June 17

When we are using, we protect ourselves by putting up barriers between us and the outside world. We fall into the illusion of self-sufficiency, believing that we can take care of ourselves and do everything on our own. Many of us used to believe that we would be better off without the help of anyone else in our lives.

We rarely realize that we have never been self-supporting as we continue leeching off of the resources of others. We separated ourselves from anything that did not have to do with getting or using drugs. Some would say that the exact nature of the disease of addiction is isolation.

The proof of this statement can be shown when addicts hit their bottoms, they re usually alone. Our using slowly eliminated the positive people, places and things from our lives.

Our worlds shrank as we used to live and lived to use. At the end of our using, the desperation drove us to seek help from others in Narcotics Anonymous. How It Works in our Gray Book tells us that, "If what you want what we have to offer, and are willing to make the effort to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. " These Principles are written so simply that we can practice them in our daily lives. The Principle of Surrender can be measured by the actions we take.

Our Literature tells us that the antidote to our diseased thinking is Honesty. A member once said that, "Honesty is aligning our actions to the Truth. " This realignment helps us to Trust our fellow members and also build Integrity.

Both of these Spiritual Principles are essential to our ongoing Recovery. To help us practice these Spiritual Principles, we need to tap into and rely on our Higher Power.

We have been developing a relationship with this Power that helped us achieve Complete and Total Abstinence.