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“Sometimes taking somebody else’s inventory can be most beneficial. When I was doing my Fourth Step, an old-timer suggested I list the names of those against whom I held resentments, followed by two or three sentences describing what they had done to earn my displeasure. Then, after putting the list aside for a day, I was to cross off each person’s name and replace it with my own.”

“So long as there is the slightest interest in sobriety, the most unmoral, the most antisocial, the most critical alcoholic may gather about him a few kindred spirits and announce to us that a new Alcoholics Anonymous group has been formed. Anti-God, anti-medicine, anti-our recovery program, even anti-each other – these rampant individuals are still an AA group if they think so!”

“When I go to a meeting today, I no longer have the delusion that I am supporting a good cause. I need AA; AA did quite well without me during my ten years of self-exile. I go to AA meetings today to hear and see how God is working. When I share at a meeting, it is not to try and ‘help’ those poor wretches, it is because I need their help and guidance.”

“AA is a caring community ... of people who understand how others can be trapped in deep loneliness and despair.”

“An old-timer once told me that he believed that AA was a great leveler: When you’re up high, your friends help bring you down a little bit. When you’re down low, they help bring you up a little bit.”

“My soul remained a mystery until my Higher Power settled inside me, appearing to me as a very real feeling of love and caring. Kindness slowly took precedence, and I became comfortable with the idea that I didn’t need a drink.”

“Those severe growing pains which invariably follow any radical departure from AA Tradition can be absolutely relied upon to bring an erring group back into line. An AA group need not be coerced by any human government over and above its own members. Their own experience, plus AA opinion in surrounding groups, plus God’s prompting in their group conscience would be sufficient.”

“Sound policy can only be made by rubbing the conservatives and the promoters together. Their discussions, if free from personal ambitions and resentment, can be depended upon to produce the right answers. For us, there is no other way.”

“I am still amazed at the aura around AA meetings ... No matter what our immediate problems, fears, or resentments, we come to a halt when the meeting begins and focus on our primary purpose.”

“Older AAs who know the record are unanimous in their feeling that an intelligence greater than ours has surely been at work, else we could never have avoided so many pitfalls, could never have been so happily related to our millions of friends in the outside world.”

“Our mistakes of yesterday can be stepping stones for tomorrow if we do something about them today.”

“Before we can be of any use to anybody else, we must find the beginnings of the answer for ourselves.”

“Our Traditions are set down on paper. But they were written first in our hearts. For each of us knows, instinctively I think, that AA is not ours to do with as we please. We are but caretakers to preserve the spiritual quality of our Fellowship; keep it whole for those who will come after us and have need of what has so generously been given to us.”

“The core of our AA procedure is one alcoholic talking to another, whether that be sitting on a curbstone, in a home, or at a meeting. It’s the message, not the place; it’s the talk, not the alms.”

“Sobriety in AA is the first thing in my life that has really worked.”