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“Should our present success continue, people will commence to assert that AA is a brand new way of life, maybe a new religion, capable of saving the world. We shall be told it is our bounden duty to show modern society how it ought to live ...

“Fortunately most of us are convinced that these are perilous speculations, alluring ingredients of that new heady wine we are now being offered, each bottle marked ‘Success’!

“Of this subtle vintage may we never drink too deeply.”

“A friend of mine told me about going to see the Statue of Liberty on a field trip with his grammar school class. He said that as they walked up the long spiral staircase, they all held hands in a line. He couldn't see the person at the beginning or the end of the line but he felt safe. He knew he was connected to the rest of his schoolmates. That's the way it is in AA. We can't see the people at the beginning of the line or the end of the line. But we know they're there -- and we know we're safe.”

“A friend of mine told me about going to see the Statue of Liberty on a field trip with his grammar school class. He said that as they walked up the long spiral staircase, they all held hands in a line. He couldn't see the person at the beginning or the end of the line but he felt safe. He knew he was connected to the rest of his schoolmates. That's the way it is in AA. We can't see the people at either end of the line. But we know they're there -- and we know we're safe.”

“One day it will be left to the young people now in our Fellowship to carry on the original spirit and traditions of AA, even though the buzz words and trends will come and go. It will be up to us to teach newcomers how to maintain the type of sobriety that achieves the promises of the Big Book and dispels some of the fables of recovery popular today. It will be up to us to help the newcomer from the street dry out, shakes and pukes and all. We will be left to teach the little things: how to sit at the front, not the back of the room, say hello to the new guy, wash coffee cups and ashtrays. One day it will be up to us to uphold the Traditions. It will be up to us to keep it simple.”

“One day it will be left to the young people now in our Fellowship to carry on the original spirit and traditions of AA, even though the buzz words and trends will come and go. It will be up to us to teach newcomers how to maintain the type of sobriety that achieves the promises of the Big Book and dispels some of the fables of recovery popular today. It will be up to us to help the newcomer from the street dry out, shakes and pukes and all. We will be left to teach the little things: how to sit at the front, not the back of the room, say hello to the new guy, wash coffee cups and ashtrays. One day it will be up to us to uphold the Traditions. It will be up to us to keep it simple.”

“Now that we no longer patronize bars and bordellos; now that we bring home the pay checks; now that we are so very active in AA; and now that people congratulate us on these signs of progress -- well, we naturally proceed to congratulate ourselves. Yet we may not be within hailing distance of humility. Meaning well, yet doing badly, how often have I said or thought, ‘I am right and you are wrong,’ ‘My plan is correct and yours is faulty,’ ‘Thank God your sins are not my sins,’ ‘You are hurting AA and I'm going to stop you cold,’ ‘I have God's guidance, so He is on my side.’ And so on, indefinitely.

“The alarming thing about such pride-blindness is the ease with which it is justified.”

“Now that we no longer patronize bars and bordellos; now that we bring home the paychecks; now that we are so very active in AA; and now that people congratulate us on these signs of progress -- well, we naturally proceed to congratulate ourselves. Yet we may not be within hailing distance of humility. Meaning well, yet doing badly, how often have I said or thought, ‘I am right and you are wrong,’ ‘My plan is correct and yours is faulty,’ ‘Thank God your sins are not my sins,’ ‘You are hurting AA and I'm going to stop you cold,’ ‘I have God's guidance, so He is on my side.’ And so on, indefinitely.

The alarming thing about such pride-blindness is the ease with which it is justified.”

“My self-analysis has frequently been faulty. Sometimes I've failed to share my defects with the right people; at other times, I've confessed their defects, rather than my own; and at still other times, my confession of defects has been more in the nature of loud complaints about my circumstances and my problems.

Nevertheless, I think I've usually been able to make a fairly thorough and searching job of finding and admitting my personal defects ... Yet this pretty well-ventilated condition is nothing for self-congratulation. Long ago I was lucky enough to see that I'd have to keep up my self-analysis or else blow my top completely. Though driven by stark necessity, this continuous self-revelation -- to myself and to others -- was rough medicine to take. But years of repetition has made this job far easier.”

“Newcomers are approaching AA at the rate of tens of thousands yearly. They represent almost every belief and attitude imaginable. We have atheists and agnostics. We have people of nearly every race, culture and religion. In AA we are supposed to be bound together in the kinship of a common suffering. Consequently, the full individual liberty to practice any creed or principle or therapy whatever should be a first consideration for us all. Let us not, therefore, pressure anyone with our individual or even our collective views. Let us instead accord each other the respect and love that is due to every human being as he tries to make his way toward the light. Let us always try to be inclusive rather than exclusive; let us remember that each alcoholic among us is a member of AA, so long as he or she so declares.”

"“My self-analysis has frequently been faulty. Sometimes I've failed to share my defects with the right people; at other times, I've confessed their defects, rather than my own; and at still other times, my confession of defects has been more in the nature of loud complaints about my circumstances and my problems.

“Nevertheless, I think I've usually been able to make a fairly thorough and searching job of finding and admitting my personal defects ... Yet this pretty well-ventilated condition is nothing for self-congratulation. Long ago I was lucky enough to see that I'd have to keep up my self-analysis or else blow my top completely. Though driven by stark necessity, this continuous self-revelation -- to myself and to others -- was rough medicine to take. But years of repetition has made this job far easier.”"

“Newcomers are approaching AA at the rate of tens of thousands yearly. They represent almost every belief and attitude imaginable. We have atheists and agnostics. We have people of nearly every race, culture and religion. In AA we are supposed to be bound together in the kinship of a common suffering. Consequently, the full individual liberty to practice any creed or principle or therapy whatever should be a first consideration for us all. Let us not, therefore, pressure anyone with our individual or even our collective views. Let us instead accord each other the respect and love that is due to every human being as he tries to make his way toward the light. Let us always try to be inclusive rather than exclusive; let us remember that each alcoholic among us is a member of AA, so long as he or she so declares.”

“I have an AA friend, a good and gentle soul. He recently joined one of the great religious orders, one in which the friars spend many hours a day in contemplation. So my friend has plenty of time to take his inventory. The more he looks, the more unconscious self-deception he finds. And the more astonished he becomes at the elaborate and devious excuse-making machinery by which he had been justifying himself. He has already come to the conclusion that the prideful righteousness of ‘good people’ may often be just as destructive as the glaring sins of those who are supposedly not so good. So he daily looks inward upon himself and then upward toward God, the better to discover just where he stands in this matter of honesty. Out of each of his meditations there always emerges one dead certainty, and this is the fact that he still has a long way to go.”

“I have an AA friend, a good and gentle soul. He recently joined one of the great religious orders, one in which the friars spend many hours a day in contemplation. So my friend has plenty of time to take his inventory. The more he looks, the more unconscious self-deception he finds. And the more astonished he becomes at the elaborate and devious excuse-making machinery by which he had been justifying himself. He has already come to the conclusion that the prideful righteousness of ‘good people’ may often be just as destructive as the glaring sins of those who are supposedly not so good. So he daily looks inward upon himself and then upward toward God, the better to discover just where he stands in this matter of honesty. Out of each of his meditations there always emerges one dead certainty, and this is the fact that he still has a long way to go.”

“As never before the struggle for power, importance, and wealth is tearing civilization apart. Man against man, family against family, group against group, nation against nation.

“Nearly all those engaged in this fierce competition declare that their aim is peace and justice for themselves, their neighbors, and their nations: Give us power and we shall have justice; give us fame and we shall set a great example; give us money and we shall be comfortable and happy. People throughout the world deeply believe that, and act accordingly. On this appalling dry bender, society seems to be staggering down a dead-end road. The stop sign is clearly marked. It says ‘Disaster.’

“What has this got to do with anonymity and Alcoholics Anonymous?

“We of AA ought to know. Nearly every one of us has traversed this identical dead-end path ... Then came AA. We faced about and found ourselves on a new high road where the direction signs said never a word about power, fame, or wealth.”

“As never before the struggle for power, importance, and wealth is tearing civilization apart. Man against man, family against family, group against group, nation against nation.

Nearly all those engaged in this fierce competition declare that their aim is peace and justice for themselves, their neighbors, and their nations: Give us power and we shall have justice; give us fame and we shall set a great example; give us money and we shall be comfortable and happy. People throughout the world deeply believe that, and act accordingly. On this appalling dry bender, society seems to be staggering down a dead-end road. The stop sign is clearly marked. It says ‘Disaster.’

What has this got to do with anonymity and Alcoholics Anonymous?

We of AA ought to know. Nearly every one of us has traversed this identical dead-end path ... Then came AA. We faced about and found ourselves on a new high road where the direction signs said never a word about power, fame, or wealth.”