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“The best university for me -- the best school, the best teaching -- was in analyzing mistakes that I’d made and problems I created because of these mistakes. Not my successes.”

“I’d like to develop Step Eleven further -- for the benefit of the complete doubter, the unlucky one who can’t believe it has any real merit at all .... As he goes along with his process of prayer, he begins to add up the results. If he persists, he will almost surely find more serenity, more tolerance, less fear, and less anger. He will acquire a quiet courage, the kind that doesn’t strain him. He can look at so-called failure and success for what they really are. Problems and calamity will begin to mean instruction, instead of destruction. He will feel freer and saner ... His sense of purpose and of direction will increase. His tensions and anxieties will commence to fade. His physical health is likely to improve. Wonderful and unaccountable things will start to happen. Twisted relations in his family and on the outside will unaccountably improve.

“Even if few of these things happen, he will still find himself in possession of great gifts. When he has to deal with hard circumstances he can face them and accept them. He can now accept himself and the world around him.”

“Until today, at least, I am getting further away from that first drink, which is the one that inevitably leads me to complete disaster.”

“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.”

“Seeing my defects is not enough to make them improve or go away -- the solution seems to be following awareness with action.”

“How does one tune in to the Higher Power? The answer I have learned from AA is to recharge my spiritual battery every day -- ‘you can’t pull today’s load with yesterday’s horse.’”

“I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed, upon any set of circumstances whatever. Then only could I be free to love.”

“As I continue to struggle, I think of the words of an old-timer in my area. No matter what the topic, he always finishes sharing with the words, ‘and I haven’t had a drink today.’ Remembering his words never fails to bring to my mind the words ‘experience, strength, and hope.’”

“A new spiritual awakening can come at every meeting.”

“One day leads to the next, no matter how unhappy I choose to be.”

“A leader in AA service is ... a man (or a woman) who can personally put principles, plans and policies into such dedicated and effective action that the rest of us want to back him up and help him with his job.”

“First Things First. That’s a real gem.”

“Only by accepting my powerlessness over alcohol did I begin to discover the powers that alcohol had obliterated: God, health, truth, love, nature, fellowship, humor, creativity, and even simple daily kindness.”