Collection of A.A. Sayings
We are not God's gift to AA; AA is "His " to us.
We are not reformed drunks–but informed alcoholics.
We're here for a reason–not for the season.
An AA group will be judged by the worst behavior of its Members.
When you clean up after your group, you leave the signature of AA behind you.
Any two or three alcoholics gathered together in sobriety may call themselves an AA group.
AA is a check-up from the neck up.
AA is not a sentence, it is a reprieve.
A.A. is a self-help program but you can't do it by yourself.
A.A. stands for Always Available Attitude Adjustment Altered Attitudes Acknowledge Acceptance
Avoid Anger
AA won't open the gates of heaven to let you in, but it will open the gates of o f hell to let you out.
I have become a pupil of A.A. rather than the teacher I thought I was. Just accept, don't expect Acceptance is knowing the past will never get better. Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.
Life is 10% what you make it and 90% how you take it.
They're just doing it, they're not doing it to you.
Turn it over.
You can't change the wind, but you can adjust the sails.
Action alleviates anxiety. Action: Lazy works twice. Action: Utilize, don't analyze You have to act right in order to feel right Remember Al-Anons: The quicker, the sicker, the sooner, the better!!! Al-anon: Known in Ireland as the Provisional Wing of AA. Alcoholic A piece of crap the universe revolves around.
An alcoholic is someone who wants to be held while isolating. I may not be much, but I'm all I think about. I only drank on days beginning with "T"-Tuesdays, Thursdays, Today, Tomorrow…
If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a…duck. If you drank enough to get to AA, you drank enough. Alcohol provokes the desire but takes away the performance. It's not what or how much you drank, it's what it did to you. Alcoholics Terminal uniqueness! They didn't make a glass big enough for me to have one drink. An alcoholic alone is slumming. An alcoholic is not a guy who thinks he's had one too many. He's usually the guy who thinks he's had one too few.
Being a "little bit alcoholic" is like being a "little bit pregnant." Every alcoholic's favorite brand: More! If you think you are an alcoholic, chances are, you are. The destiny of every alcoholic is to be locked up, covered up or sobered up. You can carry the message, but not the alcoholic. You're probably an alcoholic if: You think spilling beer is alcohol abuse. We alcoholics either go to Yale or jail Alcohol went from being my best friend to my worst enemy. An alcoholic can be in the gutter, yet still look down on people.
Guilt of yesterday, fear of tomorrow, shame of today.
High bottoms have trap doors. If the cure works, chances are, you have the disease. If you drank long enough to get to an A.A. meeting, you drank long enough. Once you are a pickle, you can't ever be a cucumber again. But once you are a pickle, you can be a newcomer.
The three most dangerous words for an alcoholic-"I've been thinking"
We are not bad people becoming good, but sick people becoming well. Your bottom just may be six feet under. und er. Your disease progresses even when you are not drinking. Active alcoholism is like an elevator; you can get off at any floor. Alcoholism doesn't come in bottles; it comes in people. Alcoholism is a self-diagnosed disease. Some people think alcoholism is a two-fold disease--more and right now.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
It's not alcoholwasm; it's alcoholism. a lcoholism.
I can go from grateful to hateful in a second.
If I don't "pause when agitated", I might use my "paws when agitated We are only as big as the smallest thing that makes us angry.
Anger is but a mask for fear.
Justifiable anger is best left to those able to handle it.
Those who anger you, conquer you.
H.A.L.T. Don't get too Hungry, Angry, Ang ry, Lonely or Tired
I don't say things to make you angry, I say things that make you angry.
The second A in AA is precious; it is the word in our name that sets us apart from all other alcoholics.
Who you see here, what you hear here, let it stay here.
A T T I T U D E 1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5=100% You can wake up and say "Good morning, God" or "Good God, it's morning!" Attitude: You get what you expect in life.
Attitude in life is everything!
Keep an attitude of gratitude. BE a human being not a human doing.
Be better than you were! Be here now. Don't know-be. If It's To Be, It's Up To Me! What will be...will appear. You are still becoming. Being humble means being teachable. We came, we came to, we came to believe.
The liar's punishment is not that they are not believed, but that they can believe no one else.
If you want to hide something from an a n AA member, put it in the Big Book.
The Big Book: One of those rare books that gets smarter every time I read it. You may be the only copy of the Big Book some people ever see.
Blame, character defects: You spot it, you got it. Blame: Don't point a finger; point the whole hand (reach out). When you point a finger at someone, there are three pointing back at you.
May you be blessed with a slow recovery. No one comes to AA on a good day. When things get worse faster than you can lower your standards.
My bottom is where I put my shovel down.
The longer I'm in the program, p rogram, the lower my bottom seems to get.
Program bumper stickers belong on the dashboard, not the bumper.
Daily meditation for about 20 minutes is recommended for all in recovery; unless, of course, you're very busy-then you should meditate for an hour.
When someone's pushing your buttons, hit the "MUTE" on your remote.
Take care of your body. If you don't, where else are you going to live?
Change: A suggestion is a subtle command.
Everything after "but" is BS. If you don't change, you'll be begging for change. If you are eating a shit sandwich, chances are, you ordered it. If you have God in one hand and the fellowship in the other hand, you can't get drunk today.
If you keep doing the same thing over and over, you'll keep getting the same thing over and over. If you stole horses when you were drinking, and you expect to get sober, you not only quit drinking, but you quit stealing horses.
If you want to keep feeling feeling how you're feeling, then keep doing what you are doing. If you want what you never had, you have to do what you've never done.
Life begins right outside your comfort zone.
Make no major changes in the first year.
Put down the weapons, pick up the tools.
Change is inevitable, Growth is optional
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, thecourage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
How many alcoholics does it take to change a light bulb? Change? What do you mean, change?
If you don't change, nothing changes.
If you fail to change the person you were when you came in, that person will take you out.
Learn to change, change to learn. There are only two things an alcoholic doesn't like the way things are, and change.
When one door shuts, another opens.
Give a damn; be a channel.
If Nothing Changes, nothing changes. Chapter Five is called "How It Works," not "Why Me?" Character is how we act when we think no one is watching. Fear is the mother of all character defects. Today, we have a choice. Coincidences are God's way of staying anonymous. ano nymous. There are no coincidences.
The willingness to be uncomfortable leads to being comfortable.
We drink to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Just keep coming.
Keep coming back, it works!
Keep coming back, it works…don't go away; it works even better!
Identify, don't compare.
Are you comparing your insides to someone else's outsides?
Complacency kills.
If you have to control your drinking, it must be out of control.
If you have to control your drinking, what's the point of drinking?
When you see "CRAZY" coming, hurry up and cross the street!
Walk a mile in another's shoes before you criticize
the courage to change the things I can...
Daily meditation for about 20 minutes is recommended for all in recovery; unless, of course, you're very busy–then you should meditate for an hour.
When you dance with a gorilla, it's the gorilla who decides when to stop. One day at a time. When you don't know what to do, don't do anything.
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
The difference between us and God is that God knows the end of the story. It's a cinch by the inch; it's hard by the yard.
We can disagree without being disagreeable, we can argue without being difficult.
Negativity is my disease asking me to come out and play.
When you do good, you never know how much good you do.
When you don't know what to do, do nothing.
There are two kinds of people in this world— the doers and the done tos. Doormat: Don't ever be someone's slogan because you are poetry. We came to these rooms not because we drank a lot, but because we drank too much.
Trying is what got me drunk; doing is what keeps me sober. I drank to stimulate thought and blacked out; I drank to make conversation and tied my tongue; I drank for warmth and lost my cool;
I drank to forget and became haunted; I drank for freedom and became a slave; I drank for power and became powerless; I drank to erase problems and saw them multiply; I drank to cope with life and invited death...or worse; I drank because I had the right and everything turned out wrong.
A drink is only an arm's-length away. A free drink is often the most expensive. expen sive. Don't drink and go to meetings. Nothing is so bad that a drink won't make it worse.
The person takes a drink, the drink takes a drink, the drink takes the person.
Pick up the telephone before you pick up a drink.
Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink.
Sitting in a bar and asking yourself not to drink is like trying to sneak sun-up past a rooster. The ultimate defense against the first drink is a spiritual one. We don't want to drink like gentlemen; we want to drink like pigs p igs and be treated like gentlemen.
Drinking didn't drown my problems, it irrigated them.
I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy, than to have to have a bottle in front of me.
I came for my drinking and stayed for my thinking.
If drinking were our only problem, rehabs would turn out winners.
If you have to control your drinking, it must be out of control.
If you have to control your drinking, what's the point of drinking?
If you think you have a drinking problem, chances are, you do.
Waking up in strange places with strange faces.
Get out of the driver's seat.
Anything you did drunk, you can do better sober.
If you want to see who the drunk is, look for who's shouting for the manager.
The first drink gets you drunk.
My worst day sober was better than my best day drunk.
Some say if you can't remember your last drunk, you may not have had it.
Easy does it.
Easy does it (but do it).
The highest I can go in AA is sober.
I may not be much, but I'm all I think about.
It's not that you think too well of yourself, but that you thinkonly of yourself.
The sum total of false ideas about myself.
We are all important, but not for the reasons we think.
Ego is our separation from God and a nd others.
I don't want my ego to be the first thing people see when I walk onto a room.
Egoism isn't necessarily thinking a lot of yourself just thinking of yourself a lot.
The only thing I can do to help my loved one on e is to let him help himself.
Remember to give and receive ES&H: Encouragement, Strength, and Hope
My net worth is not myself worth.
Everything in God's time.
Everything is all right.
Everything is as it should be.
Everything is as it should be right now.
Everything that is happening is God's plan for you today.
Expectation is premeditated resentment.
Faith is hope in things unseen.
Fear doesn't have to mean mean Forget Everything Everything And Run.
To overcome fear means to Face Everything And Recover.
Failure isn't fatal; success isn't permanent.
Faith can't be taught; it can only be caught.
Faith conquers fear.
If you don't believe, than make believe. If I have faith in God, it doesn't make much difference if I have faith in myself.
Faith was the first medicine known to man
Fake it 'til you make it.
My parents know how to push my buttons. they installed them.
Fear has no power unless I give it power.
Fear is absence of faith.
Fear is what keeps you from God's plan for you.--sent in by Emily M.,
Fear knocked on the door. Faith answered; there was no one there.
Procrastination is fear in five syllables.
Turn fear into faith. If you want to feel better right away, ask God to help you be of service.
If you want to keep feeling how you are feeling, keep doing what you are doing.
If 2 million plus recovering alcoholics are wrong, I'm screwed.
If you have one hand in the fellowship and one hand in God, you can't get drunk today.
First things first.
The first drink gets you drunk.
The first-time sober is a gift; why waste it?
Keep the focus on yourself.
The person who forgets is doomed to repeat.
Forgiveness of others is a gift to yourself.
The number one way to relieve pain is to forgive.
Today is a gift; that's why it's called the present.
At first we thought the 'God thing' was a crutch. Turns out to be b e stilts.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
God has three answers to everything-yes, eve rything-yes, no, and if you insist.
God help me! (Step 1, short form)
God is my employer (and I never have trouble with money.
God is doing for us what we can not do for ourselves.
God is upstairs in church on Sunday morning, but at night he's downstairs in the AA meeting.
God won't fail you (people will).
God's will: You can't do his will, your way.
You can't sit in a closet and pray to God to bring you a hot dog.
God's will, not mine, be done.
I can't, God can, why don't I let Him? (Steps 1-3, short form)
If you want to make God laugh, tell him YOUR plans for the day.
If you're looking for God, you'll never see God more at work than at a t an
AA meeting.
I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.
Is it odd, or is it God?
Listen to your heart often, God lives there . There is only one thing you need to know about God, you are not Him
What is God's will for me today?
When I ask for patience, God Go d gives me a traffic jam.
When God made time, He made plenty of it.
It is easier to live your way into good feeling than to feel your way into good go od living.
There is nothing we can do to make God love us more than God already does.
There nothing we can do wrong that will make God love us any less.
Get off the throne and give it back to God. The grace of God will never take me where the grace of God will not protect me.
There but for the grace of God, go I. When you lay down, lay on your back and look up, for God is there all the time.
Grateful alcoholics don't drink, and drinking alcoholics aren't grateful.
Gratitude: To be grate-ful is to be grace-filled. g race-filled.
If your heart is full of gratitude, there is no room for resentment.
Keep an attitude of gratitude.
Show up to grow up.
If small things make you angry-how big are you?
It's not so important why you are an alcoholic
Just be on the side of the angels, it doesn't matter what rank you are.
Pain is mandatory, suffering is optional.
Sometimes the good is the enemy of the best.
The opposite of joy is not sorrow, the opposite of joy is cynicism.
When the pain of where I am is worse than the discomfort of where I am going, then I'll move.
HP is not against me because of my addiction. HP is for me and against my addiction
Happiness isn't getting everything you want. It's wanting what you've already got.
Happiness is an inside job. . Happiness is appreciating what you have, not getting what you want.
True happiness is found in service.
If you are not happy with what you have,
what makes you think you would be happy with more?
If you aren't happy today, what are you waiting for?
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be
Would you rather be right, or happy? h appy?
If you pray for honesty, the chances of your lying go 'way up.
When one door closes, another door opens. It's being in the hallway that's hell.
How high you bounce is more important than how hard you fall.
Worry is an ironic form of hope.
Being humble means being teachable.
Get humble, or be made humble.
When you feel it's your job to humble others, you may in for a ...stumble, fumble, or crumble.
Humility is like venereal disease. If you have it, you don't talk about it
Before you become too proud to be a member of AA, make sure AA is proud to have h ave you as a member.
Egotism is not thinking well of yourself; it's thinking only of yourself.
Halos can turn into nooses. If you are having trouble getting down on your knees to pray in the morning, put your shoes under the middle of the bed the night before.
It doesn't matter so much who is right, but what is right.
Remember Rule 62 (don't take yourself so darn seriously)!
The bigger my head, the easier the target.
You can't save your face and your ass at the same time.
Humility is humanity.
Humility is not humiliation.
Humility is that virtue which reduces a man to the proper size Without degrading him, there by increasing him in statue without inflating him.
Unless oneattains some degree of humility, one is condemned to drink again.
If it weren't for a small deficit in my humility, I'd be perfect.
Just when you think you have humility, you've lost it.
Identify, don't compare.
Don't just take an inventory; let it take you.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.
Insanity is the seeming inability to learn from past mistakes.
The trouble with staying home and isolating is you get a lot of bad advice.
ISOLATION: It's the darkroom where I develop my negatives.
A job is something that happens to you on the way to a meeting.
The journey is the destination.
When I demand justice, I'd better think of the consequences.
Keep the memory green.
Knowing why is the booby prize of life. It isn't what I don't know that gets g ets me in trouble; it's what I absolutely do know—and just isn't so!
Learn to listen, listen to learn.
Life is fragile; handle with prayer.
Life on life's terms.
God gave you two ears and only one mouth for a reason.
Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth.
Live and let live.
Live in the moment.
Live in the solution.
An alcoholic is someone who treats loneliness with isolation.
If you can't take it, leave it. If you can't leave it, love it.
God only lends us people when we need them.
Love is less a feeling than a thousand tiny acts of kindness.
If love has conditions attached, it's not love, it's barter.
Love is a verb.
Love is an action.
Love isn't love until you give it away.
It isn't "me" and "you" anymore; it's "we" and "us."
Bring your body, your mind will follow.
Meetings: AA is like a raffle; you must be present to win.
Meetings: Meeting makers make it.
Meetings take the bastard out of me. Jack
Meetings: Those who get around, stay around.
Meetings: You start to skip, you start to slip.
A meeting a day keeps the detox away.
A meeting lasts from preamble to prayer.
A meeting lasts from preamble to prayer.
After each meeting, clean up the wreckage of the present.
If you only need one meeting a week, you may have to go to five of them in that time to find out which one it is.
If you think you don't need a meeting, chances are, you do.
Get smart feet; go to meetings.
Go to enough meetings and you still may not stop drinking; Your drinking, however, will be ruined.
Token takers take it and meeting makers make it.
Meetings are not enough.
Meetings, meetings, meetings.
People who don't go to meetings don't find out what happens to people who don't go to meetings.
Seven days without a meeting makes one weak.
We go to the meetings for all sorts of reasons, but we don't know what they are, so we keep going to meetings.
When you are in a meeting, your disease is outside doing push-ups.
You only have to go to meetings until you want to go to meetings.
Carry the message, not the mess.
The message is under the ashtray.
The message is up front.
I am not allowed in my mind without an adult!
The mind can cure the mind.
Misery is optional.
Negativity is my disease asking me to come out and play.
Take the cotton out of one ear, put it in your mouth. so what you hear won't whistle through that empty cavity.
Newcomers are like rum fruitcakes. You can take out the rum, but you still have a fruitcake.
What comes after ninety days? Ninety-one!
Ninety meetings in ninety days.
Nonalcoholic beer is for nonalcoholics.
Now: Live in the moment.
Is it odd, or is it God?
Do not regret growing old; it is a privilege denied many.
One day at a time.
One drink is too many, and a thousand isn't enough.
Keep an open mind.
Those of the opposite sex may pat your rear end, but often those of the same sex will save it.
In sobriety, you are given permission to be ordinary.
Beauty and truth are admired; pain is obeyed.
A pain shared is a pain cut in half.
Not facing pain can prolong it. When I tighten the noose of resentment around someone's neck, I choke myself.
Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.
If your ass falls off, put it in a wheelbarrow and take it to a meeting.
It's either suffering or service.
The only avoidable pain is the pain we endure in the process process of trying to avoid pain.
Pass it on.
This, too, shall pass.
Patience: Everything in God's
God give me patience--now!
When I ask for patience, God Go d gives me a traffic jam.
People, places, and things.
Get off the pity pot.
A periodic is an alcoholic. Period.
Plan, but don't plan the outcome.
Plan, don't project.
Plan Plans, Not Results. . Prior Planning Prevents Problems!
When you point a finger at someone, there are three three pointing back at you.
Everything we have is on loan from God.
Powerless over people, places and things; it's a two-way street.
Strength in powerlessness.
Be careful what you pray for...you just might get it.
If you are having trouble getting on your knees to pray in the morning, put your shoes under the middle of the bed the night before.
If you pray don't worry. If you worry don't pray.
Pray as if everything depended on God; work as if everything depends on ourselves.
Ask God not for things to enjoy life, but rather life that you may enjoy all things.
If you pray for potatoes, better plant a garden.
If you're going to pray, why worry?
Tears are liquid prayers.
A day without prayer is a day unfulfilled. un fulfilled.
Hit him them with a prayer, not a chair.
Prayer is not a device for getting my own way, but rather a means to become what I should be.
We don't pray to change things; we pray to change us.
Today is a gift; that's why it's called the present.
You can't get indigestion from swallowing your pride.
I was a problem drinker; every time I drank, I had a problem.
Procrastination is fear in five syllables.
A.A. has no musts but it has h as a lot of "have-to's".
Don't worry, if you don't get the program right away, it will get you.
I came to the program and became focused instead of mocused.
The longer I'm in the program, p rogram, the lower my bottom seems to get.
The program is for those who want it.
The program is like a submarine. It is much better to be in it than around it.
The program is like a swimming pool, and you can't learn to swim until you get in the water.
The program-it works if you work it.
Take the program seriously, not yourself.
Work the program, not the problem. P R O G R A M = People Relying On God Relay A Message.
Progress not perfection.
Like Caesar-we came, we saw, we conquered (drinkie, drankie, drunkie).
Don't write scripts unless you're going to publish them.
Don't quit before the miracle happens.
Quitting is easy; it's staying stopped that's hard.
Surrender, don't quit.
Another day, another recovery!
Never look back unless you intend to go that way.
I may not be where I want to be, but I certainly ce rtainly am not where I was.
God doesn't need much; whatever you have left is enough.
I'm getting better. I try to save my best argumentfor when someone else is in the room. In A.A., there is a wrench for every nut.
In AA, we learn how to disagree without being disagreeable.
Discover yourself. Everything else has been done.
It's the second meeting that's the most important one
The further you are from your last drink, the closer you are to the next one.
The process is perfect; let it work.
We take the steps, but it's funny where the steps take us.
You can only be a newcomer one time.
I may only have one recovery in me.
May you be blessed with a slow recovery.
If you're not sober you can't relapse. If you are sober and go to meetings, read AA literature, talk to your sponsor and don't drink or think, chances are you won't relapse.
Going to meetings keeps your elbow down.
Relapsing: See also slip.
For true intimacy to take place,
I must be a whole person pe rson forming a partnership, not a broken person seeking another to be whole.
It's not a question of finding the right person, but becoming the right person. p erson.
Relax-God is in charge.
Remember the 3 P's: Perfectionism (leads to) Procrastination (leads to) Paralysis.
Some say if you can't remember your last drunk, you may not have had it.
Resentment is like burning down your house h ouse to get rid of a rat.
When you are living inside someone's head, you are out of your mind.
Resentment is from the Latin, meaning to "feel again."
Resentment is letting someone else live in your head rent-free.
By releasing resentment, we set ourselves free.
When I tighten the noose of resentment around someone's neck, I choke
myself.
Respect is reserved for the respectable.
When you burn the candle at both ends, you're likely to end up with singed fingers.
We don't get partial results from half-measures.
If you want to bury someone with revenge, it is best to dig two graves.
To thine own self be true!
Self-esteem: The exploding doormat.
A.A. is a self-help program but you can't do it by yourself.
Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink.
Self-will run riot.
It’s a selfless program NOT!! a selfish program.
Serenity: Everything is as it should be.
A short version of the serenity prayer: Forget it!
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Don't take yourself too darn seriously.
Take the program seriously, not yourself.
Service: Shut up, show up and say "yes."
Service: Trust in God, clean house, and work with others.
Service is gratitude in action.
Be a channel, not a dam.
Give to God and God will give to you.
I'd rather hear you share about the same thing a thousand times
in meetings than learn you were sharing it in a bar.
If you pass, it's your ass.
In order to keep it, you have to give it away.
Say what you mean, but don't do n't say it mean.
Talk or die.
The opposite of listening is waiting to talk.
There is plenty to go around of what you give away.
We must give away what we cannot keep so we might receive what we cannot lose.
Show up to grow up.
Shut up, show up and say "yes."
Keep it simple.
Keep it simple, smarty
Slicker, sicker.
Each time you come back, the tuition goes up.
Getting sober is a process; relapsing is a process, too.
Slip: "I Only Had One"
If you escaped the lion's den, why go back for your hat?
If you fail to change the person you were when you came in, That person will take you out.
If you go out, your bottom will get lower.
It's not the caboose that kills you it's the engine.
No one ever tripped over a mountain but they sure could slip and fall on a pebble.
No one who has ever had a slip said they went w ent to too many meetings.
People who don't go to meetings don't find out what happens to people who don't go to meetings.
Seven days without a meeting makes one weak.
The time away from a drink is not equal to the distance away from it.
There are a million excuses to drink, but no good reason.
What AA gives back to me could take me out again.
When you dance with a gorilla, it's the gorilla who decides when to stop.
first thing you put before your sobriety is the first thing you'll lose.
You start to skip, you start to slip.
The slip occurs before you pick up.
The longer you stay away, the harder ha rder it is to come back.
in long-term sobriety: too many years and not enough days.
Show me an alcoholic whose who se Big Book is falling apart, and I'll show you an alcoholic who isn't.
A sober alcoholic is like a turtle on a fence post: You know it had help.
Getting sober is a process; relapsing is a process, too.
If you sober up a drunken horse thief, you have a sober horse thief.
My worst day sober was better than my best day drunk.
The longer I'm sober, the drunker I was.
Don't say, "I can't drink"; say instead, "I CAN not drink".
From Alcoholics Obvious to Alcoholics Anonymous.
God didn't save you from drowning to beat you up on the beach.
I have everything I need to get everything I want.
If the sun comes up and goes down, and I don't get drunk in the middle, it has been a good day.
Life is a roller coaster—so hang onto the safety bar (AA).
Maintenance of your spiritual condition is key.
Take care of the days d ays and the years will come by themselves.
The more you have, the more you want.
You can't keep it unless you give it away.
Early Sobriety is growing up in public.
In sobriety, you are given permission to be ordinary.
Sobriety is a constant process of uncovering, discovering, and discarding.
Sobriety is a gift.
Sobriety is a gift, the price of which is eternal vigilance.
Sobriety is God's gift to me; what I do with it it is my gift to God.
The soul would have no rainbow had the eye no tears.
Some of us get so spiritual, we are of no earthly value to anyone.
Most people hope to avoid hell; spiritual people have been there.
God gave us a kit of spiritual tools; it is up to us to use them To build a durable shelter.
Are you a human being having a spiritual experience? Or a spiritual being having a human experience?
The more you have on the inside, the less you need on the outside. How we treat others is a consequence of the depth of our own spirituality.
Most AA people spend more time deciding where to have lunch than in choosing a sponsor.
People who sponsor themselves have fools for sponsors.
When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear.
Being an alcoholic is like being trapped in a box, and the instructions for getting out of the box are on the outside of the box. You need someone to read them to you (and you must listen!)
Our minds are bad neighborhoods; we shouldn't go into them alone.
1) Start where you are. 2) Walk out in faith. 3) Do the best you can do. 4) Expect God to help.
The steps: Give up. (Steps 1,2,3) Clean up. (4,5,6) Make up. (7,8,9) Keep up. (10,11,12).
If a candidate for AA is ready, you can't say anything wrong; If he's not ready, you can't say anything an ything right.
If you only quit one day at a time, every day that you don't drink will be an accomplishment. If you quit forever, you won't have
accomplished anything until you're dead.
The first drink gets you drunk
Skid Row is a place in my mind--not a place on the street.
We can do what I can't. You're not alone anymore.
What I came here looking for, I came here looking with.
I get what I need and inevitably find out it was what I wanted all the time.
Let God and let go.
If I take a drink, I take my life back.
If you have a problem believing in God, go to an AA meeting and you'll see miracle, after miracle, after miracle. Seeing is believing.
Let go or be dragged.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understand Him.
Three frogs were on a tree limb and decided to jump off. How many are left? Answer: All three of them (they only made a decision to jump off.
Conquer yourself rather than the world.
A "shortcoming" is like a flat tire. A "character defect" is like driving on it. .
If you only pray when you need something fixed, you're turning God into a repairman.
A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.
Carry the message, not the mess.
I can only help another to the degree that I've been helped myself.
Only in giving do we receive in full measure.
Practice these principles in all your affairs--or change your affairs.
We are hardest to love when we need love most.
When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there: and for that, I am responsible.
When I'm working with a drunk, sometimes the drunk I'm working on is me.
Newcomer meets newcomer in AA is the 13th step.
God help me! (Step 1, short form)
Step 1 plus Step 12 equals Step 13.
What step are you on?
The elevator is broken; please use the steps.
The steps keep us from suicide; the traditions, from homicide.
The answer is in the Steps.
You can take the elevator going down, but you gotta take the steps up
The steps are there to protect me from myself; the Traditions are there to protect AA from me.
I can't, God can, why don't I let Him?
Don't wait to get better to do d o the steps-do the steps now to get g et better.
Life is a dance--tra-la-la--when you learn the steps.
Sometimes you have to stop looking to find what you need.
Stop looking, you've found it.
Don't push a newcomer to do the steps too fast. A heavy downpour runs off, whereas a gentle rain soaks in.
Stopping drinking is easy, it's staying stopped that's hard.
Strength in powerlessness.
Strength in surrender.
Stress: God does not hurry.
If you're too busy to pray, you're too busy.
You can be a human being-you don't have to be a human doing. The best way for me to succeed and grow in my sobriety is to follow the advice I hear h ear myself giving to others. A rich person is one who knows she has enough. No person is a failure who has friends. Sometimes the worst things in life happen after you get what you think you want. Success is not about getting what you want; success is knowing what you don't need.
Strength in surrender. Half measures avail us nothing In AA, we surrender to win, not n ot to whine. Surrender, don't quit. When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Trust in God, clean house, and work with others. Do you talk the talk, or walk the talk? Talking about the spiritual part of the program is like talking about the wet part p art of the ocean.
Pick up the telephone before you pick up a drink.
Unless you are a lion tamer, you have h ave no business in the lion's den.
Lead me not into temptation; I can find it myself.
Think: Most good ideas are simple.
Don't believe everything you think.
Think it through. Think, think, think before you take that drink.
I came for my drinking and stayed for my thinking.
My best thinking got me drunk.
The three most dangerous words for an alcoholic: "I've been thinking…"
Thinking of drinking?
Give time time.
When God made time, He made plenty of it.
Today is a very important day–it's the only day you have.
Just for today.
If you keep one foot in yesterday and one foot on tomorrow, you're peeing all over today.
Live for today, tommorrow never comes
Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.d
The things I am grateful for today, I will take for granted tomorrow.
Today, we have a choice.
Worry about tomorrow saps today of its strength.
Don't try to teach a pig to sing. First, pigs can't sing and secondly, it annoys the pig.
Live and let live. Tomorrow is a promissory note; yesterday is a canceled check. Today is all you have.
Tough love: The three C's: "I didn't cause the drinking, I can't control it, and I can't cure it."
Tough times: The darkest hour is just before the dawn.
Tough times: Drop the rock.
God will never give you more than you can handle.
How I feel is rarely an indication of how I'm doing.
If you drink at the bad news you got today, you'll never know you could get through it without drinking.
Keep coming back no matter what.
My worst day sober was better than my best day drunk.
Nothing is so bad that a drink won't make it worse.
On a good day, things are okay and you don't drink; on a great day, things are lousy and you don't
That which doesn't kill you serves to make you stronger.
We don't drink even if our ass falls off; we pick it up and take it to a meeting.
When we dwell on the problem, the problem gets bigger. When we dwell on the solution, the solution gets bigger.
The things we have in common are more important than our differences.
Trouble is a part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you enough chance to love you enough.
Trust: If you want to be able to trust others, try becoming more trustworthy yourself.
Trust in God, clean house, and work with others.
The truth will set you free, but first it will Tick you off.
Trying is what got me drunk; doing is what keeps me sober.
The Steps are but suggestions, as is pulling the rip cord on a parachute.
We drink to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
The victims of alcoholism are those around us.
There are no victims, only volunteers.
Sobriety is a gift, the price of which is eternal vigilance.
Do you talk the talk, or walk the talk?
We want what we want when we want it.
We came to these rooms not because we drank a lot, but because we drank too much.
We can best control by letting go.
We don't get partial results from half-measures.
We don't trip over mountains.
We don't want to drink like gentlemen; we want to drink like pigs and be treated like gentlemen.
We don't want to drink like ladies; we want to drink like pigs and be treated like ladies.
We drink to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
We go to the meetings for all sorts of reasons, but we don't know what they are, so we keep going to meetings.
It isn't "me" and "you" anymore; it's "we" and "us."
Why me? Why not!
Who's will are you trying to do?
Winners do what they have to do; losers do what they want to do.
Winners Don't Whine and Whiners Don't Win. . Wisdom is the ability to see the obvious.
The beginning of wisdom is a firm grasp of the obvious.
Note from God: I am handling all your problems this week. You don't have to worry, and I don't need any help.
Worry about tomorrow saps today of its strength.
Worry has produced strong results for some of us… almost everything we worried about has not come to pass.
Worry is an ironic form of hope.
Worry is like a rocking horse, it keeps you moving but never gets you anywhere.
The answer to all my worries was as close as the next prayer.
The worst things I every lived through never happened
YET: You're eligible too.
If you don't take care of yourself, why should anyone else?
It's not about you.
Don't take yourself too darn seriously.
Keep the focus on yourself.
Take the program seriously, not yourself. .
