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"“This issue of the Grapevine marks the anniversary of its founding exactly fifteen [now seventy] years ago. 

“The memory of some of those first editorial meetings will linger with me always. Seated around a table in a tiny cheerless room some place downtown, the founders pored over their freshly written copy for the first issues. In those days the enthusiastic founders did everything. Not only did they do the art work, write the bulk of the stories, they kept the books, they paid the printing bill, they typed the address on each copy and finally licked all the stamps. So went the happy monthly paroxysm of creating what was to become the principal monthly journal of our whole society.

“Today 35,000 readers [now over 100,000 across multiple media platforms] see mirrored in each issue of the AA Grapevine a monthly vision of the worldwide thought, feeling and activity of our whole fellowship. It is our great means of inter-communication; a magic carpet on which each of you can ride to the more distant reaches and watch new brothers and sisters emerge from darkness into light.

“On this happy occasion I send my warmest affection to Grapevine readers and staff alike. May God prosper the Grapevine always.”"

“I don’t know when it happened, but one day I felt like I belonged in my group of sober guys ... I didn’t have to leave.”

“I am not rich, I am not in good health, and I do not have a job, but AA only promised me sobriety. After thirty-three years in this Fellowship, I am at peace and I am grateful.”

“A little voice deep inside me said, ‘Hello, I am here.’ It was a small voice, and sounded as if it were buried underneath the cushions of my couch. It was my soul ... I had forgotten it.”

“I opened up the imaginary closet in my mind where I kept all the well-nurtured hurts and tossed them into my past, where they belonged. Into this newly cleaned-out space, I started storing my goals and the hopes and dreams of what I wanted to achieve in life.”