NA Daily Meditations

NA Meitations

Feel free to read one of our 2 daily meditations.

Just For Today
Spiritual Principle A Day

Just For Today

June 08, 2026

The only requirement

Page 166

“This program offers hope. All you have to bring with you is the desire to stop using and the willingness to try this new way of life.”

IP No. 16, “For the Newcomer”

From time to time we wonder if we’re “doing it right” in Narcotics Anonymous. Are we attending enough meetings? Are we using our sponsor, or working the steps, or speaking, or reading, or living the “right” way? We value the fellowship of recovering addicts–we don’t know what we’d do without it. What if the way we’re practicing our program is “wrong”? Does that make us “bad” NA members?

We can settle our insecurities by reviewing our Third tradition, which assures us that “the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using.” There aren’t any rules that say we’ve got to attend this many meetings or these particular meetings, or work the “steps” this way at this pace, or live our lives to suit these people in order to remain NA members in good standing.

It’s true that, if we want the kind of recovery we see in members we respect, we’ll want to practice the kind of program that’s made their recovery possible. But NA is a fellowship of freedom; we work the program the best way for us, not for someone else. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using.

Just for Today: I will look at the program I’m working in light of my own recovery. I will practice that program to the best of my ability.

Spiritual Principal A Day

June 08, 2026

Anonymity Connects Us

Page 165

“. . . addiction makes us one of a kind. Our personal stories may vary in individual pattern but in the end we all have the same thing in common. This common illness or disorder is addiction.”

Basic Text, Chapter 8: We Do Recover

By the time most of us show up at our first few Narcotics Anonymous meetings, we are pros when it comes to the difference game. Within moments of meeting someone new, we can fire off a list of ways that we are both better and worse than they are, ways in which their opinions, concerns, and experiences have no bearing whatsoever on our own lives and problems.

But something strange happens to most of us when we sit through an NA meeting. Whether it happens right away or after months or years, we look around at a room full of people who are nothing like us, and we begin to realize that we are sitting in a room full of people who are exactly like us. We might not even realize it at the time, but anonymity is what flips that switch.

Addiction comes with its own strain of terror and desperation that we recognize when we hear each other share. We suffer the pain of wanting to stop using but not knowing how, of wanting to stop disappointing the people in our lives but seeing no other choice, of wanting to stop waking up disappointed in ourselves–again!–and yet, here we are, sick and tired of being tired and sick. We hear our fellow addicts share these experiences, experiences we know so well, and we know we’re in the right place.

For some of us, connecting to NA members on the level of pain and suffering is the first time in a long, long time that we have felt any connection to other people. But it doesn’t stop there! First, we have only addiction in common, but when we stay and work the program, we soon have recovery in common, too. When we practice anonymity, we are able to have greater empathy and compassion for those around us. We see our sameness.

Our sense of connection with other NA members keeps growing. We meet members from other areas, cities, and countries–they share differently, but the message is the same. We have never met, but we know each other intimately. Such is the blessing of being an addict in recovery–anonymity connects us all.

Addiction separates me from other people and from myself. To reconnect, I will acknowledge what I have in common with other recovering addicts today and reach out to them.