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

August 21, 2026

Friendships

Page 243

“Our friendships become deep, and we experience the warmth and caring which results from addicts sharing recovery and a new life.”

IP No.19, “Self-Acceptance”

Most of us come to Narcotics Anonymous with few genuine friends. And most of us arrive without the slightest understanding of what it takes to build lasting friendships. Over time, though, we learn that friendships require work. At one time or another, all friendships are challenging. Like any relationship, friendship is a learning process.

Our friends love us enough to tell us the truth about ourselves. The old saying, “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you furious,” seems especially true in friendship. This can make friendships awkward. We may find ourselves avoiding certain meetings rather than facing our friends. We have found, though, that friends speak out of concern for us. They want the best for us. Our friends accept us despite our shortcomings. They understand that we are still a work in progress.

Friends are there for us when we’re not there for ourselves. Friends help us gain valuable perspective on the events in our lives and our recovery. It is important that we actively cultivate friendships, for we have learned that we cannot recover alone.

Just for Today: I will be grateful for the friends I have. I will take an active part in my friendships.

Spiritual Principal A Day

August 20, 2026

Practicing Service in All Our Affairs

Page 240

“Service gives us opportunities to grow in ways that touch all parts of our lives.”

Basic Text, Chapter 9: Just for Today–Living the Program

The Basic Text describes who we used to be in active addiction as “devious, frightened loners.” Many of us come to NA with very limited healthy and productive life experience. We may never have held a legal, on-the-books job and don’t have the skills to get one. Or we may have skills and experience, but our dodgy work history reflects our using more than our employability. Our relationships, if they even still exist, are a mess–with our loved ones, with ourselves, with a Higher Power. Our self-serving behavior and our aversion to being truly vulnerable and intimate with others have kept us isolated. And then there’s the spiritual deadness so many of us arrive with–and either the hardness or the utter fearfulness that comes with it.

In meetings, we hear members share that their lives are “bigger,” “amazing,” and “beyond my wildest dreams.” Initially, we are skeptical at best, especially when they also tell us that it’s not because of material gains but because of what they’ve gained by being of service to Narcotics Anonymous. A member shared, “Through service, my relationship to humanity was restored.” Seriously? ALL of humanity?

Most of us get involved in service because we’re told, “That’s how we stay clean.” We don’t fully grasp its holistic benefits until we experience them ourselves. Through our NA commitments, we learn basic accounting, public speaking, and good communication skills. We learn how to listen–in meetings, to a fellow member who needs to vent, to people we don’t even like. We learn how to treat others with respect when we disagree. We learn to show up to do the job no matter what. And more.

These are qualities we take with us wherever we go, in all our affairs. NA doesn’t just help us stay clean; it transforms us into people who can make a positive impact inside and outside of the rooms.

What aspects of my life have been touched by NA service? Through service, what can I do today–at work, at home, or wherever I go–to make a positive impact?