“We are beginning to see new values in AA. We perceive in our midst a spiritual realm, which can be little disturbed by the distractions of wealth or self-serving egocentricity.”

“I never thought that a day like today would be a high point of my life. All that excitement that I used to crave and strive for was not there. I don’t have to live on the edge anymore. And tonight as I lay my head on my pillow I can’t think of one single thing that I did today that I have to go back and redo and make amends for.”

“As long as I am acting in a loving and caring manner, I am not responsible for how others react. This frees me from pleasing people at my own emotional expense.”

“It’s only when I stop thinking about it, stop trying to run the show, that my life may become as God intends.”

“The roads to recovery are many .... AA has no monopoly on reviving alcoholics.”

“The first thing my sponsor told me was, ‘I don’t have time to help you stay sick ... but if you want to get better I’d be glad to help.”

“As I see it, the ever-growing, multiplying, and compounding miracle of AA is that because one man was lonely, afraid, and sick in a strange city, I need never be alone again in a strange city.”

“This issue of the Grapevine marks the anniversary of its founding exactly fifteen [now seventy three] years ago. 

“The memory of some of those first editorial meetings will linger with me always. Seated around a table in a tiny cheerless room some place downtown, the founders pored over their freshly written copy for the first issues. In those days the enthusiastic founders did everything. Not only did they do the art work, write the bulk of the stories, they kept the books, they paid the printing bill, they typed the address on each copy and finally licked all the stamps. So went the happy monthly paroxysm of creating what was to become the principal monthly journal of our whole society.

“Today 35,000 readers [now over 100,000 across multiple media platforms] see mirrored in each issue of the AA Grapevine a monthly vision of the worldwide thought, feeling and activity of our whole fellowship. It is our great means of inter-communication; a magic carpet on which each of you can ride to the more distant reaches and watch new brothers and sisters emerge from darkness into light.

“On this happy occasion I send my warmest affection to Grapevine readers and staff alike. May God prosper the Grapevine always.”

“I don’t know when it happened, but one day I felt like I belonged in my group of sober guys ... I didn’t have to leave.”

“I don’t know when it happened, but one day I felt like I belonged in my group of sober guys ... I didn’t have to leave.”

“I am not rich, I am not in good health, and I do not have a job, but AA only promised me sobriety. After thirty-three years in this Fellowship, I am at peace and I am grateful.”

“A little voice deep inside me said, ‘Hello, I am here.’ It was a small voice, and sounded as if it were buried underneath the cushions of my couch. It was my soul ... I had forgotten it.”

“I opened up the imaginary closet in my mind where I kept all the well-nurtured hurts and tossed them into my past, where they belonged. Into this newly cleaned-out space, I started storing my goals and the hopes and dreams of what I wanted to achieve in life.”

“There will always be people in the Fellowship with whom I don’t see eye-to-eye, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work together. The Fellowship wouldn’t be what it is today if we always saw eye-to-eye on everything.”

“I started going to meetings a little early and resisted the urge to bolt out the door the moment the Lord’s Prayer was finished. I thought I might try some of that ‘get active’ stuff, so I volunteered to make coffee at a meeting I liked to attend ... It wasn’t long before I found myself in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous.”