“We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction,
that our lives had become unmanageable.”
As addicts, we have each experienced the pain, loneliness, and despair of addiction. Before coming to NA, most of us tried everything we could think of to control our use of drugs. We tried switching drugs, thinking that we only had a problem with one particular
drug. We tried limiting our drug use to certain times or places. We may even have vowed to stop using altogether at a certain point. We may have told ourselves we would never do the things we watched other addicts do, then found ourselves doing those very things. Nothing we tried had any lasting effect. Our active addiction continued
to progress, overpowering even our best intentions. Alone, terrified of what the future held for us, we found the Fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous.
As members of Narcotics Anonymous, our experience is that addiction is a progressive disease. The progression may be rapid or slow, but it is always downhill. As long as we are using drugs, our lives will steadily get worse. It would be impossible to precisely describe addiction in a way that is agreeable to everyone. However, the disease seems to affect us in the following general ways. Mentally, we become obsessed with thoughts of using. Physically, we develop a compulsion to continue using, regardless of the consequences. Spiritually, we become totally self-centered in the course of our addiction. Looking at addiction as a disease makes sense to a lot of addicts because, in our experience, addiction is progressive, incurable, and can be fatal unless arrested.
Read More: http://www.na.org/admin/include/spaw2/uploads/pdf/It_Works.pdf