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“My soul remained a mystery until my Higher Power settled inside me, appearing to me as a very real feeling of love and caring. Kindness slowly took precedence, and I became comfortable with the idea that I didn’t need a drink.”

“We made a lot of mistakes. On the basis of our mistakes, Bill W. put together the Twelve Traditions ... The early members brought us one Tradition at a time, in the long form -- for our group conscience and vote. We discussed each one, took out anything that we didn’t want, made amendments, and then voted. I consider the Twelve Traditions to be the foundation of AA. There were a great many other things that contributed to this foundation, but this was the first really progressive step for our Fellowship.”

“There is never a need to praise ourselves. We feel it better to let our friends recommend us.”

“I sometimes forget to feel gratitude for my sobriety ... This is why I must continue to work with others, to go to meetings, to be of some service to the world around me -- not because these are ‘good’ things, but rather so that I can once again be stimulated into feelings of gratitude for this life I have found.”

“I ask at the end of each day: ‘What should I have done better, not to win more money, but to feel more at peace with myself?’ Whatever it was, I can put it on the list as a clue to a defect of character. Despite all my experience, I do not find my list getting very long; what I see is the same faults creeping back in like crabgrass.”

“Humility ... is a quiet place where I can keep enough perspective, and enough balance, to take my next small step up the clearly marked road that points toward eternal values.”

“I opened the door and walked into the warmth, the laughter, the acceptance, and the love that is AA. No one asked me who I was or what I wanted; no one asked me how much money I had or what I did for a living; no one asked me where I did my drinking or what my sexual preferences were. The smiling man who greeted me told me that night that if I thought I had a drinking problem, I was in the right place.”

“In the years that lie just ahead, Alcoholics Anonymous faces a supreme test – the great ordeal of its own prosperity and success. I think it will prove the greatest trial of all. Can we but weather that, the waves of time and circumstance may beat upon us in vain.”

“For my sake, as well as the well-being of the women I sponsor, I stay within what I know. I tell them I’m not a mother, sister, favorite aunt, therapist, counselor, guru, spiritual advisor, AA authority, and sometimes not even a friend. I’m just another drunk who didn’t drink and didn’t die...”

“Though my sobriety had come easy, the growing up business hadn’t. Both emotional and spiritual growth have always been mighty difficult for me.”

“Times change, people change, and language may change. But the disease of alcoholism does not change. It always kills.”

“I’ve found that I’m not a cordless model: I need to plug into God in the morning and check in several times a day just to make sure I’m still plugged in.”

“I make a conscious effort to keep it simple, because the simpler I make it, the happier I become.”

“Belonging to a group makes life an opportunity for me ... something to encourage the best in me while it helps to keep me humble about the worst in me.”

“Our fellowship has been permitted to achieve -- though still in miniature -- the ‘one world’ dream of philosophers. Ours is a world in which we can hotly differ, yet never think of schism or conflict as a solution.”