Narcotics Anonymous

Just For Today - Daily Email Service

   August 3                                                   Trusting people

      "Many of us would have had nowhere else to go if we could not have
                       trusted NA groups and members."

                                                            Basic Text, p. 81

                           ----=----

   Trusting people is a risk.    Human beings are notoriously forgetful,
   unreliable, and imperfect.    Most of us come from backgrounds where
   betrayal and insensitivity among friends were common occurrences.   Even
   our most reliable friends weren't very reliable.  By the time we arrive
   at the doors of NA, most of us have hundreds of experiences bearing out
   our conviction that people are untrustworthy.   Yet our recovery demands
   that we trust people.   We are faced with this dilemma:   People are not
   always trustworthy, yet we must trust them.  How do we do that, given the
   evidence of our pasts?

   First, we remind ourselves that the rules of active addiction don't
   apply in recovery.  Most of our fellow members are doing their level best
   to live by the spiritual principles we learn in the program.  Second, we
   remind ourselves that we aren't 100%  reliable, either.  We will surely
   disappoint someone in our lives, no matter how hard we try not to.  Third,
   and most importantly, we realize that we need to trust our fellow members
   of NA.  Our lives are at stake, and the only way we can stay clean is to
   trust these well-intentioned folks who, admittedly, aren't perfect.

                           ----=----

   Just for today:   I will trust my fellow members.   Though certainly not
   perfect, they are my best hope.