Search

“Sobriety is a constant process of uncovering, discovering, and discarding.”

“I did not know what real happiness was when I came through the doors of AA. I needed someone to teach me.”

“My local meetings are big on this spot-check reminder: you get what you get; it’s what you do with it that counts.”

“The great art of living is to make the best of things as they are.”

“Every older AA shudders when he remembers the names of persons he once condemned; people he confidently predicted would never sober up; persons he was sure ought to be thrown out of AA for the good of the movement. Now that some of these very persons have been sober for years, and may be numbered among his best friends, the old-timer thinks to himself, ‘What if everybody had judged these people as I once did? What if AA had slammed the door in their faces? Where would they be now?’”

“Every day, every meeting, there’s something more to learn.”

“The alcoholic is in no greater peril than when he takes his sobriety for granted.”

“Sometimes, the only place on earth that makes any sense to me is a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.”

“Are you willing to be amazed?”

“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.”

“I write my goals and priorities in pencil, so I can erase them. This is not so I can sell myself short, but so I can strive for more ambitious outcomes. Recovery is a lifelong process; the moment I engrave in stone my blueprint for living, I’ll rediscover and recover something that is paramount to the value of my life. And then I’ll be looking for a new stone.”

“In AA we talk a great deal about each other. Provided our motives are thoroughly good, this is not in the least wrong. But damaging gossip is quite something else. Of course, this kind of scuttlebutt can be well grounded in fact. But no such abuse of the facts could ever be twisted into anything resembling integrity. It can't be maintained that this sort of superficial honesty is good for anyone. So the need to examine ourselves is very much with us. Following a gossip binge we can well ask ourselves these questions: ‘Why did we say what we did? Were we only trying to be helpful and informative? Or were we not trying to feel superior by confessing the other fellow's sins? Or, because of fear and dislike, were we not really aiming to damage him?’ This would be an honest attempt to examine ourselves, rather than the other fellow. Here we see the difference between the use of the truth and its misuse. Right here we begin to regain the integrity we had lost.”

“I don’t foresee outgrowing my need for help.”

“We now know that we shall always practice these principles: first because we must, then because we ought to, and finally because the majority of us will deeply want to do just that.”

“Thelma told me that, no matter how much I feared making bad decisions, I could not learn how to make good decisions except by making decisions. ‘You’ll make mistakes,’ she said, ‘We all do. You will make some bad decisions before you learn how to make good ones. But what is true about good decisions is also true about bad ones: You will always learn from the consequences.’”