In our active addiction, many of us lived our lives by default. We were unwilling or unable to make choices about how we wanted to act, what we preferred to do, or even where we would live. We allowed the drugs or other people to make our most basic decisions for us. Freedom from active addiction means, among other things, the freedom to make those choices for ourselves.

Freedom of choice is a wonderful gift, but it's also a great responsibility. Choice allows us to find out who we are and what we believe in. However, in exercising it, we're called on to weigh our own choices and accept the consequences. This leads some of us to seek out someone who will make our choices for us-our sponsor, our home group, our NA friends-just as our disease made our choices for us when we were using. That's not recovery.

Seeking others' experience is one thing; abdicating personal responsibility is something else. If we don't use the gift of freedom we've been given, if we refuse to accept the responsibilities that go along with it, we'll lose that gift and our lives will be diminished. We are responsible for our own recovery and our own choices. Difficult as it may seem; we must make those choices for ourselves and become willing to accept the consequences.

What's in a name? Well, "Anonymous" is half of ours. In not using our last names, we end up sharing the same one: "Addict." But practicing anonymity doesn't end with a last initial. A principle can't be that simple—not when it's a word that's so hard to pronounce. Go ahead, try it: Anonymity . . . See? The struggle is real for so many of us!

Because anonymity is, according to our Twelfth Tradition, the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, understanding what it means and how to practice it is essential to our ability to work with, relate to, and love each other, unconditionally. Our spiritual foundation is "the very rock we're all standing on," a member wrote. "But any rock can be pounded into sand by relentless forces. A slight here, a direct insult or backhanded compliment there, and on and on."

Anonymity ensures equity among us, and we can't have unity without it. None of us is too bad or too good for NA. We don't merely tolerate each other's differences and ignore our difficult pasts. Instead, we honor and embrace the people we are today. We do our damnedest to rise above personality differences and having-a-bad-day reactions. We give each other the benefit of the doubt, roll up our sleeves in unity, and get to work.

Acceptance doesn't mean we endorse each other's every action. There's space for all of us at the NA table, but we must hold ourselves and each other accountable. Anonymity requires that we all have equal access to the message. So when a member's behavior prevents that from happening or otherwise interrupts the atmosphere of recovery, we need to be clear: "You are welcome. Your behavior is not." We can't expect ourselves to practice the unconditional love aspect of anonymity perfectly, but we can't let that stop us from ensuring that every addict who comes to our group has access to a message of recovery, no matter who they are or what they have done or perhaps will do.