Why Are We Here?

Before coming to the Fellowship of NA, we could not
manage our own lives. We could not live and enjoy life as other
people do. We had to have something different and we thought
we had found it in drugs. We placed their use ahead of the
welfare of our families, our wives, husbands, and our children.
We had to have drugs at all costs. We did many people great
harm but most of all we harmed ourselves. Through our
inability to accept personal responsibilities we were actually
creating our own problems. We seemed to be incapable of
facing life on its own terms.
Most of us realized that in our addiction we were slowly
committing suicide, but addiction is such a cunning enemy of
life that we had lost the power to do anything about it. Many of
us ended up in jail or sought help through medicine, religion,
and psychiatry. None of these methods was sufficient for us.
Our disease always resurfaced or continued to progress until
in desperation we sought help from each other in Narcotics
Anonymous.
After coming to NA, we realized we were sick people. We
suffered from a disease from which there is no known cure. It
can, however, be arrested at some point and recovery is then
possible.