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“Every August, one of the founding members of my group (a real character, who is jokingly said to be our spiritual leader -- or is it spherical leader?) says that in honor of the eighth month and Tradition Eight, he is offering a special discount on sponsorship for anyone who needs it.

Sometimes people take him up on the offer, but a good proportion of them cancel during the introductory trial period. Of course, this is all said in jest at our meetings, and we get a good laugh out of it.”

“Let all of us AAs, whether we be trustees, editors, secretaries, janitors, or cooks -- or just members -- ever recall the unimportance of wealth and authority as compared with the vast import of our brotherhood, love, and service.”

“In our Twelve Traditions we have set our faces against nearly every trend in the outside world.

We have denied ourselves personal government, professionalism and the right to say who our members shall be. We have abandoned do-goodism, reform and paternalism. We refuse charitable money and prefer to pay our own way. We will cooperate with practically everybody, yet we decline to marry our Society to anyone. We abstain from public controversy and will not quarrel among ourselves about those things that so rip society asunder -- religion, politics and reform. We have but one purpose: to carry the AA message to the sick alcoholic who wants it.

We take these attitudes not at all because we claim special virtue or wisdom; we do these things because hard experience has told us that we must -- if AA is to survive in the distraught world of today.

“A friend of mine told me about going to see the Statue of Liberty on a field trip with his grammar school class. He said that as they walked up the long spiral staircase, they all held hands in a line. He couldn't see the person at the beginning or the end of the line but he felt safe. He knew he was connected to the rest of his schoolmates. That's the way it is in AA. We can't see the people at either end of the line. But we know they're there -- and we know we're safe.”

“If we dwell on the past or the future, we put ourselves back into the torture chamber. We stop changing. Boredom, pain, and futility take over again. We have been ... We will be ... We no longer are. The 24-hour program disappears. Anxiety, anger, and a desire for revenge replace spiritual experience. Awareness and surrender cease. We are on a dry drunk.”

“Practicing the Eleventh Step, along with reworking all the other Steps, has given me greater integrity and strengthened my sobriety. This is the kind of dependence I need: a healthy dependence on the Twelve Steps.”

“Growing pains are never to be feared, provided I am willing to learn the truth about myself from them.”

“I may be a Loner but I am never alone spiritually. For this, I am deeply grateful.”

“A new chapter has once again started in my life -- a chapter that has no ending, a chapter that I did not write, but a chapter with many characters.”

“I spent the first thirty years making a mess of the life I was given, the next thirty trying to figure out this simple program, and now I can try in the last thirty to loosen up, let life happen, and try to have a little fun.”

“No self-pity, no anger, no jealousy, no hate. What had this program done to me?”

“Without a connection to my Higher Power, I am the same old person with the same old defects, causing the same old pain in my life and others’.”

“As individuals, we can carry the AA experience and ideas into any outside field whatever, provided that we guard anonymity and refuse to use the AA name for money-raising or publicity purposes.”

“Sobriety -- freedom from alcohol -- through the teaching and practice of the Twelve Steps, is the sole purpose of an AA group.”

“Notes in the same key resonate together .... No matter how much continuous sobriety I have to my and AA’s credit, I am still only one drink away from a drunk, just like everybody else in these meeting rooms.”