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“Before we can release the spirit from its imprisonment, we must first imprison the spirits in the bottle. We place the bottle on the shelf, place ourselves in the hands of AA as we understand it, and prepare for the adventure of sobriety.”

“I play a responsible role in my own destiny, not just a bit part.”

“It would be virtually impossible to experience the Twelve Steps and not learn something of love. I believe that love is the willingness to extend oneself for spiritual growth. When we answer a call for help, we are extending ourselves for the purpose of spiritual growth. Someone once said that there are three steps to becoming a loving person: love yourself, be yourself, forget yourself.”

“I do not agree that the newcomer is the most important member at any meeting. In my opinion, equally important are those old-timers who showed me the way, and any middle-timer who may today be suffering. If newcomers are indeed the lifeblood of AA, old- and middle-timers are its skin and backbone. What a bewildered mess we would be in without them!”

“If I remove my hate and anger, what is left is love. If I remove my anxiety and fear, peace will result. If I believe in God's promises, the obstacles that I created between God and myself will be lifted. When these defects are removed, then I can start to be an instrument of peace.”

“To us of AA sobriety means life itself.”

“I know that my life is no longer my own. My life now is in the hands of ‘a new Employer.’ Even though I still complain now and then about the working conditions and sometimes have trouble getting along with my fellow employees, it's a great improvement over the way things were when I was in charge.”

“Many people who believe wonder what atheists do when tough times befall us. To whom do we turn if not to God? I turn to friends and reason and experiences of the past. I now think, based on previous events, that the odds are I will get through whatever comes in my life until it ends.”

“When I took the Fifth Step with all the thoroughness I could muster, the part of me that I feared the most no longer frightened me.”

“My self-analysis has frequently been faulty. Sometimes I've failed to share my defects with the right people; at other times, I've confessed their defects, rather than my own; and at still other times, my confession of defects has been more in the nature of loud complaints about my circumstances and my problems. “Nevertheless, I think I've usually been able to make a fairly thorough and searching job of finding and admitting my personal defects ... Yet this pretty well-ventilated condition is nothing for self-congratulation. Long ago I was lucky enough to see that I'd have to keep up my self-analysis or else blow my top completely. Though driven by stark necessity, this continuous self-revelation -- to myself and to others -- was rough medicine to take. But years of repetition has made this job far easier.”

“I cannot do great things; but I can finish what I start.”

“Feelings are neither right nor wrong. It is what we do with them that we need to concentrate on.”

“I cannot give anyone the precious gift of sobriety; but I can listen to a newcomer's problems and tell her how it works for me.”

“Being painfully honest in the Fourth and Fifth Steps started me on the road to humility. I could finally accept myself as human and go to work on my varied defects of character (Step Six).”

“The program tells me that in order to recover I must be willing to develop a manner of living that demands rigorous honesty. So when I retire at night, I ask myself: Is there something that I should discuss with another person at once? What do I not want to share? Do I feel any guilt? Am I worried about something? Fearful? What was my thought-life like today? “These questions spur me to talk to someone. The more I share, the more I live in integrity; and the more I live in integrity, the more at peace I am with myself, and the more useful I can be to God and my fellows.”