Narcotics Anonymous Way of Life

~ 2000 Form ~
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No work on how to live the NA way of life would be complete without something said about how many of us reach the end of our journey in active addiction. In our history, we discover that the need for a fellowship of people, who could relate to each other in terms of addiction, first became known when addicts in jail were exposed to Alcoholics Anonymous. Being unable to understand or relate to the problems of these individuals in terns of addiction, the members of that fellowship saw the need and encouraged other addicts to attend these meetings. Thus, NA first took root  inside the walls of a prison hospital in Lexington Kentucky.

All through our literature we read of how many of us ended up in jail, or sought help through medicine, religion, and psychiatry. Our Basic Text tells us of how our ends are always the same: jails, institutions and death. In this chapter, we will look at how so many of us while on this hopeless journey, found hope within the principles, meetings, and the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous.

Many of us may still be living through the wreckage of our past when we first come to N.A.. Some may be incarcerated, or under some type of court ordered supervision such as probation or parole. Others may be in hospitals or treatment centers of some type. For others the death of a friend or loved-one who never found help might be the motivation  to find a better way to live.
 
When he had enough, a clean addict recalls, "I never went to jail while I was using. The only institution that I had been exposed to was when I once  picked  my brother up from one. You might say I was lucky enough to have had a friend who died from using. I remember at his wake, his sister explaining that his using was what killed him. I saw that I was going down the same path as my friend but at the time, I just did not seem to care.

"Today, it is a great feeling to be alive. My friend died so I didn't have to. I'm grateful for not going to jail . When I got clean it was for myself.  I know that before I got clean, I was ready for death. I just did not know what to do. I still have to be reminded that jails, institutions, and death are still out there - if I ever care to go back.
 
For many of us incarceration, or having our lives monitored or controlled by some agency, became our normal way of life. Jail has played a major role in the lives of many of our members.. In one way or another, our relationship with the ‘system’ has always been one of reality. We soon learn that the NA way of life can give us back our freedom. Freedom not only from drugs but also from the power held over us by our disease. We learn that courts and government agencies are only a reflection of the powerlessness and unmanageability of our lives due to this disease. Many times these agencies may have even saved our lives by "slowing us down" until we could find a new way to live inside the rooms of N.A.

Consider the following, "By the grace of God, I am not there. Three DUIs over a one-month period did not wake me up. So ten years later, with 20 felonies pending and headed for prison I decided to get clean. I had been trying to get clean but did not know how. I tried religion and psychiatry. I tried changing boyfriends and willpower but nothing worked.

"Then I found NA. I was at a very low point in my life. I surrendered. What I thought I would do was go to a mental institution for the rest of my life to avoid prison. I could not function in society. I could not hold a job. I could not take care of myself. I was on a real self-destructive road to nowhere.

"The place where I was had no NA so I switched psychiatrists to one that was 30 miles away. He sent me to treatment with a bunch of  AAers a hundred miles away. They sent me to Atlanta to a halfway house (for long-term treatment). I had to convince the judge that addiction was a disease and sell him the recovery thing. I begged for probation and was on probation for the first five years of my  recovery.

"I took the message into a lot of hospitals and jails (H&I work). It helped me with gratitude because "but for the grace of God" I would be there. Then I worked starting a treatment program inside a county jail.

"When I got clean, I was almost dead. I weighed 82 pounds and was suicidal toward the end of my addiction. I have been through hell. Death would have been a welcome relief. Recovery has given me a new life. Today, I have something to give. I found a new understanding of God and a new purpose in life. I have found meaning in spiritual principles. I feel whole on the inside. I am happy today. Just for today, I live in recovery - I am free."
 

We have written this chapter in order to share our experience, strength, and hope with others who find themselves living out the consequences of their active addiction while trying to practice the spiritual principles of N.A. . As we learn to live these principles we strive to become acceptable, responsible and productive members of the N.A.Society. In time, we can learn to seek the direction of a Higher Power through working the 12 Steps of N.A. As a result, in many of our lives, it becomes unnecessary for society to place or keep these restrictions on us. For many of us N.A. gave us our first true glimpse of freedom.

Another member adds, "The worst jail I have ever been in is the one I create in my own mind. During the readings at the workshop  today, I dozed off.  I do not necessarily recall l all of the early memories of my recovery, but I actually seemed to experience the feelings of that time The sweet feelings that I felt after four or five months of detoxing, jonesing, and panic attacks. When I had just started to experience something very new and different - a passion for life.

"I laughed again for the first time in years, I felt love and gratitude. I was thankful for those in the Fellowship who gave to me, and they gave plenty. I felt truly happy for the first time in my life.

"Often in recovery, I lock myself back in my" jail." What's  so screwed up is that today I know better . The disease is cunning. I try often to force my will onto life's problems and situations. I  often obsess on what is lacking in my life. I worry over how I need more and what I can do to obtain more. Soon I find that I have imprisoned myself in worry and fear. Eventually this can lead to total a regression into my old thinking and behavior, unless I can find a way to surrender my self centerdness.

"To live and enjoy life on life's terms is what NA teaches me. My disease wants me dead, but it will settle for my self imposed  incarceration. From there I can still see the green fields of recovery but only through a barred hole. I laugh because it is insane. Especially since the key to unlock my "prison" is as simple as living the steps of NA.

"I believe that the 11th Step is the one that I work the least. I know that if I don't  listen, I won't be able to hear God in His way, tell me that I am okay. Prayer and Meditation is a daily awakening to the gifts in life for me. They are the ability to breath and walk, when I should be dead. They are the gift of laughter when all my mouth and lungs did was ingest chemicals. They give me friendship and love based on friendship and love rather than the misery that loves company.

"My experience proves that the disease is still here with me, it is in me, I don't have to be vigilant to stay clean, but I must be vigilant if I want to experience serenity and freedom. It  helps when I work all the steps, including Step Eleven and Step Twelve." .

Without a doubt, the one concept that causes most addicts problems early in our recovery is that of becoming rigorously honest. Who among us ever ended up in jail, prison, or probation by practicing rigorous honesty? For most of us in active addiction, the word honesty was very much in our minds equal to the words self-destruction. We believed that if we ever told the truth, we would be sure to suffer. Our lives were such that almost everything we did had to be kept a secret from someone and especially kept from anyone in authority. We stole, dealt drugs, and cheated even our closest friends. We did whatever we had to do in order to survive. Deception was a way of life, an important part of our survival. It was our primary defense in what we viewed as a world full of deception. Without it we could see no hope to survive at all. We were people living in a society where we felt we would never belong . The power of labeling is great. We were identified and dealt with in terms of our active addiction. We knew that somehow we were different from the neighbors next door who would never speak to us as we passed them on the street or peeped at us through closed curtains. We lived in fear that everyone around us was out to get us in some way and the guilt of our method of survival drove us further away from others and deeper into isolation. The principle of anonymity  in N.A. helps us escape these labels We find that no matter what we have done in the past we are welcome inside the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous. We Belong.

An addict shares:  "It seems as though some feel that jails or institutions are a requirement or a great boost on the road to recovery. Some seem to use them as a boogey-man that can scare them straight. I went to jail but it was not the 'end of my road'. The six confinements in a mental institution did not get me there either.

     "It was only in the privilege of talking to and sharing with other addicts that I got to the end of the road. I finally realized that I simply could not function even in NA without learning something different."
 

Before coming to NA, we could not make the connection between the drugs and lifestyle and how those things created the vicious cycle of pain and rejection we lived in. We could see no problem with living next door to a drug dealer and could not understand why others around us should be concerned with how we lived. If we had to prostitute or write bad checks, why should that concern someone in another part of town or an entirely different part of the world for that matter? It was our own business, and besides, society forced us into living in the lies - or so we believed.

Our fight to hold on to or to regain control of our lives led us to reject many of the values that society must maintain in order to function. Soon one door after another was closed to us - our friends, families, and then even strangers started to reject us because of the pain that they feared we would bring to them. Soon, we found ourselves outcasts to some degree or another either in reality or imagined. In either case, for us this was life. We viewed rules of any kind simply as an obstacle of our own survival. Laws were only society's way to keep us down, to put us in our place, a way to keep us separated from the rest of the world. Our creed became that laws were made to be broken - and break them we did. The place society had for us soon became jails and institutions, and for a few viewed as hopeless, death was deemed justifiable.
 

An Addict shares: "I lived under the 'System' for over 25 years of my life. From the time I was 18 until the age of 43 I was either in jail or prison, on parole or probation. Much of the time I was 'on the run'. I never thought there would be any hope for a normal life.

"The first time I went to prison I was only 18. While I was there I went to school to become a barber. That was a good career move for a 'convict.' It gave me a way to make spending money which I needed and it kept me from having to do any 'real work' like mowing grass or working in the fields. It also gave me the chance to get to know all the 'Key Players' inside the prison.

"Each time I went to prison after that the prison officials would see that I held a barbers license and would put me to work in the prison Barbershop. This happened many times and I always took it for granted.

"The last time I was sent to prison something kind of different happened. All inmates going into the prison system in my state must go through a period of diagnostics and classification. This can take a period of 8-12 weeks. While you are at the central intake facility you are kept in lock down in an 8x10 cell for 23 hours a day.

"In order to get out of lock down I 'volunteered' to be placed on a work detail. Once the prison officials looked at my record and saw that I was a master barber they came up with a job for me. The  Diagnostic Center is the states highest security prison. It is also where Death Row is located. My job was to be the barber for inmates on Death Row.

"Wanting to 'escape' lock down 23 hours a day I agreed to take the job. I was one of only a handful of people who were ever allowed to come in physical contact with those inmates. Guards in G-House (death row) are rotated every 6 months to keep them from becoming personally involved with any of the inmates. Guards have a minimum amount of physical contact with them  This is all simply for security reasons.

"Each day I would go through the procedures of clearing a maze of 5 different steel doors, bared gates, and metal detectors on my way to 'work.' Once inside I was locked in a very small 'shop' where the men would be brought out one at a time and locked inside the shop with me until I was finished giving them a haircut. There was not a guard in the room. I was left alone with them for as long as it took.

"This gave me a very unique opportunity. These guys were hungry for any kind of contact with anyone outside the cell-house and many just wanted to talk. Some had been there waiting to die in the states electric chair for over 20 years. Some were famous outlaws, others I had never heard of. Some would die there, others would have their sentences reduced to life in prison through the process of appeals. Either way they all knew that life as they had once known it was over.

"I remained there for 5 months. Each day I would go to work. Besides giving haircuts like any good barber my job was to listen to my 'customers.' As I listened one common theme seemed to come up over and over. Almost without exception they told me about how got loaded before they committed the crimes that ended them up in this place. Many of the stories started out exactly like so many of my own experiences of getting high, or just living the lifestyle. Stories of jealous rages, of anger and resentment, of greed and lust not so unlike those I hear in meetings and in 5th steps. The only difference came when these people took acting out on these feelings to the next level. Most say they would have never been able to have gone to that level without being loaded. Not all, but most.

"This experience was a real wake-up call for me. I would like to think that I am not the kind of person who could ever do the things that would ever land me in a place like that waiting to die for an act I had committed against another person. Yet, as I listened to these men, most of them never expected it to ever happen to them either. But for the Grace of God........ I honestly think that this experience was a wake-up call from God for me.

"I had been in N.A. 7 years before and had managed to stay clean for 5 years that time. Maybe it was time for me to think about getting clean again. I did 2 years in prison that time without using. On my first day 'free' I got loaded. I stayed loaded for a couple of months. I knew that if I kept going that I would end back up in prison. I went to stay with an uncle and aunt who had stopped using 4 months before when their son had died from a snake bite. He raised Rattlers for the venom and was loaded one day while handling one. It bit him and he died at the hospital.

"My uncle was going to help me detox and help me get on my feet again. The first night I got real sick so he sent his wife to get me something. Before that night was over we were all loaded and the next day my uncle died from a stroke. I  blamed myself for his death and went into an ever deeper depression. I rented a motel room and tried to kill myself with drugs for about 2 weeks. I would use until I passed out, wake up and do it again. I didn't eat, I just felt hopeless.

"A friend showed up one day who knew I had once been in N.A. She ask me if I thought that it might help to go back. I didn't think so but I knew it was just a matter of time until my parole officer found me and sent me back to prison. I knew one thing for sure, I did NOT want to have to detox in the county jail. So I agreed to let my friend take me to a detox center. There after a week or so my councilor tried to contact my parole officer. We were told that he was going to be out of town for a few weeks. I knew that if I was released that I would most likely just end up loaded again so I ask to be placed into the 21 day program there. This was when I attended my first N.A. meeting in about 8 years. It felt strange at first but soon I had the answers I needed. I knew that this was where my Higher Power had been leading me.

"That was almost 4 years ago. Since that time God has continued to put me in the places and around the people that I need in my life in order to grow spiritually. A couple of weeks ago all pending sentences against me were dropped (almost 8 more years worth). Today for the first time in my entire adult life I am a "Free- Man"  in every sense of the word. I have had to face many fears and make untold changes in my life since I came back to N.A. As a result today I can give back the freedom I have found to others. I have a NEW life and just for today I never have to be imprisoned by active addiction again. Thank You All!"
 

Within the confines of these facilities, we soon discovered we were at last united with those like ourselves. This is not to say that all addicts end up in jails or institutions, or that all people in jails and institutions are addicts. However, a common theme among many of us once we reach the meetings of NA is that many of us have experienced in some capacity, the powerlessness of society intervening into our lives and into our addiction. Many of us found that once we were "in the system" we found many others who were much like ourselves. They too felt alone and rejected. They too sought relief through the self-medication to the point of obsession. They too, had done many of the same things to survive that we had done.

In many cases, these facilities became our classrooms. We learned how others had experienced the same situations we ourselves often had to confront and obtained the knowledge of how they survived. We seldom questioned the fact that the methods described to us by our new peers and mentors were most often the same methods that had put them there along side us.They. like ourselves were under a system which we neither understood nor respected. We simply felt that for once in our lives that at last there were those who understood our plight and were able to offer an explanation of it, if not answers to it. At last, we found where we could fit in. In some cases, we even felt justified in all our fear and deception. We learned a new way to live and honesty had no place in it.

Our bottoms came at different stages. For some of us, our first brush with the law through a DUI was enough. For others, it took years of prison, parole, and probation. For some, it took the death of a close friend or perhaps a relative. We were eventually moved to the understanding that the ‘getting, using, and finding ways and means to get more’ might very well be connected to the fear and depression of being discovered for who and what we were. Soon, we discovered that perhaps through our obsession and compulsion to use we were in fact in the grips of what was described to us in meetings as the disease of addiction. Maybe, just maybe, we were addicts.
 

A member shares, "I have been in 'treatment.'  I was lost, scared, and confused. I did not know where my life was going so I went to 'treatment' to save my job.  I had gone to NA meetings in the past but I did not believe that I was an 'addict.' In the treatment program I was in, they told me some cool things, but I never grasped the true meaning of addiction.

"I soon found myself in NA trying to stay clean. Today I understand that treatment and recovery are two separate things. The treatment center I was in did not seem to understand the difference between NA and other 12 step fellowships. The doctors told me so and even stuck me in N.A meetings and meetings of another  fellowship. I found out through NA that 'I' needed to know the difference.

"Now, I have begun reaching out in NA in order to live. The people in N.A.  have been showing me what it is like to make and to keep a commitment. I have always  sucked at that. You know, saying things like, 'I'll never do that again.'

"At times I have been scared to open up and let people know when I feel scared or shaken. Then I go to a meeting and hear someone who is going through the same problem.  I am grateful for life today. Well- most days. At times my disease still keeps me from doing things that I really want to do. Young and new to recovery, today I'm simply trying to learn about how to live life." 

Some of us had already resigned to the 'idea' of being addicts years before we sought help. We used our disease as an excuse to continue in the self-destructive behavior with which we had grown so familiar. Sure, we were addicts. It made for a strong argument in court when we found ourselves facing the consequences of our actions. For others, the image of being an addict was so repulsive that we were unable to imagine the term ever applying to us or to our lives. To us an addict was a weak, sickly, disgusting excuse for a human being.

We may have rationalized that we were simply victims of life. We were born into bad luck and our only enjoyment was to be able to "party" our problems away. We weren't "addicted" - we just "liked" getting high. Besides, in our experience, that's what everyone did. Like them, we deserved to get high. That didn't make us addicts. Besides, as soon as things got better, we wouldn't need to use so much. Who could blame us considering all we had gone through? 

While not funny in the humorous sense, it remains a curious fact that some members fail to connect their pain and failure with their using. They think that they are just going through rough times. The trouble comes from the fact that they can rationalize their using even after abundant evidence of their addiction. They can lose money, friends, spouses, children, dogs, jobs, and self-esteem and still hold on to the idea that it isn't the using

Many of us have managed with the help of other N.A. members and a God of our understanding, to stop the insanity of repeating the patterns of our old behavior.   For once we have a choice. No longer do we have to continue with the obsessive, compulsive behavior of addiction.

Many who have experienced recovery for a number of years are convinced that we tend to get here as our "luck" is running out. If we don't hold on to this chance, we may not get another one. While NA will welcome us back, we may suffer from ego conflicts, incarceration, or physical/mental illness that prevents our return to a free and open way of life. Some people share in meetings that they are not afraid that their next usage will kill them - they are afraid that they will have to continue using, unable to stop living in the hell of active addiction.  All of us have been there. 

Yet, at some point as with all addicts the drugs stopped working. What then? Go on? Most of us had already reached jails or institutions at this point. Only two choices remained - either get better or die. We in the Fellowship of NA choose life at some point. Yet, our choice at first seemed almost as hopeless as our addiction. At first, all we could do was try to find ways and means to not use. To try and stay clean for one day, or at times, just one hour or one minute. We couldn't imagine a life without drugs, and yet we knew how our life with them would end.

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Reprinted from the 
Narcotics Anonymous Way of Life
1st Presentation Form

N.A. FELLOWSHIP USE ONLY
Copyright � December 1998
Victor Hugo Sewell, Jr.

N.A. Foundation Group
340 Woodstone Drive - Marietta, Georgia 30068
[email protected]

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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.

Last update June 12, 2000