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“If you want to stop drinking AA doesn’t care whether you are a Christian, a Buddhist, a Jew, an atheist, an agnostic, or whatever. The door to AA is wide. Come right in.”

“AA is spiritual, is the eye of the hurricane, is my refuge and my comfort ... Thanks to AA for making a place for broken hearts and wounded souls.”

“We now fully realize that 100 percent personal anonymity before the public is just as vital to the life of AA as 100 percent sobriety is to the life of each and every member.”

“Ever fresh in my heart is a song of thanksgiving for my expanding sobriety, as the opening door to timeless truth.”

“Not picking up a drink creates infinite possibilities for me ... Who knows? This could be the greatest day of my life.”

“I realized that it is possible to believe in a Higher Power, in the efficacy of prayer and meditation, in making a conscious contact with a Higher Power as those concepts, privately understood – or not understood – are suggested in AA, without the loss of one iota of my precious identity.”

“The Steps will speak to my condition wherever I am in sobriety.”

“Do I really want ... to be bitter, hostile, and judgmental? Do I want to live inside that sort of person? Wouldn’t I rather forgive, make allowances, understand? Is self-pity, feeling abused, so precious that I will not trade it for self-liking?”

“By working with others I’m allowed to witness the miracle of sobriety and observe the twinkling eyes as others learn to speak the language of the heart.”

“As drinking alcoholics, we all ran from life and toward death. When we join AA, we reverse the process – we give ourselves to life as it is, rather than as we would like it to be.”

“We organize our principles merely so that they can be better understood, and we continue so to organize our services that AA’s life-blood can be transfused into those who must otherwise die. That is the all-in-all of AA’s ‘organization.’ There can never be any more than this.”

“I don’t believe I drank to get drunk, but always to seek in the next drink that peace for which a sick soul seems to thirst.”

“Unity seldom means that we all agree on everything. Nor is unity served by setting aside our concerns and conforming to the majority opinion (or the vocal minority) ... Unity is best achieved by a full hearing of all points of view ... time for all of those involved to step back from emotional responses ... as well as careful consideration and prayer for that which will best serve the group or AA as a whole.”

“I am grateful that the people in AA showed me how to live sober. However, I have learned many things from other sources. I learned about quiet from the breeze floating through the grass on a warm summer day. I have learned unconditional love from my animals. I have learned how to have wonder of the world from my children. I have learned that all things have tremendous power.”

“My drinking career was all about running away. I could pack up and vanish in a flash. Now ... I’m taking the risk to stick around, to just show up and see what happens.”