Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on NA unity.
~Tradition One
Being a part of something, especially something outside myself, is crucial for my recovery… For life in general, really. I can’t fight this battle alone; I need an army at my side. Because on the days I can’t be there for myself, I have a chosen family that can step up when needed.
I left my family behind over this last year. I stopped going to meetings, I stopped communicating with people in the program, I stopped going to friends’ houses, and I stopped texting and calling. After a year of that, I relapsed. I went rogue, I said fuck it, I got this. Look where it got me. I started a new string of clean times after previously having over three years because I stopped being a family member.
When I was doing all the right things, I had security. I felt like I deserved to be clean. I had a hard time reconciling those thoughts because when I was fucking up I felt like I didn’t deserve any of that. I wasn’t being forced, membership is not a requirement, but a suggestion. When I took that suggestion, I thrived. I was able to live. When I turned my back, I failed.
I stopped caring about my recovery because other life stuff got in the way. And when that eventual straw on the camel’s back dropped, I had nothing to fall back on. I worked piece by piece for my downfall. But my ego got in the way for me to be able to see it happening.
After the relapse, I knew I had fucked up and needed a change. I went to rehab for 60 days, split between two facilities. I treated it more seriously and set up plans for when I was going to get out. I picked up a sponsor, went through my first step again, and got into contacts I had before I started talking to my best friends again. Strained relationships but all I can do is prove to myself I deserve this, and the rest will fall into place.
Step One tells us we are powerless against our addiction, and that our lives had become unmanageable. A good sign for me to realize that without Tradition One, which says our recovery depends on NA unity, was that I left that behind. I wasn’t part of that unity anymore. When I worked Step One and then continued to work through Tradition One in the Basic Text, I knew that I had to get back into the community to survive. For me, it has become a requirement.
I have to surround myself with people who know what I am going through and who want to see me survive just as much as I want to survive. Tradition One to me means family. Family is everything! I didn’t grow up in a tight-knit family, but I have learned what that means as an adult. I can do this with the unity of NA.
“We are accepted and loved for who we are, not in spite of who we are.” Narcotics Anonymous