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“I have made a determined effort to focus more on seeing myself as God sees me.”

“While we readily share our views, perhaps one of the nicest things about the AA program is that we don’t always have to agree with each other.”

“Those little maxims ‘Easy Does It’ and ‘Live and Let Live’ have come to be deeply meaningful and significant.”

“The beauty of sobriety is that sometimes I am the one supported, and other times the one supporting. One act helps destroy my ego, the other my self-centeredness. I need to practice both actions if I want to survive”

“Always a heady wine, success may sometimes cause us to forget that each of us lives on borrowed time.”

“I don’t fear for the future because I am in the loving arms of AA today.”

“I’ve never taken my sobriety for granted because I know I’m only one drink away from ruining my life.”

“Since today marks not only the last day of my life to this date, but also the first day of the rest of my life, and since I have come to believe that the best is yet to come, I think today has been my best day sober.”

“I go to lots of meetings. I get there early and help set up. I stay late and help clean up. I extend my hand as it was extended to me ... I’ve been given a second chance and I’m here to be of service.”

“I no longer pray to have my fear removed. Today, I pray that my love grows bigger than my fear and that my humility becomes greater than my shame.”

“On a daily basis I choose not to drink – or to fear, hate, be angry, or indulge in any other defect that’s raising its ugly head. They’re all there waiting, and when given a chance they charge into the center of my life and try to take over. But when I work Step Seven I find that my life is filled with good, and people actually like to be around me – something they never did in my drinking days.”

“If [AA] had turned out to be a government-financed project or a charitable branch of some church, my feelings about it could not have been so instantly warm and comfortable. The fact that it was just us drunks, paying our own way, lessened my shame at having to ask for help.”

“Thanks to my God, AA, and the Twelve Steps, sobriety has become the ‘easier, softer way’ for me.”

“I remember the anguish in the faces of loved ones when it seemed that their prayers for my recovery had failed. Then there was that glorious first memory of freedom, the rapture of not needing the crutch of alcohol -- the especial joys of self-forgiveness, the regeneration of hope, and the rebirth of faith. There was the bonus of self-respect, of forgiving and liking oneself as a whole person, in a whole family and a whole community.”

“I asked, ‘Is this AA?’ One man said, ‘Yes, but we ain’t got no women.’ I said, ‘You do now,’ and sat down on the couch in the front of the room.”