The Bay Cities Area of Narcotics Anonymous serves as a vital resource for individuals and families affected by addiction throughout the coastal South Bay region of Los Angeles County. By coordinating local NA groups, maintaining accurate meeting information, and supporting area-wide service efforts, the Bay Cities Area helps ensure that anyone seeking recovery can easily find help. The area supports meetings in these communities Carson, Gardena, Hermosa Beach, Lomita, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, San Pedro, Signal Hill, Torrance, Torrrance, Wilmington, strengthening connections between members, promoting unity, and fostering a safe, consistent message of recovery for the broader community.
When we begin coming to meetings, we hear other addicts talking about the gifts they have received as a result of this program, things we never thought of as "gifts" before. One such "gift" is the renewed ability to feel the emotions we had deadened for so long with drugs. It's not difficult to think of love, joy, and happiness as gifts, even if it's been a long time since we've felt them. But what about "bad" feelings like anger, sadness, fear, and loneliness? Such emotions can't be seen as gifts, we tell ourselves. After all, how can we be thankful for things we want to run from?!
We can become grateful for these emotions in our lives if we place them in their proper perspective. We need to remember that we've come to believe in a loving Higher Power, and we've asked that Power to care for us--and our Higher Power doesn't make mistakes. The feelings we're given, "good" or "bad" are given to us for a reason. With this in mind, we come to realize that there are no "bad" feelings, only lessons to be learned. Our faith and our Higher Power's care give us the courage we need to face whatever feelings may come up on a daily basis.
As we heard early in recovery, "Your Higher Power won't give you more than you can handle in just one day." And the ability to feel our emotions is one of the greatest gifts of recovery.
For some of us, being a member of an NA group gives us our first taste of what it feels like to be reliable. When we are new, members urge us to come to the next meeting and come back clean. Group members remember us, seem happy to see us, ask us to share or take a commitment. We keep coming back--and whether we like it or not, people begin to rely on us. "I was excited to be trusted by group members to carry on the work," a member shared. "My end of the bargain was to do the work and serve the entire term."
Even when we don't complete our service as reliably as we would expect of ourselves, serving in NA helps us get better, especially because we start to see the value of our contributions. "Our group created some service positions for newer members to get them involved," a group wrote. "When people miss the meeting, it's not a big deal. All the tasks get done. But the meeting feels so much more complete when everyone is there, doing their part. It's like music . . . you might not notice one or two voices missing from a choir, but when they're all there, it just sounds so much better."
Our families and friends might feel a little skeptical or surprised about our developing reliability. It's discouraging when people don't believe in us the way our fellow members do, but it's our actions that matter. One member wrote, "I heard someone say that 90 percent of recovery is showing up--bring the body and the mind will follow. That helped me show up for my commitment, and I used it to help me be there for my family and my job, too. People started to count on me. I began to feel like I mattered." Keeping our commitments changes the way people see us, but more importantly, it changes the way we see ourselves.
