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“Today, as I look back over 27-plus years of sobriety, I can simply thank Him for being wherever I am going before I even get there.”

“The compulsion among most of us to survive and to grow soon becomes far stronger than the temptation to drink, or to misbehave. Literally, we must ‘do or die.’ So we make the choice to live. This, in turn, means the choice of AA principles, practices and attitudes that can salvage us from total disaster by insuring our sobriety.”

“I’m working diligently to improve my character. I work daily on trying to reign in my impetuous temper, my obsession with reaction rather than reflection, and that silly ego that keeps rearing its ugly head.

“I’m grateful for AA’s reference to progress rather than perfection. Despite my shortcomings, with the help of the AA program and my brothers in AA, improvements will continue to be made.”

“One day it will be left to the young people now in our Fellowship to carry on the original spirit and traditions of AA, even though the buzz words and trends will come and go. It will be up to us to teach newcomers how to maintain the type of sobriety that achieves the promises of the Big Book and dispels some of the fables of recovery popular today. It will be up to us to help the newcomer from the street dry out, shakes and pukes and all. We will be left to teach the little things: how to sit at the front, not the back of the room, say hello to the new guy, wash coffee cups and ashtrays. One day it will be up to us to uphold the Traditions. It will be up to us to keep it simple.”

“Alcoholics Anonymous has an answer to problems in sobriety, making sobriety, eventually, something wonderful instead of something that can drive people to drink.”

“I am still arrogant, egocentric, self-righteous, with no humility, even phony at times, but I'm trying to be a better person and help my fellowman. Guess I'll never be a saint, but whatever I am, I want to be sober and in AA.”

“Step Six may be the greatest act of courage in the whole twelve-step process: a total act of faith. I have to trust that God will see the big picture and make the right choices.”

“Sobriety isn’t a discrete list of tasks that you do and then check off; it’s a state of being that pervades every aspect of your life.”

“Many wonders await.”

“Newcomers are approaching AA at the rate of tens of thousands yearly. They represent almost every belief and attitude imaginable. We have atheists and agnostics. We have people of nearly every race, culture and religion. In AA we are supposed to be bound together in the kinship of a common suffering. Consequently, the full individual liberty to practice any creed or principle or therapy whatever should be a first consideration for us all. Let us not, therefore, pressure anyone with our individual or even our collective views. Let us instead accord each other the respect and love that is due to every human being as he tries to make his way toward the light. Let us always try to be inclusive rather than exclusive; let us remember that each alcoholic among us is a member of AA, so long as he or she so declares.”

“An empty house decays more rapidly than one that is lived in.”

“Perhaps I can help light a candle of hope for someone else.”

“If I was to recover the wholeness, the oneness of my personality, if I truly wanted a rebirth of my human spirit, a taste of the joy of living, then ... I had to surrender, not only to alcohol as an alcoholic, but to life as a person.”

“My concept of a higher power is the power of good.”

“Our success with each new prospect has always rested squarely on our ability to identify with him or her in experience, in language and especially in feeling -- that profound feeling for each other that goes deeper than words. This is what we really mean when we say ‘one alcoholic talking to another.’”