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“No generation is a carbon copy of the previous one ... Young people in the meetings today are in many respects luckier: They have learned more in less time. If they seem to dwell at length on how they are feeling at the moment, it doesn’t mean they are less dedicated to stopping drinking one day at a time and practicing the Steps of the program. Nor does less shame, brought about by less stigma, mean less dedication.”

“An old-timer spoke about the danger of becoming complacent and explained the need for the Steps in her life. ‘The way I see it,’ she said, ‘I might have gotten the monkey off my back, but the circus is still in town.’”

“The first thing that captured me at my very first meeting was the way AA members talked with one another. There was a genuineness, something real there, that I wanted ... I saw they were sober and that they were honest with each other.”

“Although I have a lot of ‘yets’ out there, I have true friends who love me. All I need to do is call them and go to meetings and work my program, and for today the ‘yets’ won’t come.”

“The more I change, the more I hope the Traditions and principles of AA don’t change.”

“Nothing ever falls out of the universe.”

“We are again citizens of the world. It is a distraught world, very tired, very uncertain. It has worshiped its own self-sufficiency – and that has failed. We AAs are a people who once did that very thing. That philosophy failed us, too. So perhaps, here and there, our example of recovery can help.”

“Everyone around me said, ‘Quit drinking,’ but no one was able to tell me how.”

“The AA message is a message from one amateur to another.”

“Ego was being replaced with self-respect ... resentment and hatred were being replaced with tolerance and understanding ... fear was being replaced with trust ... loneliness and self-pity were being replaced with gratitude and love -- all because I was working the program to the best of my ability and wasn’t drinking.”

“AA membership cannot depend upon any particular belief whatever ... our Twelve Steps contain no article of religious faith except faith in God – as each of us understands him.”

“Not drinking is the first requirement for joy; the second requirement is gratitude.”

“Not only ... could spiritual experiences make people saner, they could transform men and women so that they could do, feel, and believe what had hitherto been impossible to them. It mattered little whether these awakenings were sudden or gradual; their variety could be almost infinite.”

“Happiness or tragedy might just depend upon a slight sign of recognition, a nod of the head or perhaps a friendly smile.”

“My past sobriety is not a ticket to future sobriety. I have to pay that fare and make the decision to recover daily.”