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“Through the years, I have read thousands of books and pamphlets, but the Big Book is still the superstar. The love flowing from its pages encourages me to keep the blade of my sobriety ever sharp and gleaming, to cut through all the ignorance and terror that surround still-suffering alcoholics.”

“Well-remembered is the comfort I used to take from an exaggerated belief in my own honesty ... I was so absurdly proud of my business standards that I never failed to whip up a fine contempt for those of my fellow Wall-Streeters who were prone to short-change their customers. This was arrogant enough, but the ensuing self-deception proved even worse. My prized business honesty was presently converted into a comfortable cloak under which I could hide the many serious flaws that beset other departments of my life. Being certain of this one virtue, it was easy to conclude that I had them all. For years on end, this prevented me from taking a good look at myself.”

“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.’”

“How life looks to me depends on how I look at it. While this sounds simple, just like everything else in Alcoholics Anonymous, it requires continual practice in order to get good at it. I get better at it as each year passes. I am grateful that Alcoholics Anonymous is teaching me how to see straight, one day at a time.”

“Notes in the same key resonate together .... No matter how much continuous sobriety I have to my and AA’s credit, I am still only one drink away from a drunk, just like everybody else in these meeting rooms.”

“Sobriety -- freedom from alcohol -- through the teaching and practice of the Twelve Steps, is the sole purpose of an AA group.”

“I don’t just hear the slogans anymore; I feel them when I speak them ... They take hold of me; they change the course of my day if I let them.”

“We don't have to go to Akron, Ohio, to see Dr. Bob's memorial. Dr. Bob's real monument is visible throughout the length and breadth of AA. Let us look again at its true inscription -- one word only, which we AAs have written. That word is sacrifice.”

“A new chapter has once again started in my life -- a chapter that has no ending, a chapter that I did not write, but a chapter with many characters.”

“Without a connection to my Higher Power, I am the same old person with the same old defects, causing the same old pain in my life and others’.”

“Serenely remarking to his attendant, ‘I think this is it,’ Dr. Bob passed out of our sight and hearing November sixteenth at noonday. So ended the consuming malady wherein he had so well shown us how high faith can rise over grievous distress. As he had lived, so he had died, supremely aware that in his Father's House are many Mansions.”