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“If I am to have a share of those promises enumerated in the AA book, there is a price I must pay. That price is destruction of self-centeredness.”

“I inched a little bit closer to AA and a little bit closer to myself ... I was suddenly a part of things, no longer just a shadow figure pulled toward the edge by the centrifugal force of my own fears.”

“I grew up thinking that I had to perfect my personality, then I got into AA, and AA said, no, that isn’t the way we do it; only God can remove our defects. I was amazed to find that I couldn’t be a better person simply by trying harder!”

“When we consult an AA friend, we should not be reluctant to remind him of our need for full privacy. Intimate communication is normally so free and easy among us that an AA adviser may sometimes forget when we expect him to remain silent. The protective sanctity of this most healing of human relations ought never be violated.”

“The Fourth Step lets me look at myself, look into my fear of not getting something I want or of losing something I have, get a perspective on my character defects, and move forward to try to establish true partnerships with other human beings.”

“Inside of every human being there is a healing power. I had cut my finger and it had gotten well; I’d broken a bone and it had gotten well ... How come? That to me, in its simplest form, is a concept of a power greater than I am.”

“The wisdom of AA is so deep that it confines its own part in our personal recovery to nothing more than suggestion. AA leaves it entirely up to you and to me to decide, not only whether to use this program, but also how to use it.”

“Had I not been blessed with wise and loving advisers, I might have cracked up long ago.”

“AA may or may not get me to heaven, but it surely got me out of hell.”

“I’m usually about eighty percent of the problem – well, maybe sixty percent, but the major part, you can bet on that. If I can leave out the largest percent (me), there is hardly any problem at all!”

“The experience of reality does not have to be postponed.”

“Because each of us, at any moment, is the sum total of every choice he or she has ever made, it is not sheer fantasy to expect each day to be the very best day we have yet lived.”

“If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand. Let us, with God’s help, continually surrender these hobbling liabilities.”

“Alcoholism is relieved of its power when honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness combine within me to change my question from ‘Why?’ to ‘How?’ Then, I can get into the stream of life and out of my own way.”

“We began to see adversity as a God-given opportunity to develop the kind of courage which is born of humility, rather than bravado. Thus we were enabled to accept ourselves, our circumstances, and our fellows.”