1. Honesty gets us sober, tolerance keeps us sober. (Bill W.)
2. What’s for you, won’t go by you. (Grapevine)
3. Your worth should never depend on another persons opinion.
4. HALT – Don’t get too: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.
5. Don’t get into a bad place through PIP: Pride, Impatience, Projection.
6. Coincidence is God’s work – when He chooses to remain anonymous. (Charlotte S.)
7. Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
8. When one door closes, another one opens. It’s the dark hallways that scare us. (Roz A.)
9. The wise man seeks everything within himself. the ignorant man takes everything from others.
10. Your real wealth can be measured not by what you have, but by what you are.
11. That which does not kill us, makes us stronger. (Friedrich W. Nietzsche)
12. Living a good life is the greatest revenge.
13. No matter where you go…there you are.
14. Easy does it.
15. One day at a time.
16. Sometimes Gods rejection is Gods protection.
17. Resentment is the number one blockade to spiritual growth. (Norman Vincent Peale)
18. Self-restraint – I would rather be comfortable than right.
19. Keep in the solution – NOT in the problem.
20. If you feel guilty – stop doing what’s making you feel guilty.
21. Stinking thinking leads to drinking.
22. Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. (Dr. Suess)
23. Life is not painful, it’s my resistance to life that causes me the pain. (Jean A.)
24. Alcoholism is the total disintegration of the human personality. (Joe F.)
25. Turn up a stereo to full volume then unplug it. In 2, 5, 10, or 20 years later – if you plug it in again, the stereo will come on full volume. That’s what alcoholism is like.
26. We AA’s surrender to win; we give away to keep; we suffer to get well; and we die to live. (2nd edition Big Book Story)
27. AA is like riding a bicycle – you can coast for awhile but if you don’t start pedaling, you’ll soon fall on your ass. (Don G.)
28. No is a complete sentence. (Alanon)
29. A man takes the drink. The drink takes a drink. The drink takes the man.
30. Camels in a caravan kneel down in the evening and the camel-driver unloads their burdens. In the morning, the camels kneel down again, and the camel-driver puts the burdens back on. It’s the same with prayer: we get on our knees to unload at night, and in the morning we get on our knees again. God gives us just the load we are able to carry that day. (Dr. Bob)
31. AA life is made up of glorious years and some shitty days.
32. The good is often the enemy of the best. (Bill W.)
33. I’ve discovered that miracles are possible without my consent. (Cubby S.)
34. I don’t believe in miracles – I depend on them. (Ritchie A.)
35. Our defiance and grandiosity springs from a persisting infantile ego, characteristically filled with feelings of omnipotence, demands for direct gratification of wishes and a proneness to interpret frustration as evidence of rejection and lack of love. (Dr. Tiebout)
36. Lord – if I cannot have what I want — help me want what I have TODAY.
37. Serenity does not mean the lack of any stress or tension – rather it means the inner security that enables us to bear the stresses and to use them as occasions for growth. (Jeanne JT)
38. I will selfishly go to any lengths to obtain, maintain and defend my sobriety so that through the action of this program I will grow to be unselfish. (Jeanne JT)
39. Nor can men and women of AA ever forget that only through suffering did they find enough humility to enter the portals of that new world. How privileged we are to understand so well the divine paradox that strength rises from weakness; that humiliation goes before resurrection; that pain is not only the price but the very touchstone of spiritual rebirth. (Bill W.)
40. Takers are losers, Givers are winners. (John H.)
41. When I take the third step prayer, self concern has no further place in my life. (Chuck C.)
42. The measure of your anxiety is the measure of your distance from God. (Chuck C.)
43. To those who have made progress in AA, humility amounts only to a clear recognition of what and who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we can be. (Bill W.)
44. If there is a disturbance deep inside of me – if anything from the outside disturbs, distresses or presents a conflict in my life – there’s something I should be doing that I’m not doing or there’s something I’m doing that I shouldn’t be doing. I sit down in my rocker until I figure it out with God. (Patsy R.)
45. From the book Illusions:
- Your only obligation is to be true to yourself.
- You teach best what you most need to learn.
- Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they’re yours.
- I do not exist to impress the world. I exist to live my life in a way that will make me happy.
- You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.
46. Where God guides, God provides.
47. In order to give up my defects of character, I must first give up the benefits of my defects of character. Twenty seconds of ecstasy isn’t worth three weeks of guilt. (Sean A.)
48. You don’t get drunk making mistakes – you get drunk defending the mistakes you’ve made. (Clancy I.)
49. God cannot do for you what he cannot do through you.
50. Only God can fix what God has made. (Barbara P.)
51. Not only was I ignorant – I was ignorant that I was ignorant.
52. The 3 C’s: Didn’t cause it, can’t cure it, and can’t control it. (Alanon)
53. If they’re ready, you can’t say anything wrong. If they’re not ready, you can’t say anything right.
54. Be aware that tomorrow’s resentments are fed by today’s expectations. (Bill R.)
55. No God – No Peace; Know God – Know Peace.
56. Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so. (Shakespeare)
57. Those who laugh – last.
58. God gave us two ears and one mouth. Listen twice as much as you talk.
59. God has a plan for you…and what it is is none of your business.
60. Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. (Malacky McCourt)
61. The Big Book is your road map, the meetings are your filling stations.
62. We come to the program thinking we are at the end of the line, whereas we are just at the start of a journey. (Linda M.)
63. We’re not responsible for our disease, but we are responsible for our recovery.
64. If I don’t take a drink for 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 55 seconds, I’m still just 5 seconds away from my next drunk! And each 24 hours that I don’t take that drink, I am indeed somebody. (Wade)
65. There is some good news and some bad news:
- The good news is that you’re not in charge;
- The bad news is that you’re not in charge.
66. When you get sober you can write down all the gifts you get…when you go out you can reverse the pencil and erase each gift one by one.
67. If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.
68. The problem with isolating is that you get such bad advice.
69. If you don’t take a 4th, you’ll soon pick up a 5th.
70. People who don’t go to meetings aren’t there to see what happens to people who don’t go to meetings.
71. Do what you fear, and the fear will disappear.
72. We may not have had the happiest childhoods, but we certainly have had the longest.
73. Procrastination is the gap between intention and action.
74. The secret to acceptance is not in getting what you want but in wanting what you get.
75. OK…get off the cross, we need the wood.
76. You cannot stumble when you’re on your knees.
77. People often need love the most when they deserve it the least.
78. Grace: An unmerited, unwarranted, unearned gift.
79. Worrying is like being in a rocking chair, It gives you something to do but does not get you anywhere.
80. Life is God’s gift to you. What you do with your life is your gift to God.
81. When your mouth is closed, you can’t put your foot in it.
82. The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.
83. People change when the pain not to change exceeds the pain to change.