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“So long as there is the slightest interest in sobriety, the most unmoral, the most antisocial, the most critical alcoholic may gather about him a few kindred spirits and announce to us that a new Alcoholics Anonymous group has been formed. Anti-God, anti-medicine, anti-our recovery program, even anti-each other – these rampant individuals are still an AA group if they think so!”

“When I go to a meeting today, I no longer have the delusion that I am supporting a good cause. I need AA; AA did quite well without me during my ten years of self-exile. I go to AA meetings today to hear and see how God is working. When I share at a meeting, it is not to try and ‘help’ those poor wretches, it is because I need their help and guidance.”

“AA is a caring community ... of people who understand how others can be trapped in deep loneliness and despair.”

“Those who slip, those who panhandle, those who scandalize, those with mental twists, those who rebel at the program, those who trade on the AA reputation – all such persons seldom harm an AA group for long ... They oblige us to cultivate patience, tolerance, and humility.”

“We have grown from two people to two million ... We must be doing something right.”

“I remember asking my sponsor, ‘When do I start the Steps?’ He replied, ‘When do you want to get well?’”

“Few victims of this illness can expect sobriety without a major change in most aspects of living.”

“The more I learn the more there is to learn.”

“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.”

“At some point in each today, we recovering alcoholics need to pay ourselves a friendly visit.”

“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.”

“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.”

“My willingness to have my defects of character removed was bolstered by the realization that little, if any, spiritual growth was possible as long as I held on to my old ideas and defects.”

“When life is easy, I usually assume it’s God’s way and I’m quite spiritual. But when I’m in emotional trouble, I assume life’s a drag and that God’s gone fishing.”

“The effort to escape from truth is the father of anxiety.”