I arrived at AA as a "paranoid agnostic".. I did not believe, but I knew something was out to get me.
When you're green, you're growing. When you're ripe, you're rotting.
Don't compare yourself to other people. Compare yourself to you, yesterday,
Newcomers are not empty vessels to pour information into..
AA changed me without my permission.
Don't just accept your powerlessness. Embrace it.
Silence gives answers. [Rumi]
No one can take away your serenity. If it's gone, you gave it away.
Whenever you are afraid of something you are worshipping it. Whatever you fear, you bow down to and give it power. [Emmet Fox]
If you shake my family tree, bottles fall down.
AA gave me a new pair of glasses.
Honesty: You can't save face and your ass at the same time.
I'd rather have a blue sky above me, than blue lights behind me.
I wake up alcoholic, but I go to bed sober.
It's hard to find a black cat in a dark room. Especially if there is no cat. [Confucius]
It's not the storm; it's the forecast. [fear]
I could have missed the pain, but I would have had to miss the dance. [country song]
We do not shoot our wounded.
Never ruin an apology with an excuse. [Ben Franklin]
Don't just do something. Stand there.
Feeling self-pity? Remedy: Call 3 people and ask them how they're doing, saying nothing about yourself.
Seek humility or it will find you.
You show your worth by what you seek. [Rumi]
I didn't drink a lot, but when I started, I became someone who did.
You can call your higher power SAM (Sure ain't me).
Be the person your dog thinks you are.
The phone doesn't weigh 1000 pounds.
Your bottom is where you quit digging.
Fearful about something? Do it scared.
I love knowing where I've been; I love knowing what I said.
Use the past as a reference and not a residence.
Attend life as a guest.
Have Happy Holidays, unless you have other plans.
You don't have to attend every argument you're invited to
Recovering alcoholics were always asking Sister Ignatia to pray for them. I will indeed," she would say. "But pray for yourself as well. There s nothing God likes more than to hear a strange voice.
Alcohol gave me wings to fly, then took away the sky.
Take one step in God's direction, and God will take two steps in yours. [Sister Ignatia]
Home is not where you live, but where they understand you. -C.Morgenstern
You might as well pray for God's will. You're going to get it anyway.
Your future self is watching you right now, through memories.
Fear - the Miracle-Gro of our defects.
A shared joy is a double joy; a shared sorrow is half a sorrow.
Words should be weighed, not counted.
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you.
After the game, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.
The path is made by walking.
If you want no one to know, don't do it.
If you always give, you will always have.
To succceed, consult three old people.
All time spent angry is time lost being happy.
Zip the lip.
If you want to keep getting what you're getting, keep doing what you're doing.
Every day, make yourself an empty vessel for God to fill.
An alcoholic is a man with two feet firmly planted in mid-air.
An alcoholic is a person who finds he has nothing in common with himself.
Our sharing is like the biblical parable feeding the multitudes with one loaf of bread - shared, it never diminishes.
I am not large and in charge.
[Said to someone playing the victim:] Would you please come down from the cross? We need the wood.
The world record for days of sobriety is one.
People can be wrong, but the group is usually right.
I felt like a lamb chop in a kennel. [A newcomer, talking about everyone wanting a piece of him.]
(from someone who slipped): I think I was just auditing the program.
Let God be your seeing-eye dog.
AA permits other people to do your drinking.
Luckily, we don't all have a bad day on the same day.
Never argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level, and win on experience.
God will not do for me what I can do for myself.
When you put faith into action, God winks.
Half of your brain lies to you, and the other half believes it.
Worried about someone? Put God's arms around them.
If you spot it, you got it.
Bring love, not answers.
Don't believe everything you think.
Understand the shadow side of Success.
Stay in the herd.
Review your actions against the language of Pride.
Never think less of yourself, but think of yourself less.
I hovered near the flame [temptation]
FAITH: Fantastic adventure in trusting Him.
I have a deep abiding faith that comes and goes.
Here is a Mother Goose version of the Serenity Prayer, going back to at least the year 1695:
For every ailment under the sun
There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it;
If there be none, never mind it.
We don't check our personalities at the door.
At a meeting, a man held the coffee pot over his head, calling it the "Stanley Cup of AA".
If I can't be a good example, I can be a terrible warning.
The path narrows.
Feelings aren't facts, unless they're MY feelings.
I came in for the drinking; I stayed for the thinking.
My disease wants to kill me, but will settle for misery.
You are not responsible for the first thought, but you are responsible for the second thought.
What was the lie that took you out?
You've just done the hardest part. [Asking for help]
A ship is safe and secure in the harbor. But that's not what ships are for.
There was always love in my life, I just didn t notice it.
Move a muscle; change a thought.
We never get enough of what we don't need.
An oldtimer can have too many years and not enough days.
Ego always needs an audience, self-esteem does not.
The ego is not your amigo.
I don't know if that is light at the end of the tunnel or the headlight of the train that will hit me.
One of the reasons I drank is because I suspected I was the kind of person I really am.
72.3% of all A.A. statistics are made up.
I have a higher power today that I can do business with.
I woke up this morning on the wrong side of my head.
I worked the steps and I got better; I took other people through them and I got well.
Either I judge or love.
I used to think spirituality was to be found in darkness.
The best tennis player in the world has a coach.
I don t go anywhere that I can t take my higher power.
I had a hard time; spent the whole week in the spin cycle.
I need to remember to dream farther than I can see.
My favorite drug was MORE.
The steps help me from killing myself, traditions help me from killing you.
If you don't know where you're going, any route will do.
I used to have short stretches of sobriety when I ran out of money.
Worry is a complete waste of creativity.
Expectations are resentments waiting to happen.
Here, we beat up on ourselves with feathers.
Put your Higher Power in one hand and A.A. in the other, and you can t pick up a drink.
My opinions have loosened.
I know you believe in God because you are angry at God.
My Higher Power doesn t fit in a box.
If I find myself justifying, I am wrong.
Restraint of thumb and send..
I can t see what my higher power sees.
My disease centered in my mind - can t go to the problem to find the solution.
My opinions have changed from time to time, but never the fact that I am right.
If you want to hear God laugh, tell him YOUR plans.
If my Higher Power brought me to it, my Higher Power can bring me through it.
Look at the past, but don't stare.
Whatever you put before your sobriety, you will lose.
Self-esteem is something that another person can't take away from you.
You alone must do it, but you cannot do it alone.
God always bats last.
I had a lot of brushes with death that seemed like fun.
Failure to forgive keeps me a victim.
Easiest way to stay in the moment is to breathe.
Surrender simply means coming over to the winning side.
The monkey s off my back, but the circus is still in town.
Meditation is an opportunity to witness what s around me.
There s no God in the future, just the now.
One of the first things we get back is our intuition.
end (for now)