“I have learned to keep quiet when I disagree and to give others freedom to express opinions widely different from my own -- without giving in to the urge to enlighten them. I am grateful for all the voices of AA.”
“Groups change, just like people do, and we AAs fight change. Although we can never go back to the way it once was, we will survive -- yea, even thrive -- as long as we remember Tradition Five, 'Each Alcoholics Anonymous group ought to be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose -- that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.’”
"This issue of the Grapevine marks the anniversary of its founding exactly fifteen [now seventy] 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 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.”
“Our resentments, anxieties and depressions were definitely caused, we claimed, by our unfortunate circumstances and by the inconsiderate behavior of other people. To our consternation, our sponsors didn't seem impressed ... They just grinned and said, ‘Why don't we sit down and take a hard look at all of AA's Twelve Steps? Maybe you have been missing a lot -- in fact, nearly everything."
“I can change my viewpoint anytime I want to. I can look at things from down, by lying back and waiting for someone to rescue me. Or I can stand tall and look at the way things are as the way they’re meant to be.”
“Alone in the town, I was scared to death of getting drunk. I was no longer a teacher or a preacher, I was an alcoholic who knew that he needed another alcoholic, as much as that one could possibly need me. Driven by that urge, I was soon face to face with Dr. Bob.”
“Asking for help is not just a path to humility; it is a path to connection with my fellows and with God.”
“Today, as I look back over 27-plus years of sobriety, I can simply thank Him for being wherever I am going before I even get there.”
“The compulsion among most of us to survive and to grow soon becomes far stronger than the temptation to drink, or to misbehave. Literally, we must ‘do or die.’ So we make the choice to live. This, in turn, means the choice of AA principles, practices and attitudes that can salvage us from total disaster by insuring our sobriety.”
