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“My new friend asked when I had had my last drink, when I had eaten last, and if I was sleeping indoors that night. He told me his story ... My hope was strengthened even more, and I knew I had found a way to live without booze.”

“I discovered that there really is an easier, softer way – the way of striving to be a part of.”

“It took me a long time to find out that AA wasn’t here to limit my life, it was here to fulfill it.”

“When all else fails, try following directions.”

“Hope can be pretty damn contagious.”

“I show up early, I am involved, and I reach my hand out to the next person coming though the door. It’s amazing how very easy it is to make a difference for others and for yourself just by accepting the responsibility to pass the message on.”

“Alcohol in Latin is spiritus, and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison. The helpful formula therefore is: spiritus contra spiritum.”

“I have learned how to place principles before personalities, begun to understand that it’s okay for me to be wrong, and that it is also all right for me to allow others to be wrong and to make mistakes. Learning to let go is a huge part of service work on all levels.”

“I do not agree that the newcomer is the most important member at any meeting ... Equally important are those old-timers who showed me the way, and any middle-timer who may be today suffering. If newcomers are indeed the lifeblood of AA, old- and middle-timers are its skin and backbone.”

“I have often seen our Society timid and fearful, angry and prideful, apathetic and indifferent. But I have also seen these negatives fade as the lessons of experience were learned and gladly applied.”

“Alcoholics Anonymous was nurtured in its early days around a kitchen table ... True, we have progressed materially to better furniture and more comfortable surroundings. Yet the kitchen table must ever be appropriate for us. It is the perfect symbol of simplicity.”

“I realize now that most of the problems in my life were a direct result of my attempts to handle my own life, to be in control of my own destiny. I am grateful that today, sober, I can still say my life has ‘become unmanageable.’”

“Things haven’t been all roses but they are certainly not comparable to the way they were. God has blessed me with a vivid memory of my pain, which has helped me ... when the thought of escaping popped into my head.”

“I have no idea how I made it this long, or what has kept me sober. But if I were to guess, I’d say that it has something to do with the slogan, ‘Keep coming back -- no matter what.’”

“Tolerance ... promotes an open-mindedness that is vastly important -- is, in fact, a prerequisite to the successful termination of any line of search, whether it be scientific or spiritual.”