Living Clean

by Narcotics Anonymous

  We have not been easy people. We do harm when we are using, and the people who are closest to us get the worst of it. We can be stubborn and suspicious, angry and afraid, sarcastic, willful, and set in our ways. We have been through hell, and we have put others through hell, too. We’ve experienced loss and failure and often violence. Even if we come in with families or careers intact, we need to change how we deal with them. Gaining these skills in recovery can be a long and sometimes painful process. When we look back on our active addiction and see the harm we caused, the relationships we destroyed, and the opportunities for intimacy we threw away, we may be overwhelmed by the wreckage. But we can also find some gratitude for the fact that we are clean now and we are changing. Our history with relationships can lead us to think that there is no hope for us in this area, but our experience with the Second Step proves to us that we can be restored to sanity. We need help that our loved ones cannot give us. The therapeutic value of one addict helping another really is without parallel. Caring and sharing the NA way is the ultimate weapon against our alienating, isolating, destructive disease.

  Serious work is required. The issues we need to deal with emerge in the course of our interactions with others in and out of NA. As we go about our lives, just being who we are, we begin to heal. While we are healing, we experience difficulties and conflicts. When we no longer have the drugs to blame, we begin to understand the part we play in our own struggles. When we see ourselves creating wreckage while clean, we have a harder time making peace with ourselves. Some of us struggle to believe that lasting change is possible. Members who care about us will help us to see the ways we are still creating our own problems, but it’s our responsibility to do something about it.

  We learn to share, and share intimately. For many of us, sponsorship is our first honest, functional relationship—at the very least, the first in a long time. Sponsorship can serve as a model on which we begin to build other relationships that are healthy, loving, and productive. Many of our longtime members recall that they were “impossible” newcomers—questioning, doubting, arguing, and admitting their reservations. We made mistakes in public and dealt with the consequences. We built our foundation not by pretending, but by going through the struggle honestly and courageously, and accepting help along the way. Recovery is not always a tidy process; we are building intimate relationships with other people and with a power greater than ourselves, and neither of these comes naturally to all of us.

  We don’t all come into NA alone: Many of us come into recovery with partners, children, parents, and others we are close to. But many of these relationships have been damaged by our disease. As we recognize that we can’t fix it all at once, it can be tempting to just walk away. But relationships are not like drugs, even though we may have used them for the same purposes; we can’t simply abstain. The real work of living clean happens when we are in the world, relating with others. Our only choice is to learn as we go. We learn to deal with our family, our workplace, and our community at the same time that we are learning to find our place in the rooms. Each relationship we have affects every other. Each one teaches us things that help in the rest of our relationships.

  We don’t get long-term recovery without having relationships, both in and out of the rooms. It’s the meat and potatoes of life—and the dessert! Relationships affect everything we do and everything we are. The ways we respond to our experiences shape who we become. When we are willing to stay in recovery, to allow ourselves to grow and change, we experience a full range of emotions. That we get clean at all is a miracle. But it doesn’t stop there: We grow to be steady, reliable, loving people who can be a force for change in the lives of other addicts and beyond.

  Relationships are central to everything we do. There is no step or tradition that is not somehow about relationships, and all of our literature talks about relationships in some way or another. There is no other area in our recovery that causes us more pain or more joy; it’s where we see our growth and our recovery most clearly.

  Fellowship

  When NA began, the simple idea that addicts could recover in society, rather than having to be removed from it for long periods of time, was radical. For many of us today, what is revolutionary about our recovery is the love and intimacy we experience with other members. We come together in fellowship. As we stay together, we find in one another a deep affection and trust that can override the hurts and squabbles we have along the way. The ties that bind us together are also the roots that nourish our growth.

  When our first surrender happens in the arms of NA, there is a connection that is made between the suffering addict and the fellowship. We know from the beginning that NA is our lifeline. When something else brings us ashore, we may not know that as clearly. It can be frustrating when we need to teach someone that NA is not an extended aftercare program or a treatment feeder. People get clean here, and we stay clean here.

  Part of what makes unity so vital to our recovery is that it can be easy to forget how similar we are. Even after we have been here for a while, we can see our differences as separating us, rather than bringing us the freedom we need to grow into ourselves. It’s one thing to reach out to a newcomer we hardly know, but when we have known each other for years and still don’t care much for each other, it may take a little more effort to reach across the divide. We can see that a personality that doesn’t appeal to us may still be able to carry the message to someone we couldn’t reach ourselves. Having concern for each other in spite of our personal feelings can bring us surprising rewards. When we find ourselves caring about someone we don’t like or don’t know, we can feel our shared humanity, and we recognize a new level of spirituality in ourselves.

  We call Narcotics Anonymous a fellowship for a reason: We are a community of equals. We are brought together by necessity, but when we keep coming back we find a common bond. We have a choice not only about whether or not we are members, but also about what our membership means to us, and how we experience or demonstrate it. As our connection with others develops, we move from being abjectly alone to being deeply connected. Some say that “NA” for them stands for “never alone, never again.” Connection changes us, and the fact that we are all bound by a deadly disease means that the stakes are higher. The gratitude we feel at seeing a fellow member stay clean is not abstract. We may be grateful to have had a person as our friend for many years—but the fact that we have lost so many along the way means that we are grateful in another sense. Our friendship is also a celebration of our survival. Connected by our common disease and our primary purpose, we share a common bond unlike any other.

  From the moment we come to the door of an NA meeting, our experience is about relationships. The welcome we receive as a newcomer has a way of staying with us. Many of us share about being treated like a human being for the first time in years when we came to a meeting: “That first meeting was the first time in a long time that someone treated me like a person, and not like a problem or a project.” The fact that people greeted us, sat with us, even hugged us without wanting anything in return, seemed more surprising than the message we heard in words. “That wordless language of recognition, belief, and faith which we call empathy” is exactly what we need, and it happens in the exchange between virtual strangers in our meetings. This is nothing short of a miracle. Over time, we learn that we have a safety net we can trust, and we can rely on the people who care for us to carry us through.

  Relationships are one area where we show our differences most sharply. Some of us stay pretty isolated, while others are surrounded by people; some of us develop large and vibrant social circles within the fellowship, while others of us have just a few friends we are comfortable with. Some of us find that in recovery we calm down in all kinds of ways, while others are still partying ’til dawn—but doing it clean. Some of us stop dating when we get clean, and others go a little wild. There is probably no area of recovery where we offer more advice, or take less of it. But the things we all ha
ve in common across the fellowship have little to do with any rules or advice; they have to do with the nature of our disease, and the tools we use to address it. What we share is the disease of addiction and the principles of recovery that can guide us in all our affairs.

  There are some things that apply to all of us. We have a disease, and the core of that disease is self-obsession. The most important tool we use in fighting our disease is empathy: the sense that others understand us in a deep way, and the concern we feel for others that allows us to get out of ourselves and connect to something greater. Empathy means we get each other; we see the hidden darkness and love and hurt, and we understand. That is different from brutal honesty: taking the truth about someone and using it as a weapon to hurt them. Empathy is not emotional violence. We might hand one another the truth on a plate—unavoidable, obvious, terrifying, and maybe also kind of funny—but we don’t use the truth as a means to gain power or humiliate. We show one another through our insight and example that we have a better self, and that we can rise to it.

  The things we complain about most in the fellowship are often the challenges from which we learn the most. As much as we would like to imagine that we would learn to practice spiritual principles by reading about them, we learn what they mean and how to apply them by bumping up against each other, sometimes roughly. Sometimes simply not escalating a conflict can be a success. It may not be within our power to make peace, but we can certainly keep a situation from impacting the newcomer or the atmosphere of recovery we all treasure. Many times we have seen members who actively dislike each other set aside their differences to help a newcomer, or at the bedside of a sick friend, or at a moment of distress. The life-and-death struggles we experience and bear witness to put everything else into perspective. The conflicts, the drama, and the breakups in the rooms help to wear away our rough edges. We learn to deal with each other in spite of our feelings and our history.

  The intensity of fellowship is what brings us from our condition as isolated, alienated, and frightened addicts to loving, caring, and sharing members of NA. When we are in the middle of the worst kind of conflict, we may struggle to remember that we are still welcome in meetings, that we still have people whom we trust and who care for us, and that we are still very much in the middle of the fellowship and of our own recovery process. We learn that when we have a genuine need or concern, almost any member will reach out to help, even if there has been some unpleasant history between us. We start to believe that we are safe. Over time, as we care for people and see that they really do support us, we start to feel a little safer. We can be a little more willing to take a risk, let go of what’s not working, and try something different. Each time we make ourselves vulnerable and find someone there for us, we come to a new level of safety and trust.

  We often tell newcomers we will love them until they learn to love themselves. What we are doing is loving one another back to life. That’s true no matter how we express that love. Some of us are warm and affectionate, some of us are gruff and removed, but what we do in the rooms when a meeting is happening is the same. We are turning our attention outside ourselves and making a new kind of connection. The Basic Text tells us that love is “the flow of life energy from one person to another.” This is essential to what we do. We connect with others, and through them, to a power greater than ourselves. Opening up to the world around us is a spiritual awakening.

  One of our earliest connections in recovery is usually with a home group (whether we call it that or not)—a meeting we connect with and attend regularly. We look at members of the group who share a bond with one another, and we want what they have. We get to know others who are new and struggling, and we care about whether they make it back the next week. We start to hope for other members, and we find hope for ourselves as well. We find ourselves genuinely excited to see people celebrate their cleantime. We are interested in others. Practicing selflessness gives us relief from self-obsession. Caring about others and realizing that people care about us is another awakening.

  Our spiritual awakening shows in our actions. We join a group, find a sponsor, take on a service position. We make commitments to show up and take action on a regular basis. We learn new ways to show our gratitude at the same time that we learn to be accountable. When we make a commitment, we learn to accept responsibility, to stick and stay through the hard parts, to do the best we can, and to ask for help when we need it. We learn our limits through over commitment, try to figure out the responsible way to let go, and find out it’s okay to make mistakes. We learn that adversity, even conflict, is not the end of the story. We may do service for ego to begin with, but we learn through difficulty to be selfless, and that’s the goal. We become part of something greater than ourselves. For most of our lives we were in the business of tearing down. What a joy it is to be part of something that not only saves people’s lives, but makes them worth living.

  The desire to serve comes from this sense of care and concern—and it is important to note that service is not limited to what we do inside the service system, or even inside NA. In whatever form it takes, service is what we do to act on our concern for others. In meetings, that might mean setting up chairs or helping to clean up afterwards; it could mean taking time to talk with an addict who is struggling or in pain, giving someone a ride to a meeting, or making sure that others feel included. Reaching out is the way we break out of our self-obsession. Service opens us to transformation and to love. The more we practice selflessness, the easier it becomes, and the more rewarding we find it to be.

  Friendship

  We may choose the first people we get close to in recovery just because they are available, or they go to the same meetings we do. When we are in crisis, it doesn’t matter if we trust someone or not; we reach out and are grateful that anyone is there to grab our hand and pull us back from the edge. We need to trust before we begin to discern who is trustworthy. Discernment comes from hard experience: trusting people we shouldn’t, being hurt, and coming back anyway. As our respect for ourselves grows, we choose more carefully whom we confide in. We get to know each other better—but we also get a better idea of ourselves and what we want and deserve in our friendships. We begin to recognize the elements of a healthy relationship. A sense of safety can be the biggest difference in our relationships. We start to feel like we can trust people, and we become more trustworthy ourselves.

  Our Third Tradition teaches that we are all accepted in NA. We are not going to be thrown out if we make a mistake. So we get to experience different types of relationships—and different kinds of conflicts—safe in the knowledge that we will still be welcome when it’s over. One of the things we notice in recovery is that we have many different kinds of friendships. We get to experiment with that, too, and find the ways we are most comfortable connecting. Those also change over time. Relationships are fluid, and that is part of what makes them so challenging: They change all the time. A member we have sort of known for years will ask us to coffee and we become fast friends—or we notice that someone we once were close to has grown away from us and we no longer seem to have as much in common. Our expectations about what a friend should be (or what a partner, a sponsor, or a parent should be) can keep us from addressing the reality of our relationships.

  We let go of the things that cut us off from other people and from ourselves. The steps and traditions help us learn how to practice principles, and to clear away the mess that makes it so hard to see what is real. “There were parts of me that were frozen because of my childhood damage,” explained one member. “I made a decision that no one would hurt me again and I would rely only on myself. It created a very lonely world: There wasn’t room for anyone else, not even my Higher Power. It took some serious stepwork to recognize how my early relationships set the patterns for later ones.”

  The core of our disease is self-obsession. It needs to be dealt with from the very beginning of our recovery and for the rest of our lives. We begin to learn this t
he first time we walk into a meeting and feel we are in the right place: The identification we feel, the sense that other people know what we have suffered, breaks the grip of that self-obsession and frees us from ourselves.

  Escaping the trap of self-centeredness opens us to others, and we are startled by their gifts and their uniqueness. We are each stronger in some ways and weaker in others. We find that we are able to help and be helped by the same person. They need what we have, and we need them as well. We awaken to a world where no one is simply what we think they are. Everyone has stories and struggles, assets and shortcomings. We can learn from anyone and everyone. Escaping from cycles of victimization, blame, and shame allows us to see how many other ways we are connected to the people around us—even those we don’t yet know.

  The gifts of recovery are available to us all, and they come through us all. We feel one another’s joy and sorrow, we see one another’s growth, and we genuinely want to help one another, even if there is nothing in it for us. Empathy is the ability to connect with others at the level of the heart and the spirit. Learning to develop empathy requires that we develop a conscience and a consciousness outside of ourselves. We develop care and concern, and in some cases even love for people without wanting anything in return. Empathy helps us to meet each other where we are.

  There is a paradox here: We need to develop empathy and concern for others, and to let go of self-obsession without losing sight of ourselves. We can swing from one extreme to the other, from self-obsession to self-neglect and then back again. When we find ourselves caught in this pattern, we may be full of resentment and frustration. When we step back and do some inventory, we can see that our willingness to disappear into someone else’s needs was not selflessness at all, but rather a reach for control—being indispensable makes some of us feel important, just as being taken care of does for others. When we let go of selfishness and self-centeredness, we don’t lose who we are; we enhance it. There is always more room for empathy and greater capacity for love. We come to understand that just being ourselves really is enough to be loved and cared for by others and by a power greater than ourselves. We all have the opportunity to experience this freedom, but it takes some of us longer than others. We move in and out of self-centeredness as we learn to distinguish among our needs, desires, and fears.