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“My belief in a Higher Power is as strong as it was when I went to my first AA meeting and accepted the first and second Steps as simply and as trustfully as a child accepts its mother’s milk ... So what on earth was I looking for? I just don’t know. I guess I wanted a little Tinker Bell all my own to show me the right and only way out of every situation.”

“I’m working diligently to improve my character. I work daily on trying to reign in my impetuous temper, my obsession with reaction rather than reflection, and that silly ego that keeps rearing its ugly head.

“I’m grateful for AA’s reference to progress rather than perfection. Despite my shortcomings, with the help of the AA program and my brothers in AA, improvements will continue to be made.”

“Many of us think today the main problem of Alcoholics Anonymous is this: How, as a movement, shall we maintain our humility -- and so our unity -- in the face of what the world calls a great triumph? Perhaps we need not look far afield for an answer. We need only adapt and apply to our group life those principles upon which each of us has founded his own recovery.”

“Our Twelve Traditions ... represent the sum of our experience as individuals, as groups within AA, and similarly with our fellows and other organizations in the great fellowship of humanity under God throughout the world. They are all suggestions, yet the spirit in which they have been conceived merits their serious, prayerful consideration as the guideposts of AA policy for the individual, the group, and our various committees, local and national.”

“As we listen to one another’s anxieties and problems, we understand that it’s not what’s happening to you ... it is how you cope with it, survive it, and don’t give up and drink over it ... dashed career hopes, unrequited love, crippling disease, poverty, approaching death. Together we face it, equipped only with the vast, previously undiscovered resources of power within us, which faced and conquered alcoholism for us.”

For me, there is a direct coupling of the Tenth Step and Step Two. The more sanity, the quicker the admission that I am wrong. It is much easier today to get rid of an overreaction at the thought level before it becomes a spoken word and then a physical act. “Now I can see that sanity is steadily being restored to me so that I can use the other Steps to greater advantage.”

“If in order to get into AA we had had to meet any standards more rigid than the one given in the Third Tradition, who of us would be alive? Think of all the wonderful people, including the nonconformists, eccentrics, and kooks who make such valuable additions to our number, who would have been kept out of AA if we had any requirement for membership other than a desire to get well.”

“Our Twelve Traditions ... represent the sum of our experience as individuals, as groups within AA, and similarly with our fellows and other organizations in the great fellowship of humanity under God throughout the world. They are all suggestions, yet the spirit in which they have been conceived merits their serious, prayerful consideration as the guideposts of AA policy for the individual, the group, and our various committees, local and national.”

"By 1937, some of us realized that AA needed a standard literature. There would have to be a book ... Well, we did quarrel violently over the preparation and distribution of that book. In fact, it took five years for the clamor to die down. Should any AAs dream that the old-timers who put the book together went about in serene meditation and white robes, then they had best forget it."

“Our spiritual way of life is safe for future generations if, as a Society, we resist the temptation to receive money from the outside world. But this leaves us with a responsibility – one that every member ought to understand. We cannot skimp when the treasurer of our group passes the hat. Our groups, our areas, and AA as a whole will not function unless our services are sufficient and their bills are paid.”

“As we listen to one another’s anxieties and problems, we understand that it’s not what’s happening to you ... it is how you cope with it, survive it, and don’t give up and drink over it ... dashed career hopes, unrequited love, crippling disease, poverty, approaching death. Together we face it, equipped only with the vast, previously undiscovered resources of power within us, which faced and conquered alcoholism for us.”

“For me, there is a direct coupling of the Tenth Step and Step Two. The more sanity, the quicker the admission that I am wrong. It is much easier today to get rid of an overreaction at the thought level before it becomes a spoken word and then a physical act. “Now I can see that sanity is steadily being restored to me so that I can use the other Steps to greater advantage.”

“By 1937, some of us realized that AA needed a standard literature. There would have to be a book ... Well, we did quarrel violently over the preparation and distribution of that book. In fact, it took five years for the clamor to die down. Should any AAs dream that the old-timers who put the book together went about in serene meditation and white robes, then they had best forget it.”

“Our spiritual way of life is safe for future generations if, as a Society, we resist the temptation to receive money from the outside world. But this leaves us with a responsibility – one that every member ought to understand. We cannot skimp when the treasurer of our group passes the hat. Our groups, our areas, and AA as a whole will not function unless our services are sufficient and their bills are paid.”

"As we listen to one another's anxieties and problems, we understand that it's not what's happening to you ... it is how you cope with it, survive it, and don't give up and drink over it ... dashed career hopes, unrequited love, crippling disease, poverty, approaching death. Together we face it, equipped only with the vast, previously undiscovered resources of power within us, which faced and conquered alcoholism for us."