Welcome to the Burlington County Area of Narcotics Anonymous
“The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using”…Tradition 3
DRUG PROBLEM? CALL OUR HELPLINE: 1-800-992-0401
UPCOMING MEETINGS
The NA White Booklet
If you are new to Narcotics Anonymous, we recommend the Narcotics Anonymous White Booklet, also known as “The Little White Book” and as NA’s first piece of Literature. It’s a great introduction to the program to get you started! Click on the image to download the booklet. You can also explore one of the other informational pamphlets found on the Literature page of this website..
What is NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS?
~ Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text, page 9.
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Narcotics Anonymous is an international, community-based association of recovering drug addicts with over 58,000 weekly meetings in over 131 countries worldwide
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Recovery from addiction is possible and available through the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions of Narcotics Anonymous.
Just For Today
Most of us arrived in Narcotics Anonymous with a very poor ability to listen. But to take full advantage of "the therapeutic value of one addict helping another," we must learn to listen actively.
What is active listening for us? In meetings, it means we concentrate on what the speaker is sharing, while the speaker is sharing. We set aside our own thoughts and opinions until the meeting is over. That's when we sort through what we've heard to decide which ideas we want to use and which we want to explore further.
We can apply our active listening skills in sponsorship, too. Newcomers often talk with us about some "major event" in their lives. While such events may not seem significant to us, they are to the newcomer who has little experience living life on life's terms. Our active listening helps us empathize with the feelings such events trigger in our sponsee's life. With that understanding, we have a better idea of what to share with them.
The ability to listen actively was unknown to us in the isolation of our addiction. Today, this ability helps us actively engage with our recovery. Through active listening, we receive everything being offered us in NA, and we share fully with others the love and care we've been given.
Spiritual Principle a Day
Freedom of choice is a new concept for most of us in recovery. Recovery allows us to start to make healthy choices for ourselves and to consider the consequences of those choices for everyone involved. We begin to realize that we are not the center of the universe and strive to practice goodwill. Living in harmony with the world comes easily when our interactions with others are guided by mutual respect. We may be unaccustomed to disagreeing without being disagreeable, but we can see the benefits of this approach.
When we're engaged with life, disagreements and conflicts come with the territory. In recovery, we learn to navigate confrontations differently than we had in the past. None of us gets clean to be a doormat, so we've got to learn to defend ourselves and fight for our passions in principled ways.
With practice, we become less impulsive in our actions and take time to decide where we want to spend our energy. One member described how he questions his own thought process: "Am I championing this cause as a matter of principle or pride? Is this my battle, or do I need to let go?" We learn from our mistakes and those of others, and we consider the suggestions made by members of our support group more often. We grow to understand the preciousness of time. With only 24 hours in a day, we choose to find our way through conflict in ways that preserve our dignity and foster harmony.