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“If in order to get into AA we had had to meet any standards more rigid than the one given in the Third Tradition, who of us would be alive? Think of all the wonderful people, including the nonconformists, eccentrics, and kooks who make such valuable additions to our number, who would have been kept out of AA if we had any requirement for membership other than a desire to get well.”

“My inner feelings boil down to a handful of things – fear, anger, self-pity, shame, and feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. These are the things we need to talk about in AA.”

“You’ve got one life to live. Don’t screw it up with a lot of maybes, what-ifs, and could-have-beens. Focus on what you have.”

“My drinking career was all about running away. I could pack up and vanish in a flash. Now, I can make commitments and become part of something. I can let myself belong.”

“The smile from my face traveled to my heart.”

“Like every AA member I have a definite responsibility to become a citizen of the world around me; to channel into it the experience of living and working which has been mine in our Fellowship.”

“When I call my sponsor, my friends, someone on my home group’s phone list, or someone who scribbled their number on a napkin after a meeting, I make progress ... If we just call, we help one another stay sober, one call at a time, one connection at a time.”

“My group included almost every type of alcoholic that old-timers feared most ... The amazing thing is most of us stayed sober, despite all the dire predictions. Why? Because the two things we had in common were more important than all our differences. We were alcoholics and we believed in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.”

“Not picking up a drink creates infinite possibilities for me ... When I wake up in the morning I pray for what I need to get through the day sober. I also smile and say to myself, Who knows? This could be the greatest day of my life!”

“If faith without works is dead, willingness without action is fantasy.”

“The other day, I sent an AA friend on a job interview. He went to the wrong address and he lost the man's name. In another office, he stated his purpose, was offered a job, and came back with one better than the job I sent him to look for.”

“In relinquishing some goals because of lessened physical energy, I have been freed to achieve other and more satisfying ones that a deeper and more extensive Me has always known it wanted.”

“We are called to unity, not uniformity.”

“I try to accept reality instead of trying to control it. When I make that adjustment, the struggle ends.”

“We well know that our defects, as people and as a Society, have been and still are very great. And we hope that we shall never cease to rededicate ourselves to their correction.”