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“Trial and error produces group experience, and out of corrected experience comes custom. When a customary way of doing things is definitely proved to be best, then that custom forms into AA Tradition.”

“Some days are harder than others, but I have been told a person is not measured by what she has achieved but by what she has overcome.”

“I have come to believe that my drinking insanity is only one form of the craziness to which we AAs are prone. I call it Insanity A. Insanity B is finding out what works for you -- and then not doing it.”

“Great love is the sunlight of AA's tree of life.”

“We found that all progress, material or spiritual, consisted of finding out what our responsibilities actually were and then proceeding to do something about them ... We found that we didn’t always have to be driven by our own discomforts as, more willingly, we picked up the burdens of living and growing ... We discovered that full acceptance and action upon any clear-cut responsibility almost invariably made for true happiness and peace of mind.”

“I still don’t have answers for all the eternal questions, like why bad things happen to good people, or why babies die. But I have found that life works better when I focus more on how I am contributing to God’s world than musing about what he is or is not doing in mine.”

“If I want to be of some use to someone (my family, my employer, my community) then I can be a leader by becoming a servant. This is one of those crazy paradoxes we find all over the AA program: being a servant to be a leader.”

“I started to understand that while I didn’t believe in churches, I had to see that something or someone was working in my life that hadn’t been there before.”

“Ever deepening humility, accompanied by an ever greater willingness to accept and to act upon clear obligations -- these are truly our touchstones for all growth in the life of the spirit.”

“Alcoholics have short memories.”

“Pain is one of our greatest teachers. Though I still find it difficult to accept today’s pain and anxiety with any degree of serenity -- as those more advanced in the spiritual life seem able to do -- I can, if I try hard, give thanks for present pain nevertheless.”

“Surrender has nothing to do with giving up. It means to stop fighting.”

“New people are the lifeblood of AA. I am eternally grateful to them. By extension I am, therefore, grateful to Tradition Three for making it possible for all who want what we have to come to AA.”

“If you haven’t been to a meeting for a while, come, and add to the mix ... we need you. Come for yourself, come for the Fellowship, come to celebrate sobriety, and come for the alcoholic who still suffers.”

“My emotional bottom came in sobriety ... I actually had to sit and feel all those feelings I had worked so hard to drown out with alcohol.”