The message is that an addict, any addict, can stop using drugs, lose the desire to use, and find a new way to live. Our message is hope and the promise of freedom.
Who We Are
East Tennessee Ridges of Recovery is a service committee formed to provide NA groups in East Tennessee assistance in carrying our message. This support is provided through many services including public information, published meeting listings, and fellowship events.
The purpose of this site is to be a resource for members as well as anyone else who thinks they may have a problem with drugs. We seek to provide current information regarding recovery meetings, email and telephone contacts where an addict may seek help, service committees, and events in our area. It is also intended to be a source of general information about Narcotics Anonymous for non-members and professionals in our community.
Just for Today
January 08, 2025 |
Growing up |
| Page 8 |
| "Our spiritual condition is the basis for a successful recovery that offers unlimited growth." |
| Basic Text, p. 44 |
| When our members celebrate their recovery anniversaries, they often say that they've "grown up" in NA. Well, then, we think, what does that mean? We start to wonder if we're grownups yet. We check our lives and yes, all the trappings of adulthood are there: the checkbook, the children, the job, the responsibilities. On the inside, though, we often feel like children. We're still confused by life much of the time. We don't always know how to act. We sometimes wonder whether we're really grown-ups at all, or whether we're children who've somehow been put into adult bodies and given adult responsibilities. Growth is not best measured by physical age or levels of responsibility. Our best measure of growth is our spiritual condition, the basis of our recovery. If we're still depending on people, places, and things to provide our inner satisfaction, like a child depending on its parents for everything, we do indeed have some growing to do. But if we stand secure on the foundation of our spiritual condition, considering its maintenance our most important responsibility, we can claim maturity. Upon that foundation, our opportunities for growth are limitless. |
| Just for Today: The measure of my maturity is the extent to which I take responsibility for the maintenance of my spiritual condition. Today, this will be my highest priority. |
| Copyright (c) 2007-2023, NA World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Spiritual Principle a Day
January 08, 2025
Facing Our Responsibilities
Page 8
"We can no longer blame people, places, and things for our addiction. We must face our problems and our feelings."
Basic Text, Chapter 3: Why Are We Here?
When we were using, denial shielded us from recognizing the part we played in our own destruction. We blamed our circumstances or the people around us for our drug use. Every once in a while, some light would shine through the cracks in our denial. A quiet voice within us said, "If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting." By the time we stumbled into the rooms of NA, self-deception was often second nature. We may have been so used to blaming others that it took work for us to spot this mindset and still more work for us to fully appreciate its implications.
Personal inventories help us understand our distorted sense of reality. We decipher "our part"--no more, no less--and take responsibility for it. Yes, we may have been intentionally hurtful at times. Just as often, though, our intentions were good, or at least very human. We attempted to wrestle some sense of security and significance from an uncertain world, we put ourselves in a position to be hurt, or we clung to others in hopes that they might save us from ourselves. Understanding the patterns in our thinking and behavior helps us recognize them when they crop up again, as they often do.
Some of us are survivors of unspeakable trauma. We have real emotional wounds caused by wartime combat, physical or sexual assault, natural disasters, or extreme poverty. We are not at fault for these horrific experiences. We find ways to reckon with our trauma in our own time and often with help from resources outside NA. Our responsibility begins when the Steps uncover a need for more work. Real healing takes courage and persistence.
Recovery gives us the opportunity to know ourselves, to answer to our own conscience, and to own our part instead of blaming forces outside ourselves. We take responsibility and reap the rewards that come from being accountable for our actions: We're capable of feeling the whole range of human emotions and ready to face life on life's terms.
I will not hide behind the disease of addiction today, nor will I cast blame on others in my orbit. I will practice responsibility by accepting my part in the problem and my role in the solution.
Copyright (c) 2007-2023, NA World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved