November 26

As using addicts, a lot happened to us in one day. Most of it was negative, and most of it was self-inflicted.

In the past, we never learned from our mistakes. We continued to repeat the same mistakes expecting different results. In some cases we knew what the results would be.

When something positive happened to us we felt unworthy, so we didn't take time to appreciate it. We lived with the doom and gloom. We waited for the other shoe to fall off.

After arriving to Narcotics Anonymous and started adapting our Lives to the Program, we began to experience Life both the negative and positive; this time Clean. We heard from our predecessors that when we stop using we would feel better. They were right, we felt everything better; we felt anger, fear, remorse, guilt and shame better.

We no longer had the drugs to numb us. However, we also felt Hope and Freedom. Some of these feelings were long-lost to many of us.

What we experience, through Living the Spiritual Principles of Narcotics Anonymous, is that we can learn from both experiences. We now could appreciate the negative because we can learn valuable lessons from it. We also learn to appreciate the positive because now we feel worthy of it and use it as a Touchstone to Reality.

This Relationship with Reality becomes our Spirituality. In Narcotics Anonymous, we Share this Precious Gift of Recovery and Awareness with one another. We Share that we don't have to use no matter what we're going through.

We learn to survive our feelings and use our experiences as reference points for Growth. We Grow from each experience. We Share the Message of Hope and the Promise of Freedom from active addiction with others in and out of Narcotics Anonymous.