“I can say no to a lot of things I’m not interested in. All the people-pleasing activities I used to engage in, I can cut out now. That gives me time to do the truly helpful, gut-warming little things, just because they need doing and I truly care. I have time to work my program.”
“In early sobriety, I remember moaning to another member about how I didn’t have a relationship, I didn’t have a new car, and I didn’t have a flashy job. He replied: ‘It takes a steady hand to hold a full cup.’”
“As early as 1945, mediating and giving suggestions by mail for the solution of group problems had put a tremendous volume of work on Headquarters. With most of the metropolitan AA centers, correspondence files had grown six inches thick. Seemingly, every contestant in every group argument at every point of the compass wrote us in this period.”
“AA and my Higher Power have transformed me from a complex person who lived out of her head to a simple person who is trying to live out of her heart.”
“A sincere attempt to exercise the first ten Steps brings into play some of the finest virtues in the human character: humility, hope, faith, honesty, courage, and sincerity.”
“Keeping a Tenth Step journal about my day-to-day life, my relations with other people, and the stuff that still roiled around in my head helped me see patterns in my thoughts and behavior, which I could discuss with my sponsor. And once I began to sit quietly, reflect on what I'd written, and pray, I began to sleep peacefully for the first time in my life.”
“My understanding of a Higher Power is still subject to shifts. Sometimes, I think of it as The Unknowable, or as The Great What Is. Often, I envision it as an indifferent force, something like an electrical current, that is available to all living things and from which human beings can derive strength and generosity and acceptance. The one thing I feel sure of is that it’s more powerful than my will.”
“I can’t walk on water, but with my Higher Power and my AA friends, I can keep my head just above it.”
"“We've all seen the new member who stays sober for a time, largely through sponsorship. Then maybe the sponsor gets drunk, and you know what usually happens. Left without a human prop, the new member gets drunk, too. He has been glorifying an individual, instead of following the program.
“Certainly, we need leaders, but we must regard them as the human agents of the Higher Power and not with undue adulation as individuals. The Fourth and Tenth Steps cannot be too strongly emphasized here, ‘Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves .... Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.’ There is your perfect antidote for halo-poisoning.”"
“The five H's combine into a powerful formula for success. Starting with Hope, passing through Honesty into a gracious Humility, we become Human again, taking our rightful places in society and, by living a well rounded life, develop an integrated personality free of the stresses that urge us to drink. Finally, through Helpfulness we express gratitude and pass on to others some of the blessings we have enjoyed these recent weeks, months, years. Truly a Magic Formula for Continued Sobriety....”
“Through doing the Steps and receiving love from my AA family, my perception of life has changed. Once my thoughts changed, so did my actions, then, finally, the results.”
“As by some deep instinct, we AAs have known from the very beginning that we must never, no matter what the provocation, publicly take sides in any fight, even a worthy one.”
“I am not automatically entitled to succeed in everything, or, indeed, in anything. I am, thank God and AA, no longer a superior individual, but simply a sober individual. My Higher Power and I can take it from there, working together that I may do the best I am able to do and realize what talents I may have.”
“AA is not an ‘insiders’ kind of Fellowship, thanks to the efforts of hundreds of thousands of AAs worldwide. We'll help any drunk anywhere, any time.”
“The future belongs to you.”
