“I can recognize that I’m caught up in my will when I desperately struggle to slam a square peg into a round hole. That’s the time for me to back off and trust that God’s will is far better than mine.”

“Over the years I've gone to different types of groups to meet different needs in my life or to share experience, strength, and hope about a particular problem I was struggling with. Some days I've been part of the solution for another suffering alcoholic; other days I've been the one who was suffering.

“Thanks to our Fifth Tradition, no matter what my needs or my location I can find an AA group where I can talk about -- and listen to -- not drinking one day at a time, practicing the principles in all of my affairs, and being happily and usefully whole.”

“The word ‘alcoholic’ does not turn me off anymore; in fact, it is music to my ears when it applies to me.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Today, my short version of the Third Step is this: Keep taking care of me, Lord, because I appreciate it now.”

“AA gives us a Ph.D. in life and a black belt in common sense.”

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

“If there are challenges to be met today, I remember other days when what seemed impossible was made possible.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”