Narcotics Anonymous

Just For Today - Daily Email Service

   January 24                                    From isolation to connection

     "Our disease isolated us...  Hostile, resentful, self-centered, and
         self-seeking, we cut ourselves off from the outside world."

                                                             Basic Text, p. 4

                           ----=----

   Addiction is an isolating disease, closing us off from society, family,
   and self.  We hid.  We lied.   We scorned the lives we saw others living,
   surely beyond our grasp.   Worst of all, we told ourselves there was
   nothing wrong with us, even though we knew we were desperately ill.   Our
   connection with the world, and with reality itself, was severed.   Our
   lives lost meaning, and we withdrew further and further from reality.

   The NA  program is designed especially for people like us.   It helps
   reconnect us to the life we were meant to live, drawing us out of our
   isolation.  We stop lying to ourselves about our condition; we admit our
   powerlessness and the unmanageability of our lives.  We develop faith that
   our lives can improve, that recovery is possible, and that happiness is
   not permanently beyond our grasp.   We get honest; we stop hiding;  we
   "show up and tell the truth," no matter what.   And as we do, we
   establish the ties that connect our individual lives to the larger life
   around us.

   We addicts need not live lives of isolation.  The Twelve Steps can restore
   our connection to life and living-if we work them.

                           ----=----

   Just for today:  I am a part of the life around me.  I will practice my
   program to strengthen my connection to my world.