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“For the most part, situations requiring utter honesty are clear-cut, and readily recognizable. We simply have to face up to them, our fear and pride regardless. Failing to do this, we shall be sure to suffer those ever-mounting conflicts which can only be resolved by plain honesty.”

“These days I find that nothing is as precious as my sanity. I used to be addicted to drama and could only function on excitement and high levels of adrenaline. It’s very different today ... It’s all very ordinary and average and sane, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything”

“It is very possible that I might not be the most suitable person to sponsor a particular new member. I might be unsuited by my personality, by my education (or lack of education) or by my profession. For the same reasons I might be just the one to sponsor someone else.”

"For my sake, as well as the well-being of the women I sponsor, I stay within what I know. I tell them I'm not a mother, sister, favorite aunt, therapist, counselor, guru, spiritual advisor, AA authority, and sometimes not even a friend. I'm just another drunk who didn't drink and didn't die..."

"At my very first AA meeting ... I heard words of love, understanding and compassion ... I believe the hand of God reached down at that meeting and healed me. For from that day thirty-eight years ago to this, I have not had a desire to drink or escape from reality again."

“Self-justification is a universal destroyer of harmony and of love. It sets man against man, nation against nation. By it, every form of folly and violence can be made to look right, and even respectable. Of course it is not for us to condemn. We need only investigate ourselves.”

“What unites all members on the program is a common sincerity. We are all seeking the truth; we are trying for honesty. In practice, any useful conception of God must relate to this idea of truth. Some people would say that God is truth -- no more and no less.”

“What unites all members on the program is a common sincerity. We are all seeking the truth; we are trying for honesty. In practice, any useful conception of God must relate to this idea of truth. Some people would say that God is truth -- no more and no less.”

“If [AA] had turned out to be a government-financed project or a charitable branch of some church, my feelings about it could not have been so instantly warm and comfortable. The fact that it was just us drunks, paying our own way, lessened my shame at having to ask for help.”

“Self-justification is a universal destroyer of harmony and of love. It sets man against man, nation against nation. By it, every form of folly and violence can be made to look right, and even respectable. Of course it is not for us to condemn. We need only investigate ourselves.”

“Self-justification is a universal destroyer of harmony and of love. It sets man against man, nation against nation. By it, every form of folly and violence can be made to look right, and even respectable. Of course it is not for us to condemn. We need only investigate ourselves.”

“What unites all members on the program is a common sincerity. We are all seeking the truth; we are trying for honesty. In practice, any useful conception of God must relate to this idea of truth. Some people would say that God is truth -- no more and no less.”

“If [AA] had turned out to be a government-financed project or a charitable branch of some church, my feelings about it could not have been so instantly warm and comfortable. The fact that it was just us drunks, paying our own way, lessened my shame at having to ask for help.”

"“We've all seen the new member who stays sober for a time, largely through sponsorship. Then maybe the sponsor gets drunk, and you know what usually happens. Left without a human prop, the new member gets drunk, too. He has been glorifying an individual, instead of following the program.

“Certainly, we need leaders, but we must regard them as the human agents of the Higher Power and not with undue adulation as individuals. The Fourth and Tenth Steps cannot be too strongly emphasized here, ‘Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves .... Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.’ There is your perfect antidote for halo-poisoning.”"

“Well-remembered is the comfort I used to take from an exaggerated belief in my own honesty ... I was so absurdly proud of my business standards that I never failed to whip up a fine contempt for those of my fellow Wall-Streeters who were prone to short-change their customers. This was arrogant enough, but the ensuing self-deception proved even worse. My prized business honesty was presently converted into a comfortable cloak under which I could hide the many serious flaws that beset other departments of my life. Being certain of this one virtue, it was easy to conclude that I had them all. For years on end, this prevented me from taking a good look at myself.”