“AA is spiritual, is the eye of the hurricane, is my refuge and my comfort ... Thanks to AA for making a place for broken hearts and wounded souls.”

“We now fully realize that 100 percent personal anonymity before the public is just as vital to the life of AA as 100 percent sobriety is to the life of each and every member.”

“Not picking up a drink creates infinite possibilities for me ... Who knows? This could be the greatest day of my life.”

“The Steps will speak to my condition wherever I am in sobriety.”

“I realized that it is possible to believe in a Higher Power, in the efficacy of prayer and meditation, in making a conscious contact with a Higher Power as those concepts, privately understood – or not understood – are suggested in AA, without the loss of one iota of my precious identity.”

“We organize our principles merely so that they can be better understood, and we continue so to organize our services that AA’s life-blood can be transfused into those who must otherwise die. That is the all-in-all of AA’s ‘organization.’ There can never be any more than this.”

“I don’t believe I drank to get drunk, but always to seek in the next drink that peace for which a sick soul seems to thirst.”

“Unity seldom means that we all agree on everything. Nor is unity served by setting aside our concerns and conforming to the majority opinion (or the vocal minority) ... Unity is best achieved by a full hearing of all points of view ... time for all of those involved to step back from emotional responses ... as well as careful consideration and prayer for that which will best serve the group or AA as a whole.”

“Every day, hopeless, helpless alcoholics walk into AA meetings, grab onto hope, and begin a renewal of their spirit.”

“I am grateful that the people in AA showed me how to live sober. However, I have learned many things from other sources. I learned about quiet from the breeze floating through the grass on a warm summer day. I have learned unconditional love from my animals. I have learned how to have wonder of the world from my children. I have learned that all things have tremendous power.”

“The God I know today ... is a presence in which I find myself, just as I am.”

“My drinking career was all about running away. I could pack up and vanish in a flash. Now ... I’m taking the risk to stick around, to just show up and see what happens.”

“AA does not teach us how to handle our drinking; it teaches us how to handle our sobriety.”

“When we AAs look to the future, we must always ask ourselves if the spirit which now binds us together in our common cause will always be stronger than those personal ambitions and desires which tend to drive us apart ... Though the individual AA is under no human coercion, is at almost perfect personal liberty, we have, nevertheless, achieved a wonderful unity on vital essentials. For example, the Twelve Steps of our AA program are not crammed down anybody's throat. They are not sustained by any human authority. Yet we powerfully unite around them because the truth they contain has saved our lives, has opened the door to a new world.”

“A while ago a speaker said that it was no use admitting that one was an alcoholic unless the admittance was accompanied by a realization of what being an alcoholic really meant ... He said there was no use my making the admission even in the full realization of what it meant, unless I accepted the fact that I was an alcoholic without resentment.”