“If we expend even five percent of the time on Step Eleven that we habitually (and rightly) lavish on Step Twelve, the results can be wonderfully far-reaching.”
“Perhaps those who know just a little about AA think our meetings must become dull and monotonous and our talks collapse into tiresome and repetitious laments or tortured remembrances .... Not so! As AAs, we need these lifesaving contacts to support and maintain our happily found sobriety .... For us, our meetings are eternally new, each offering something -- whether happy or tragic -- to encourage, sustain, and reaffirm our precious sobriety.”
“We who have been helped by AA are as letters of God addressed to our friends and fellow men. By our attitudes, our speech and our behavior are we to show them the transforming power of AA's philosophy of life.”
“AA’s Twelve Traditions are little else than a list of sacrifices which the experience of twenty years has taught us that we must make, individually and collectively.”
“AA is no set of tablets handed down to some latter-day Moses -- but a continuing creative process in which we all take part, a perpetual journey from the known to the unknown, a truth ever-arriving through experience.”
“Are you willing to be amazed?”
“The little things that happen, the spoken word, the kind smile, the nod of encouragement -- the fellowship that goes with the program -- these things I will never forget.”
“Our alcoholism is a sickness we no longer fear to discuss.”
“I am grateful to AA that I have learned some humility, so when offered help, I can now say, ‘Yes, I can use your assistance.’”
“What has happened in the past is just that -- the past! What I should have done about certain issues no longer matters. What I do now is of greatest concern.”
“Each night I pray that when the alarm clock goes off in the morning, I'll have a spiritual awakening.”
“The ideal of AA, however short we may be of it personally, is a thing of beauty and perfection. It is a Power greater than ourselves which has lifted us out of the quicksand and set us safe on shore.”
“The word ‘anonymous’ has for us an immense spiritual significance. Subtly but powerfully it reminds us that we are always to place principles before personalities; that we have renounced personal glorification in public; that our movement not only preaches, but actually practices a truly humble modesty.”
“Every August, one of the founding members of my group (a real character, who is jokingly said to be our spiritual leader -- or is it spherical leader?) says that in honor of the eighth month and Tradition Eight, he is offering a special discount on sponsorship for anyone who needs it.
“Sometimes people take him up on the offer, but a good proportion of them cancel during the introductory trial period. Of course, this is all said in jest at our meetings, and we get a good laugh out of it.”
“AA recovery cannot be bought and sold, but more than once I've wished I could just send a monthly check instead of practicing those principles. Just making donations seems an easier, softer way, doesn't it?”
