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“My sponsor told me that if I stayed away from the first drink a day at a time and followed the suggested Twelve Steps, I could lead a sober life. She didn’t promise me health, wealth, happiness, love -- or comfort. All she promised me was sobriety! Thank goodness, she didn’t promise me anything else, because along the AA path I have found sickness, death, unhappiness, and considerable discomfort. But I have also found the greatest joy, love, and happiness of my life.”

“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.”

“I’m becoming so secure in AA, I’ve even discarded the cute, funny, phony me my civilian friends used to know. I don’t have to dance with a rose in my teeth; I can just dance. And I don’t have to be the only girl at the picnic who can swing Tarzan-style from a rope into the river. I can swim calmly, like the forty-year-old mother of four I am.”

“Let us AAs no longer be takers from society. Instead, let us be givers.”

“The simple word ‘we’ stands at the entrance to the Steps, reminding me that my power is limited.”

“If you sponsor people, you’ll never need a mirror.”

“What has happened in the past is just that -- the past! What I should have done about certain issues no longer matters. What I do now is of greatest concern.”

“Our alcoholism is a sickness we no longer fear to discuss.”

“I am grateful to AA that I have learned some humility, so when offered help, I can now say, ‘Yes, I can use your assistance.’”

“Each night I pray that when the alarm clock goes off in the morning, I'll have a spiritual awakening.”

“AA recovery cannot be bought and sold, but more than once I've wished I could just send a monthly check instead of practicing those principles. Just making donations seems an easier, softer way, doesn't it?”

“The question arises of just what constitutes an amend. Many of us find that the old rationalization, ‘If I stay sober, that’s amends enough to those I have hurt,’ just doesn’t work. We have to be willing to go further.”

“Every August, one of the founding members of my group (a real character, who is jokingly said to be our spiritual leader -- or is it spherical leader?) says that in honor of the eighth month and Tradition Eight, he is offering a special discount on sponsorship for anyone who needs it.

Sometimes people take him up on the offer, but a good proportion of them cancel during the introductory trial period. Of course, this is all said in jest at our meetings, and we get a good laugh out of it.”

“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.”

“Practicing the Eleventh Step, along with reworking all the other Steps, has given me greater integrity and strengthened my sobriety. This is the kind of dependence I need: a healthy dependence on the Twelve Steps.”