Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.

When you want to believe in something, you also have to believe in everything that's necessary for believing in it.

Old-time A.A. people knew that we had to do two things in order to be healed:

• we had to quit fighting God and start making a little better friends with him, and
• we had to deal with all the character defects and personality problems which underlay our alcoholic compulsion.

Not either - or, but both - and.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

First the man takes a drink,
then the drink takes a drink,
then the drink takes the man.

The older you get the more you realise that kindness is synonymous with happiness.

“Sobriety—the freedom from alcohol—through the teaching and practicing of the twelve steps is the sole purpose of an AA group.”

"Life gets simpler as you run out of options."

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.

Many who come into A.A. are not, nor can they be, classified as alcoholics. Clarence always said that, "Every alcoholic is a drunk, but not every drunk is an alcoholic."

It was up to the prospective member and his sponsor to determine whether or not the prospect was indeed an alcoholic, or just someone who drank to excess.

Clarence Snyder, the First Edition's "Home Brewmeister", started the first Cleveland A.A. Group in the summer of '39. He reported that Dr. Bob said:

"There is an easy way and a hard way to recover from alcoholism. The hard way is by just going to meetings."

If I'm miserable, chances are I'm not doing God's will.

Going through the steps is not the work.
The steps are the preparation for doing the work.
The work is Step 12.
Get your butts out there and pass this message along to other people.

A New Life

Is sobriety all that we are to expect of a spiritual awakening?

No, sobriety is only a bare beginning: it is only the first gift of the first awakening. If more gifts are to be received, our awakening has to go on. As it does go on, we find that bit by bit we can discard the old life-the one that did not work-for a new life that can and does work under any conditions whatever.

Regardless of worldly success or failure, regardless of pain or joy, regardless of sickness or health or even of death itself, a new life of endless possibilities can be lived if we are willing to continue our awakening, through the practice of A.A.'s Twelve Steps.