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“If I am in pain, it may be beneficial to me if I am aware of those in even more pain ... The answer for my pain is in the Twelfth Step.”

“If humility can expel the obsession to drink alcohol, then surely humility can be our antidote for that subtle wine called success.”

“The most important thing AA has given me is the chance to get to know someone I never knew -- myself.”

“My soul remained a mystery until my Higher Power settled inside me, appearing to me as a very real feeling of love and caring. Kindness slowly took precedence, and I became comfortable with the idea that I didn’t need a drink.”

“Those severe growing pains which invariably follow any radical departure from AA Tradition can be absolutely relied upon to bring an erring group back into line. An AA group need not be coerced by any human government over and above its own members. Their own experience, plus AA opinion in surrounding groups, plus God’s prompting in their group conscience would be sufficient.”

“Sponsorship is a bridge to trusting the human race, the very race we once resigned from. In learning to trust, we are strengthening our sobriety.”

“My sponsor ... gave me some good advice. ‘Take the words success and failure out of your vocabulary. Replace them with honesty and effort.’”

“I make a conscious effort to keep it simple, because the simpler I make it, the happier I become.”

“As an individual I am so small I’m almost totally meaningless in the universe; it’s almost as if I didn’t exist. But not quite ... As small as I am, I’m not totally meaningless.”

“The future belongs to you.”

“My daily life is conducted in a manner that is far different from my drinking days. The places I go, the things I do, and the people I am with are a reflection of my spiritual progress. My life is conducted with the knowledge that God is always at my side and guides me through the day. For that, at the end of each day, I say, ‘Thank You.’”

“From cradle to grave, the drunk and the potential alcoholic will have to be completely surrounded by true and deep understanding and by a continuous barrage of information: the facts about his illness, its symptoms, its grim seriousness. Why should an alcoholic have to wait until he is 55 and be horribly mangled to find out that he is a very sick man, when enough education of the right kind might have convinced him at 30 or 35?”

“The laughter in AA is what attracted me from the very beginning. The restorative power of laughter should never be underestimated ... I have come to believe that I’m being restored to sanity when my sense of humor is restored and I cease to take myself so seriously.”

“I am more a woman of action than a woman in reaction, and hope is more present in my life than insecurity ... As much as I was thirsty for alcohol, today I am thirsty for knowledge.”

“Like other men and women, we AAs look with deep apprehension upon the vast power struggle about us, a struggle in myriad forms that invades every level, tearing society apart. I think we AAs are fortunate to be acutely aware that such forces must never be ruling among us, lest we perish altogether.”