When we were using, we did everything we could to run things our way. We used every scheme imaginable to bring our world under control. When we got what we wanted, we felt powerful, invincible; when we didn't, we felt vulnerable, defeated. But that didn't stop us-it only led to more efforts to control and manipulate our lives into a manageable state.

Scheming was our way of denying our powerlessness. As long as we could distract ourselves with our plans, we could put off accepting that we were out of control. Only gradually did we realize that our lives had become unmanageable and that all the conning and manipulating in the world was not going to put our lives back in order.

When we admit our powerlessness, we stop trying to control and manage our way to a better life-we surrender. Lacking sufficient power of our own, we seek a Power greater than ourselves; needing support and guidance, we ask that Power to care for our will and our lives. We ask others in recovery to share their experience with living the NA program instead of trying to program our own lives. The power and direction we seek is all around us; we need only turn away from self to find it.

The autonomy spoken of in Tradition Four has a strong appeal to many of us in NA. We are people who tend to put a pretty high value on self-determination. In active addiction, insistence on doing things our way often led to poor results, usually because "our way" had a lot to do with self-centeredness, rather than integrity. In recovery, autonomy becomes an asset rather than a liability—as our Basic Text puts it, "Our real value is in being ourselves."

It's the second half of Tradition Four that keeps us on track: "except in matters affecting other groups or NA as a whole." For NA groups, this means we think about our role as part of the Fellowship, not just what our own group wants. As individual recovering addicts, we balance our right to do as we please with our responsibilities to those around us: family, friends, the Fellowship, and society. One way we begin to learn that balance is in how we share in meetings.

"As a newcomer, my sharing was super-aggressive and put some people on edge," a member wrote. "My justification was 'Hey, this is who I am!' After a while, I tried to mimic the way others shared, but it wasn't my own voice, and it always came out wrong.

Eventually, I got comfortable being me while also thinking about the feelings of those around me . . . I finally started to connect."

If any group of people can sniff out a fake, it's addicts. Authenticity is a message that lasts, whether it comes in the form of a riveting performance or an understated, soft-spoken share. Whether we're trying to reach a still-suffering addict or save our own life, we try to strike the right balance between autonomy