Most of us do not have to think twice about this question. We know! Our whole life and thinking was centered in drugs in one form or another – the getting and using and finding ways and means to get more. We lived to use and used to live. Very simply, an addict is a man or woman whose life is controlled by drugs. We are people in the grip of a continuing and progressive illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions, and death.

Reprinted from the Little White Booklet, Narcotics Anonymous. Copyright 1986 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc., PO Box 9999, Van Nuys, CA 91409ISBN 0-912075-65-1 10/00