From the NA Twentieth Anniversary Dinner, 1973
You know, I said many times a long time ago that a man without a dream is only half a man, and a fellowship without a vision is a farce. I still believe that. I know damn well that we can find our fulfillment living a day at a time here. And, a day at a time, our vision and our fellowship can become a greater reality. This is part of a dream come true. And a dream envisions great changes, but progress demands many small actions. A dream doesn’t come true because of one group of people or one man or two men or three men, it comes true because a lot of people work at it, because a lot of people put an effort into it, because a lot of people buy the idea and carry it forward.
The newcomers are the lifeblood of this fellowship, always have been and always will be. We started long before NA was a reality, even in name. We grew from a need. We found – those of us who were members had come into AA and found that we could recover in AA – we found out that many addicts were still going down the road of degradation and death. We thought it was right that we should try to do something. We’re growing faster now than we ever did before. We’re in more states; we’re in more countries. There are more opportunities for each and every one of us to find our place in Narcotics Anonymous and carry the message of recovery, to addicts all over the world now. We can no longer try to contain it here, in California or in this country. But it’s gonna take everything all of us got; it takes everything we got to stay on this program. This is a blood and guts program. This is not a program for pantywaists. But there are no pantywaists in NA-if you’re an addict, you’ve got a lot of guts to begin with, or you wouldn’t be here. So let’s put them to good use. Let’s take this thing that we’ve got, and make something better even than it is out of it.