March 19

Learn to Listen, Listen to Learn, that was a saying we used to hear, when we first came in. That basically meant to stay quiet and listen, or we were told to take the cotton out of our ears and put it in our mouths. That was another way of saying to listen to the message of Recovery in Narcotics Anonymous. It was suggested to Identify and not compare with people's stories.

Narcotics Anonymous is a Recovery Program, not a drug program. Our main problem is the disease of addiction.

Drugs were just the symptom; it was just ten percent of the real problem. The tip of the iceberg as some would say. So our Solution has to be a deep Spiritual Resolution, take away the drugs and you still have untreated addiction.

We share with each other our innermost selves. We Share about our feelings, emotions, thoughts, fears, and our Hopes. We focus on the Solution, which is Recovery and not our war stories, which is the problem.

We Share the message of Hope and the promise of Freedom. This allows the Process of Identification and Empathy to begin in others. This is of therapeutic value, when we see the up and down nods of other members heads, and it wasn't the drugs, LOL.

This sign of approval and Identification is a form of Acceptance; we finally felt at home. For the first time in a long time, we are part of something Whole. Our Spirits are moved and begin to Awaken; this happens at a subconscious level.

We tap into a Power Greater Than Ourselves, and our obsessions about using are removed or at least subsided. Either way, we lose the desire to use and find a New Way of Life without the use of drugs. We experience our Message, and this is what we Share.

We share the Message, not the mess. That's one of the strange paradoxes in our Program; we have to give what was Freely given to us, in order to keep it. We now know that our pain of our using is used as a Stepping Stone to our Spirituality.