🌊 The 12 Steps & 12 Traditions of NA
These principles are the foundation of recovery in Narcotics Anonymous. The Steps guide personal growth, while the Traditions protect our fellowship and unity. Together, they offer a practical path to freedom from addiction.
The 12 Steps
Step 1
We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2
We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step 3
We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Step 4
We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 5
We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step 6
We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7
We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Step 8
We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9
We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step 10
We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Step 11
We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him.
Step 12
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
The 12 Traditions
Tradition 1
Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on NA unity.
Tradition 2
For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience.
Tradition 3
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using.
Tradition 4
Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or NA as a whole.
Tradition 5
Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry the message to the addict who still suffers.
Tradition 6
An NA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the NA name to any related facility or outside enterprise.
Tradition 7
Every NA group ought to be fully self‑supporting, declining outside contributions.
Tradition 8
Narcotics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
Tradition 9
NA, as such, ought never be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
Tradition 10
Narcotics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the NA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
Tradition 11
Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
Tradition 12
Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.