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“The road to spiritual and emotional recovery ... has taken diverse routes – lots of meetings, readings, talks with AA members, discussion groups, psychotherapy, and the beginning of sharing. The keys seemed to be listening and sharing – the spirit at work.”

“Ever fresh in my heart is a song of thanksgiving for my expanding sobriety, as the opening door to timeless truth.”

“AA is spiritual, is the eye of the hurricane, is my refuge and my comfort ... Thanks to AA for making a place for broken hearts and wounded souls.”

“We now fully realize that 100 percent personal anonymity before the public is just as vital to the life of AA as 100 percent sobriety is to the life of each and every member.”

“Not picking up a drink creates infinite possibilities for me ... Who knows? This could be the greatest day of my life.”

“The Steps will speak to my condition wherever I am in sobriety.”

“I realized that it is possible to believe in a Higher Power, in the efficacy of prayer and meditation, in making a conscious contact with a Higher Power as those concepts, privately understood – or not understood – are suggested in AA, without the loss of one iota of my precious identity.”

“Thank God for all the wonderful people, professional and otherwise, who have helped me or tried to. Even when the help has not succeeded, it has kept me going, kept me trying.”

“When life presents us with a racking conflict ... we cannot be altogether blamed if we are confused. In fact, our very first responsibility is to admit that we are confused.”

“Truth is not an immutable absolute, a granite peak, eternal, unmoving, hiding its head in a nimbus of clouds. Truth is a ballerina tracing arabesques in a pattern of color and music, ever-changing, harmonious.”

“The most important factor in eliminating resentments is to know you have them. You can’t fix something if you don’t know what’s wrong.”

“By 1937, some of us realized that AA needed a standard literature. There would have to be a book ... Well, we did quarrel violently over the preparation and distribution of that book. In fact, it took five years for the clamor to die down. Should any AAs dream that the old-timers who put the book together went about in serene meditation and white robes, then they had best forget it.”

“There have been dark days where a will infinitely greater than my own has been responsible for my sobriety.”

“The reason we try to carry the message is so that we stay sober. If the person we are helping stays sober, that’s an extra bonus.”

“If we can stop this frantic drive to prove that we are remarkable people, it is quite likely that we will settle down and really enjoy whatever life has to offer us.”