GOD

God is in Narcotics Anonymous. Can we talk about it? Can we write about it? The topic, God, can be a sensitive issue. NA works for people who don’t believe in a supernatural being or are not sure about God. We see God in the Steps and the Traditions. In Step One we find ourselves powerless, we surrender. We admit that we cannot do anything about our problem on our own and we are asking for help. The addicts in that first meeting are an obvious Power greater than we are. We may get our first exposure to a God that expresses Himself through those addicts. Hope grows in Step Two as we go through the process of coming to believe that this Power greater than ourselves can heal us. In the Third Step, we decide to give our daily lives and our wills over to the care of this God of our understanding.

The faith developed in Step Three gives us the courage we need for Step Four. As we begin the Fifth Step, we invite God to be a part of the process. Step Six finds us prepared to have God remove various aspects of our self-centeredness. Through God's grace we find willingness and ask God to relieve our shortcomings. God gives us the willingness to take responsibility for our past destruction. In Step Nine, we step out on the faith that God will not put us into a situation that we cannot handle. We pray for help. We move forward, forgive ourselves, and offer forgiveness to any others that may have harmed us. Then we ask people we have harmed for the forgiveness that we need. The integrity inherent in Step Ten results from the power of God working in us through the previous Steps. We strive to ever expand our understanding and ongoing connection with God. We pray for knowledge of God's will for us as well as the power that we need to carry it out. Having a spiritual awakening we continue to do God's will in our lives, giving love and service to everyone. We talk and write about God so that we might increase our understanding of the most far-reaching influence on our recovery and indeed our lives.

Some members have expressed concerns about the steps using ‘He’ and ‘Him’ in referring to God. The Tenth Tradition states "Narcotics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the NA name ought never be drawn into public controversy." In this spirit, NA as a fellowship does not have a definition of God; this is up to each of us. A personal understanding of God can develop or expand by having open discussions with other NA members. Open mindedness is an essential key to our recovery. While the world debates over the true definition of God, Narcotics Anonymous does not participate in any public controversy. If we try to identify God with one "true" definition, our minds close to other possibilities. It is more important to find a higher power that works for you than a Higher Power that other people approve of. Loving, caring, greater than our addiction, and ourselves our Higher Power will do for us what we can't do for ourselves. Despite our individual understanding, members today feel that the God of our understanding as written in the steps should not be a controversial issue rather a mutual identification.

We don't try to convince or convert. We bring our childhood learning into our present with its strengths and limitations. What we learned as children may have become confused. What ever we think we believe, we want to check it our thoroughly if our life and happiness depend on it. It has to work for us to recover. Our newly found open-mindedness teaches us that we can learn many things from many people. The important thing to know is that each member has the responsibility to find their own understanding of God. Many of us as newcomers found that with the help of our sponsor, we were able to find an ‘image’ of God, with which we would be comfortable. Anything we can learn from books, people or prayer increases our existence and peace of mind. The more we learn the better. Almost all our pain came from not knowing enough or from believing things that weren't true. We can't afford to base our lives on lies and fantasy.

Many addicts dream about living a spiritual life but are doubtful that they can really achieve it, even with God's help. We discovered that when we set goals that seemed beyond our grasp and asked for God's help, we were lifted up and given the energy to do the necessary footwork to achieve our goals. The doorway to miracles opened. We built on each success, realizing that our experience is just a valid and meaningful as that of any other member. We wish that all addicts can find recovery even one who expressed a reluctance to embrace a Higher Power. This is because many of us had little or no understanding of God when we first came to the Fellowship of NA. Others feared a Higher Power. Years spent not relating to or believing in a Power greater than ourselves made it difficult to achieve conscious contact with God. Suffering from extreme spiritual indifference, we simply did not see God as a necessity for our recovery. Many of us regarded recovery only as a practical method to retrieve some of the things that we had lost. Being open-minded is important to making progress in our spiritual growth. For some of us struggling with the idea of God, it helped when we thought of a Higher Power as being like a deep underground spring, hidden from view but present nonetheless. The thirst for spiritual fulfillment may be quenched at many wells, all drawn from a common source. It is not necessary for all of us to drink from the same well -- we just don't want our members dying from thirst. If there is any doubt that God exists, we need only to look outside and see the miracles of life. By listening to NA members and observing them staying clean, we see further evidence that something special is working miracles in our lives. We are a spiritual not religious program. Anyone who has attended even a few meetings has met someone who expressed a reluctance to embrace a higher power because of that fire and brimstone God from their childhood. An important aspect of believing in a God who is forgiving in nature is that it enables us to accept who we were, who we are, and who we can become. We may have once demanded that God administer justice to those that harmed us. Nevertheless, when we completed an inventory, detailing the exact nature of our wrongs, most of us realized that we would be far better off with a Higher Power who was both just and forgiving. Open-mindedness is important here. The higher power is deep underground mine hidden from view but present and felt nonetheless. The thirst for spirit that only It can quench may be slated at any one of an almost infinite number of wells all sunk to a common source. No single key unlocks every door. Some of us came into Narcotics Anonymous wearing a religion like a mask, trying to avoid personal responsibility for our past and for our recovery. In time we learned that God would only do for us what God could do through us. It is during this realization that many change their understanding of God from a religious perception to a more spiritual relationship. It is only important to us that you find the key that works for you. Only if you are successful in doing this will you find the power to recover. Selfless service is an expression of our gratitude for the care of God. NA is a spiritual not religious program. NA doesn't endorse any particular system of faith or worship of a specific Supreme Being or God(s). Nor, does NA endorse specific rituals of worship. We understand spirituality as the vital principal alive in each of us, it's an inspiring and encouraging influence in our program and in our lives.

Our spiritual well being is not based on our social acceptance, material wealth or physical appearance but rather our personal and intimate relationship with our God. As we recover, we become aware that our lives are reflections of our relationship with God. Instead of trying to know all the answers about God, most of us have found it useful to concentrate our energies into seeking the knowledge of what God's will is for us and trying to live our lives accordingly. We realize that we need beliefs in order to follow a spiritual path, but we also need to be open-minded enough to receive God's wisdom. We cannot afford to forget that we receive our freedom and well being from our Higher Power. Spirituality is not based on social acceptance, material wealth, or physical appearance but rather on a personal and intimate relationship with the God of our understanding. Our lives are reflections of our relationship with God.

Sometimes we feel that our pain is so great that even our Higher Power cannot relieve it. If we believe in a God that cannot handle every aspect of our lives, we may find ourselves frozen in fear, waiting to react to the next crisis. We can't afford to base our lives on bad information and fantasy. Many of us tried to fix ourselves, only to learn that it couldn't be done the way we were trying it. It is important for us to realize that we are not recovering alone. We came to accept help from the spiritual principals as part of our recovery process. An understanding of a Higher Power begins to give us an understanding of our own worth. Our faith grows stronger as we uncover the many ways God helps us when there is no one else we can turn to. Other members shared with us that God could be found anywhere, at any time. This Higher Power can be detected in group members, in a Spiritual Being, or anywhere in between. In our gratitude, many of us discover the many ways God helped us when there was no one else there to take our side in things. It is often heard in NA meetings that a common prayer for newcomers is, "God, just help me to stay clean for today." Prayer after prayer, day after day, our proof that a Higher Power exists comes as we make it through those days clean. In time, we learn to use prayer and meditations to not only find comfort, but to actually guide us through our lives.

The feeling of being able to access help from a timeless, loving source lifts us and gives us energy we would otherwise do without. Amazingly, any belief in a loving God seems to work and it is a growing fact that while individual beliefs may vary in particulars, certain generalities hold true. Living the program is our attempt to become more God-centered and less self-centered. We have learned that God truly loves us and will never abandon us. What a freeing feeling it is to know that we no longer have to be in charge. We may have heard other members in the program talk about becoming more God-centered and less self-centered. Many of us wondered what, exactly, did they mean by that? Talking to our sponsors and other experienced NA members, we learned that much of their progress in recovery was credited to their efforts to become God-centered. As we grow and mature in our recovery, we realize what those members meant when they talked about being "God-centered." It is an internal feeling that no matter what is going on around us, everything is going to be all right. It may begin during our prayer and meditation, but we can carry this spiritual connection with us throughout our day. If self-centeredness is truly the core of our disease, then God-centeredness is the core of our recovery. Writing our moral inventory, we rely on God's guidance for the courage to be fearless and the wisdom to know right from wrong. Sharing the exact nature of our wrongs, we trust God to see us through the rough spots and we trust God to work through the other human being so that their role too, is a spiritual one. We practice the faith acquired in the previous steps to help us become willing to have God remove our defects of character. We realize that we have been cared for all along and that our lives will be even more enriched when we let go of the defects that are holding us back. The Seventh Step places God's role in direct conflict with our egos. As we humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings, we are again saying, "We can't do this alone." Our disease may reel in rebellion, but we need only hold steady to our course. As we make a list of persons we had harmed, we try to look at each of them in the light of God's love. If we were expressing only unconditional love, how would we have treated each of them differently? Forgiveness is a spiritual principle. Whether we are asking to be forgiven or extending forgiveness, we can experience God's presence. We continue to allow God to be our guide by evaluating our actions and correcting our mistakes as they occur. God plays an integral part in each of these steps, but so do we. Without our willingness, there will be very little spiritual progress. Being open to belief is one thing. The basic idea that help is available from an unseen source is another. By whatever means, the luck and increased capacity to go forward in life without fear shows that some basic human need has been met. Ego-based thinking and living are one of the biggest enemies of the addict in recovery. Our egos tell us that no matter how much we have or hope for, it's not enough. All our character defects are manifestations of our egos. We need to set our egos aside and allow God to become the healing force responsible for our recovery.

We have often seen God working through other people. Many of us have been at meetings when it was easy to recognize God's presence in the rooms. The atmosphere of recovery was in the air. We shared what we needed to share and heard what we needed to hear. This is an example of God in action. While some may feel the necessity to be ‘true to their faith’ and find it uncomfortable to imagine that there may be several ways a person may gain access to God, many of us find this wonderful. How magnificent and loving of God to be endlessly available to all that seek, whatever path they may take.

Through working our steps, and applying our Traditions, our beliefs evolve. From the simplicity of a ‘power greater than ourselves’ to a Higher Power concept, we eventually come to a better understanding of ‘God as we understand Him.’ By having a "God of our understanding" members are free to conceive that "God" may be a man, woman, spirit, etc all the way to a light bulb or a doorknob. Some members will be offended with whatever we define as God, but this is one of our greatest freedoms in NA - to develop OUR understanding of what God is. With this freedom, comes our right for a personal definition to change over as we grow in recovery. Many if not all of us had to be clean and in the meetings for some time to realize that the Steps lead us into the care of the God of our understanding. This very simple way of expressing the feeling we have towards our spiritual sources is very important to us. We do not turn our lives and wills over to the tyranny of God or the dictatorship of God, just to the care.

Narcotics Anonymous Steps and other NA literature stress the importance of developing a reliance on the God of our understanding. Our Second Step makes the assumption that we already believe in something when it says, "We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." Any belief in a loving God seems to work. While individual beliefs may differ, certain fundamental principles hold true. The foundation of our belief is that help is available. Being open to change is a belief we all share. By whatever means, the capacity to go forward in life without fear shows that our faith in a Higher Power is real.

There is no NA approved way to meditate only a suggestion that we do so. An example of meditation could be as simple as actively listening during meetings. If we are listening carefully, we can hear God expressing Himself through the sharing of others. Solutions to our problems become apparent. Meditation can be achieved by practicing any number of spiritual disciplines. We can use imaging techniques while listening to audio tapes, we can chant, we may practice breathing techniques or we can just become quiet. Meditation is the exploration of our inner world. Meditation enables us to envision and explore possible outcomes before we attempt to go through them in reality. In the stillness of meditation, we establish conscious contact with God, experience the presence of God, and feel the power of God.

Many NA members practice several forms of meditation in an effort to induce variety in their spiritual journey. Others prefer a tried and true method that they have become accustomed to using. Regardless of how or where we practice meditation, some universal principles seem to be evident. Regular practice improves the quality of our conscious contact. Like physical exercise, spiritual exercise is most beneficial if performed on a habitual, continuous basis. The longer we stay at it, the better it gets. It is also important to avoid outside distractions and allow the mind to quiet itself. Most forms of meditation encourage deep, even breathing as a way to stay relaxed. As we clear our minds of busy thoughts, become aware of our breathing and relax our bodies we focus on our Higher Power. Before long, we enter a relaxed state that is like sleep, but one in which our senses are sharp and clear. We may visualize different people and situations with remarkable clarity. We may become aware of a loving force, present within us, so powerful that we experience an effervescence of emotion. Perhaps our experience is one of a deep and abiding peace; serenity at its finest. Whatever the outcome, conscious contact with the God of our understanding through the Eleventh Step is usually a positive experience.

If we have a committee in our head, we must purge ourselves in the earlier steps (before Step 11) of the feeling of shame and remorse and guilt, the self-loathing, the negative thinking, the impending doom. We must gain a positive attitude and begin to allow only positive thoughts as the cravings leave us and the negative voices cease. We are now open to hear the quiet voice of the God within. As we become proud of who we are, as we change and grow, make amends, forgive ourselves, and others we do not have the negative feelings but we have the pure spirit or energy of God and we are open to receive. We have cleared the garbage to receive the gifts.

Because there are so many different disciplines and methods used to meditate, it would be impossible for us to list them all even if we were to try. Furthermore, an endorsement of any one of these disciplines would be a violation of our traditions. Consequently, NA members have been left with few choices in learning how to meditate. We could seek the informal advice of other members, search outside the fellowship for teachers who could help us, or begin a self-learning program of our own. No matter how we choose to meditate, our goals, as defined in the Eleventh Step are the same, to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him. An analogy could be described as follows: A group of people wanted to travel to a destination a hundred miles away. Some walked, some rode bicycles, some drove cars, and some flew an airplane. The ones who flew argued that they got there faster. The ones who drove argued that they arrived sooner than everyone except the air travelers did, but they had transportation after they arrived. The group who walked and rode bicycles argued that not only did they get where they wanted to go, they got some exercise along the way. Each method of travel had its advantages and each had its drawbacks. What is important to remember, is that they could all take us where we want to go. So it is with meditation.

We must still our thoughts. Prayer is talking to God, meditation is listening to God's answer. The answer may not come immediately but if our minds are clear of worry and dread, we will hear the answer. Sometimes this answer will come through other people or just pop into our heads. We must be open in our minds and our hearts after surrendering our own ideas. If we hold on to our outcome and direct the show, we are not living God's will for us. This is like floating downstream instead of swimming against the current. As we meditate we let thoughts pop in and leave, we do not think the thoughts but let them flow through so new ideas may enter. We must be calm and focus on our breathing in and out. Be mindless and still. This is our inner spirituality of feeling okay in the inside. Calm in the midst of a storm. Our inner God within. We are still and quiet within alone with our God-pureness and one, we are at peace.

No one can tell us what God's specific will for us is. We can only find this for ourselves in prayer and meditation. God's will is for the best (the best for us, the best for everyone). No matter what happens there is always the opportunity for good to occur out of it. We need only look for the guidance to choose the right action in accordance with God's will for us. God's will is never for us to suffer. God does not test us. God does not send bad things to us. God gives us free will. Because of our free will, the free will of others and even random events, unfortunate things may happen. The beauty of God's Will is that no matter what happens, good can come of it, if we remain open to His guidance. Through the Eleventh Step process we usually discover that God's will for us has something to do with giving unconditional love to others. After coming to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we were able to see that God is unlimited. Through the process of working steps, we discovered that God had been with us all along. A profound spiritual change occurred when we recognized that God cares for us and will help us in our daily lives. The most significant aspect of this change is that our fears have been dispelled by our faith.

Meditation is the exploration of our inner world. A member showed up at a meeting shaken by a seminar that took him back to a childhood incident he had forgotten. The emotions triggered by the experience were painful. It made us think, maybe we can sit, envision, react, contemplate, choose to change or remain the same. We can evaluate our reactions and explore possible futures, if we are clear enough spiritually. How efficient to be able to explore these things mentally and spiritually rather than go through them in reality with the expense, risk and all-important time. Spiritual growth is the primary ways we make up for lost time and gain the inner strength and resources our addiction robbed from us. The more we allow God to be a part of our lives, the more we are fulfilled. Many of us spent years looking in vain for someone or something to fill our emptiness. We can allow the God of our understanding to flow in and fill this void. The more we attend to our inner spiritual needs, the less we seek outside gratification. With perseverance and hope, we continue down the road of change, seeking a better way to live. We learn how to get out of the way. Making good decisions becomes easier when our thinking is not clouded with old ideas and inaccurate information. The decision making process becomes easier when we open our minds to our sponsors, prayer, meditation, sharing at meetings and a loving God.

While it is difficult to know who or what God is, most of us can identify with a variety of feelings such as loving, caring, comforting, and forgiving challenging and often painful when describing our conscious contact with our Higher Power. For many of us, this feeling of being cared for didn't come to us the minute we walked into our first NA meeting. In fact, those members who come in with a lot of ‘old baggage’ and predisposition about God often has the toughest time learning how to let God in. God can be found in many places. It is important to realize that recovery does not happen alone. Many of us tried to fix ourselves only to learn that it couldn't be done the way we were trying it. We had to be able to accept help from a higher power before recovery could begin. This higher power can be found from tangible group members to a Spiritual Being or any combination in between. Our knowledge of God grows. NA gives us the freedom to believe in which higher power we choose just as long as we realize we can't do it alone. Some members remark that there is a different conscious contact with their higher power through meditation than when they pray.

When we say the Serenity Prayer, we are inviting God into our lives. We ask God to grant us the state of mind in which we accept that there is a reason for everything that happens in life. We begin to realize that everything is exactly as it should be ‘just for today’ and that we are exactly where we are supposed to be. We can reach a point where we become able to align our will with God's will, releasing our regrets of the past and our fears of the future. We have faith that a loving God is caring for us right now. Continuing with the Serenity Prayer, we ask God for the courage to change the things we can. Many of us came into recovery drowning in fears. Courage is that quality that God can give us, if we ask, to walk through the fear and come out the other side, walking the road to freedom. Fear is replaced with faith as our conscious contact improves. Last, we ask God to grant us wisdom; the wisdom to know the difference between what we can and cannot change. A result of improving our conscious contact with God is newly found wisdom. Not only do we acquire the wisdom to know what we can change and what we cannot, but we are able to apply the best ways to bring about change. We are able to learn from the mistakes of others as well as our own errors of the past. Through the guidance we receive while working our Eleventh Step, we find that most of our ‘problems’ our reduced to a workable size and the solutions to them are readily available.

Belief is the key. It is impossible for us to quantify or qualify anything spiritual. We use so many things in our lives that we don't comprehend. We have faith in so many phenomena that are natural. Why is it we are unable to extend this faith to entities that are supra natural? Is it fear or ignorance? On the other hand, is it an unwillingness to change, to admit that we were wrong for so long, that a higher power exists in our lives? Does denial still abound? Belief in a Power greater than ourselves is developed through our own free will and cannot be taken from us without our cooperation. We have the freedom to believe as we choose. In fact, a suggestion in the Basic Text is that we choose a Power that is both loving and caring. We have suffered enough before coming to the program. Most of us don't need the added guilt of a punishing, unforgiving God. It needs to be stated clearly though, that even the choice of a punishing God or a loving one is ours, not NA's, to make.

Those NA members who have surrendered to a power greater than themselves have an awesome weapon to fight the disease of addiction. Our disease is based in fear, the opposite of God's love. Our disease tells us we don't have enough, yet spiritual abundance is ours for the asking. Our disease pushes us to isolate and mistrust others, but with our lives in the care of God as we understand Him, we can move forward fearlessly knowing that there is no challenge that we have to face alone. God will move mountains, but we have to bring our shovels. Writing our moral inventory, we rely on God's guidance for the courage to be fearless and the wisdom to know right from wrong. We are spiritual, moral beings. Our moral inventory process makes this possible. God will not make us write an inventory, nor will he make us share it with anyone else. Sharing the exact nature of our wrongs, we trust God to see us through the rough spots and to work through the other human being so that their role, too, is a spiritual one. God can help us and ease our pain if we make the choice to do these things. We practice the faith acquired in the previous steps to help us become willing to have God remove our defects of character. We realize that we have been cared for all along and that our lives will be even more enriched when we let go of these defects that are holding us back. He cannot make us willing to have our defects removed. He sometimes gives us opportunities to bring about the awareness of the pain that comes from acting out on our defects. When the pain gets great enough, we become willing to make the change. As we humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings, we are again saying, "We can't do this alone." This places God's role in direct conflict with our egos. Our disease may reel in rebellion, but we need only hold steady to our course. Asking God for guidance and expecting an immediate answer will not produce results, because God does not wear a wristwatch. God will not make our amends list for us. We have to sit down with pen, paper, and willingness. As we make our list of persons we had harmed, we try to look at each of them in the light of God's love. If we were expressing only unconditional love, how would we have treated each of them differently? Forgiveness is a spiritual principle. Whether we are asking to be forgiven or extending forgiveness, we can experience God's presence. It is our responsibility to do the footwork of humbling ourselves to making the amends. We placed our faith in God to face these people. God can supply the love, care, and forgiveness that we need in order to make our amends. We need to know that God loves, cares for, and forgives so that we can love, care for, and forgive ourselves. Then the reaction from the ones we are making amends to is not as important. We continue to allow God to be our guide by evaluating our actions and correcting our mistakes as they occur. As we recover, we find that God's will for us is to learn and grow from these mistakes.

We found that God doesn't serve breakfast in bed. Once awareness occurs, action must follow or the un-manageability returns. Believing that God will deliver when we are ready, becomes the ‘old’ way of thinking. God's power arrives sometimes only by repetition and amplification of his will for us. There seems to be a wide range of sledgehammers needed to breach our closed minds. We have certainly learned that God can and will deliver when we seek the power and knowledge of his will. We found God doesn't serve breakfast in bed. Only through consultation can God work His miracles. Once awareness occurs, action must follow or the un-manageability returns. Pursuit allows the appearance of God's will in our lives. Believing that God will deliver when we are ready becomes the old way of thinking. We arrive at the next open door by doing the footwork. God's power arrives sometimes only by awareness of repetition and by amplification of His will for us. There seems to be a range of sledgehammers needed to breach our closed minds. Humility is our tool for the teaching we will receive to survive. We have certainly learned that God can and will deliver when we seek the power and knowledge of His will.