In this episode of The Living Clean Podcast, we sit down with the Māori woman from Aotearoa, New Zealand, who wrote “Kia Ora Koutou,” one of the personal stories published in the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text.

The episode begins with a narration of her powerful story—a woman who entered treatment kicking and screaming, got clean partly out of stubbornness and spite, and slowly discovered hope through the message of Narcotics Anonymous. She shares honestly about the progression of her addiction, losing the trust of her whānau, surviving her earliest cravings ten minutes at a time, grieving her old way of life, and eventually rebuilding her relationship with her children, earning a university degree, and creating a life she once believed was impossible.

After hearing “Kia Ora Koutou,” we speak directly with its author about the experiences behind those words and everything that has happened during the 23 years since she wrote them. We explore her Māori identity, family, spirituality, recovery, and the many ways her understanding of hope and freedom has continued to grow.

This is more than an update to a story from the Basic Text. It is living proof that an addict can stop using, lose the desire to use, and find a new way to live.

Arohanui—big love.

In this Living Clean Book Study episode, we begin the section “Spiritual and Emotional Crisis,” covering the first four paragraphs.

Recovery doesn’t mean we stop going through hard things. Sometimes the crisis isn’t about wanting to use—it’s about feeling disconnected, overwhelmed, uncertain, or struggling to make sense of what we’re going through.

We discuss what Living Clean has to say about these difficult periods, what they can reveal about where we are spiritually and emotionally, and how staying connected to recovery can help us move through them without returning to old ways of coping.

This week on The Living Clean Podcast, we sit down with Michael M., who has been clean since August 17, 1975.

Michael takes us back to his early days in recovery and shares what Narcotics Anonymous looked like at that time, including his involvement in the early development of the fellowship in his area and his experience attending the 7th World Convention.

From there, we get into Michael’s many years of service and some of the major changes he witnessed and participated in as NA grew. We talk about his involvement with It Works: How and Why, the Sixth Edition of the Basic Text, the development of the first World Board, and his experience serving as the first chair of the World Board.

Along the way, Michael shares stories from more than 50 years of recovery and service and gives us a firsthand look at some of the people, decisions, challenges, and changes that helped shape Narcotics Anonymous into the worldwide fellowship it is today.

There is a whole lot of NA history in this one, but more importantly, there is a whole lot of recovery.

Join us for a conversation with Michael M., clean since August 17, 1975, on this week’s episode of The Living Clean Podcast.