Grey Book Reflection
With our Higher Power guiding us, we may never again have to deal with using. But we will always have to deal with staying clean.
Gray Book, p. 147 (Chapter Nine, Lines 21-23)
For us getting Clean and staying Clean are two different things. There were plenty of times we stopped using drugs, only to start using again.
We used to look at the stopping and not the starting over. We thought we could stop any time we wanted to. Our First Step reminds us that if we couldn't control our using, how could we control our addiction?
The obsession to use can remain with us, long after we abstained from drugs. Only a Power Greater Than Ourselves can relieve our obsession to use. This is not any one human power; this is not medication or religion.
Our Second Step describes this Power as Loving and Caring, and Greater Than Ourselves. Many of us use the Group as a whole, as a Power. Some of us use the Spiritual Principles of the Program, and some use nature or the universe.
We manifest this Power as we go to Meetings and Practice these Spiritual Principles. This Power can also be used to help us Change.
We never have to return to active addiction. Staying Clean involves more than just not picking up, we never had this choice before. When we tap into this Higher Power in Narcotics Anonymous, we are given power; not over our addiction, but we are given power to Practice the Spiritual Principles to prevent the process of relapse from having its beginning. Our Gray Book says that Meetings are a fence around our Clean Time. Being Clean is the beginning, middle and at the end of our program.
Clean Time is the Cornerstone of our Program. Clean Time + Steps + Traditions = Recovery.
We don't only use our Higher Power to get Clean; we also use our Higher Power to stay Clean and Grow.