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“The group I joined saved my life ... For an hour, I was safe. For an hour, I had a haven among those whose fear had once been as great as my own. I did not give my fear away – they took it. They eased it from my grasp with hugs and laughter, with shared experience.”

“I was told when I began my own journey through the Twelve Steps that I could find God in a most unlikely place: standing smack in the middle of the truth about myself.”

“AA is not a place; it’s an attitude of mind, a warmth of the heart – a spiritual fourth dimension where material things can’t get the upper hand.”

“The foundation stone of freedom from fear is that of faith: a faith that, despite all worldly appearances to the contrary, causes me to believe that I live in a universe that makes sense.”

“We neither ran nor fought. But accept we did. And then we began to be free.”

“It's a wonderful feeling to know that you don't have to be a god or a goddess, a saint or a genius, to lead a reasonably happy, sober, healthy, communicative, constructive, and useful life -- with some laughter thrown in for good measure.”

“We have to grow or else deteriorate. For us, the ‘status quo’ can only be for today, never for tomorrow. Change we must; we cannot stand still.”

“It is impossible to know everyone, but if I try to relate myself with just one other person, something will happen, something remarkable.”

“Don’t regret growing old, it’s a privilege denied to many.”

“If we are to find spiritual growth and serenity, we must dress our minds each morning as carefully as we dress our bodies. Only then can today become the glorious tomorrow we looked forward to yesterday.”

“Work on Step Nine has freed me from fears about the past and given me more energy to devote to present-day living – this twenty-four hours.”

“I spent years looking for things to alienate me, make me different, make me special or unique, better or worse ... I was taught through the Steps to start dwelling on the positive – the ‘alikeness’ instead of the differences.”

“William Duncan Silkworth ... supplied us with the tools with which to puncture the toughest alcoholic ego, those shattering phrases by which he described our illness: the obsession of the mind that compels us to drink and the allergy of the body that condemns us to go mad or die. Without these indispensable passwords, AA could never have worked.”

“Let us continue to take our inventory as a Fellowship, searching out our flaws and confessing them freely. Let us devote ourselves to the repair of all faulty relations that may exist, whether within or without.

“Suffering is no longer a menace to be evaded at any cost. When it does come, no matter how grievously, we realize that it too has its purpose. It is our great teacher because it reveals our defects and so pushes us forward into the paths of progress. The pain of drinking did just this for us. And so can any other pain.”