fault or gain direction through
prayer and meditation. Remembering this may help some members show special
attention to others where politics and personal rivalries come into play.
It is vital that enough
old-timers stay involved to offset the violence
negativity
of personal opinion and rumor mongering that defeat our spiritual aims. Many of
us who have gained faith as a result of working the
twelve steps expect problems in group�s to be solved because the steps have
taught us to live in the solution.
are almost totally inexperienced
with positive group interaction and get fearful when violations occur.
There are always ways to set things right and go on clean. We just have to use
the power of spiritual principles to maintain order and sound procedures.
Service dysfunction is rewriting guidelines when we don't understand the guides
passed along to us by those who went before. The old custom of electing persons
involved with their committee will generally protect us from incompetent
chairpersons.
While some of these
problems are simple in origin, we have found that with
faith we stay in the problem for shorter periods of time while we live in the
solution most of the time. Faith
is trusting the results without the benefit of experience. We begin to feel confident instead of afraid.
We start to believe on a deeper level the importance of faith in our
lives. Faith allows the addict to
smile even during the worst of times. Faith
is hope put into action. We
start to do the things that others are doing who are working a program.
During the third step, we acquire faith as a result of doing the foot
work. there is nothing
uncomplicated about twenty or fifty addicts full of ego, adrenaline and the fear
that if their side doesn't win, addicts will die. They'll kill you so addicts
don't die. If we lose our faith and allow the disease to run our lives
again, we're in real trouble. When
we keep our faith in times of trouble, we demonstrate our commitment to the
twelve steps of Narcotics Anonymous. We
finally realize that without doing the spiritual work, no spiritual benefits
exist.
Only
the calmative effect of members who have survived some of these situations can
point out some positive things, what we're here for and even make a few jokes to
relieve the tension. It used to be we had little historical experience on which
to base our policies, much less written documents, reports and accumulated
minutes going back in some cases several decades.
Today, with God's help, we
can again pray, discuss and meditate on things that bother us and gain knowledge
without having to go through known problem areas again! We have found that
through faith we are enabled to go beyond some of our personal boundaries.
Usually, when the facts are finally dug out, simple knowledge of what to do in
the situation at hand comes out at the same time. Sometimes, it takes faith just
to get the facts straight.
One acronym for faith is: Feeling
- As - If - Trust - Heals. Taking these ideas on in
many forms, helps us first notice, then adopt, new ideas. By trusting a loving,
caring and forgiving God, we realize that we have been empowered to face life
and recover. The fears that would had
paralyzed us in the past are now small
obstacles along our journey. They can be
overcome with faith We can overcome them with
faith. By trusting our God, we surrender our old ideas and begin to
change.
Our new way of living has
sometimes been uncomfortable, however through practicing faith it is also very
rewarding. Our old perceptions of life changed drastically. Our new perceptions
include faith, hope, happiness and a positive attitude toward living. Through
our belief that trust heals, we have
found that God was doing for us what we never could do for ourselves.
As our faith in our Higher
Power grew grows,
we began begin
to develop a new form of trust. We are able to reach out to the trusting
hand of another addict. This was
can be very hard for many of us and
may have been a slow process. Yet, we kept reaching out and giving an addict a
piece of our lives that was very personal and private. We came to believe that
an addict who was recovering could also be trusted. We finally had faith and
trust in other human beings. We finally had friends who loved us
unconditionally. Faith in God leads us to faith in ourselves and others.
[7.25.08]
persons have visited this site since July 25, 2008
Reprinted from the
N.A. FELLOWSHIP USE ONLY
Copyright � December 1998
Victor Hugo Sewell, Jr.
NA Foundation Group
6685 Bobby John Road Atlanta, GA 30349 USA
404.312.5166
[email protected]
All rights reserved. This draft may be copied by members of Narcotics Anonymous for the purpose of writing input for future drafts, enhancing the recovery of NA members and for the general welfare of the Narcotics Anonymous Fellowship as a whole. The use of an individual name is simply a registration requirement of the Library of Congress and not a departure from the spirit or letter of the Pledge, Preface or Introduction of this book. Any reproduction by individuals or organizations outside the Fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous is prohibited. Any reproduction of this document for personal or corporate monetary gain is prohibited.