(Sayings from people in and around 12-step programs, and others)

"When you're home by yourself you're behind enemy lines."

"If you share your pain you cut it in half, if you don't you double it."

"If you don't want what we have, go back out to what you had."

"There's no elevator, you have to take the steps."

"I'm an egomaniac with an inferiority complex."

"My head is like a bad neighborhood and I shouldn't go in there alone."

"Religion is for people who are afraid they'll go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have been there."

"I'm not going to give anybody free rent in my head."

"I used to be a hopeless dope fiend, now I'm a dopeless hope fiend."

"I need to put things in perspective because I have a disease of perception."

"The quality of your recovery is proportional to the quality of your surrender."

"Uncover...Discover...Discard."

"Those who relapse are attending powerlessness graduate school."

"If you commit suicide you're killing the wrong person."

"If you're not moving away from a drink you're moving closer to it."

"A critic is a person who goes onto the battlefield after the battle has been fought and shoots the survivors."

"AA is not a program to get sober...it's a program to live your life successfully and to be happy once you get sober."

"I'd never trade my worst day sober for my best day drunk."

"The power behind me is greater than the problem in front of me."

"When you're in fear you're not in faith."

"A fear faced is a fear erased."

"Every time I draw a sober breath I'm like a fish out of water."

"I was a scream in search of a mouth."

"I didn't make it all the way to the beach to drown in the sand."

"Drinking gave me the illusion that I might be alive." (Chekhov, Uncle Vanya)

"I am one drink away from never being sober again for the rest of my life."

"Praying is asking God for help, meditating is listening for God's answer."

"The reason I'm here is because I'm not all there."

"My biggest problem was bottles of the two-legged variety."

"My basic problem is that I flee from those who want me and I pursue the rejecters."

"If I could drink socially I'd get drunk every night."

"Having a resentment is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die."

"Had the eyes no tears, the soul would have no rainbow." (from Teresa)

"God will heal your broken heart, if you will give Him all the pieces." (from Teresa)

"My life hereafter is from this moment on."

"We are attracted to people who share in our growth and progress and lose interest in those who don't."

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." (Ambrose Redmoon)

"Self will imprisoned me far more than bars ever did."

"I've definitely got the "ism" in alcoholism...that's incredibly short memory."

On relapse: "I never did anything in moderation...except maybe the steps."

"Bring the body and the mind follows."

"When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil." (Max Lerner)

"Seven days without a meeting makes one weak." (from Herb B.)

"Bring the body and the mind follows."

"Thank you, God, for the beautiful day I'm going to have if I can just get rid of my fucking attitude."

"We're sick people trying to get better, not bad people trying to be good."

"When you've got one foot in yesterday and the other in tomorrow, you can only piss on today."

"I didn't get my life back in this program...I got my life for the first time."

"What other people think of you is none of your business."

"If it wasn't for denial my life would be shit."

"Change only happens when the pain of holding on is greater than the fear of letting go."

"An expectation is a premeditated resentment."

"I used to shoot up and throw up, now I suit up and show up." (David F.)

"If you can't love everybody today, at least try not to hurt anybody."

"The reasonable person adapts to society. An unreasonable person adapts society." (Terry M.)

"Give us the fortitude to endure the things which cannot be changed, and the courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to know one from the other." (Oliver J. Hart)

"If it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter."

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." (Mark Twain)

"My sobriety depends on who God is, not who I am." (Duane M.)

"You cannot save your ass and your face at the same time." (Dennis K.)

"Acceptance without gratitude is bullshit."

"You're not responsible for your disease, but you are responsible for your behavior."

"If you don't want what we have, we will cheerfully refund your misery."

"Have a nice day unless you've made other plans."

"If you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it."

"Now that I'm sober I hit my knees in a different way than I used to." (Jay)

"Work to become, not to acquire." (Elbert Hubbard)

Regarding believing in God: "Pretend. Act as if. Fake it until you make it."

"Don't be afraid to take a big step. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps." (David Lloyd George)

On the hopelessness of addiction from somebody who is still using: "I used to think there was light at the end of the tunnel, but for me today the light is on a locomotive headed right for me."

"You can't direct the wind, but you can adjust your sails."

"Yes, you can be a dreamer and a doer too, if you will remove one word from your vocabulary: impossible." (Robert Schuller)

"Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the same oven." (Yiddish proverb)

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own." (Disraeli)

"The worst of all deceptions is self-deception." (Plato)

"Whenever you fall, pick something up." (Oswald Avery)

"If you continually give you will continually have."

"He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds." (Emerson

"Fear knocked on my door...I opened it and there was nobody there."

The most important word in the Steps is the first one... "WE"

"The world ain't gonna kiss my butt just because I'm getting sober."

"My mind is out to get me."

"A recovering alcoholic without a sponsor is much like leaving Dracula in charge of the blood bank."

"Relapse starts long before the drink is drunk."

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

"Angels fly because they take themselves so lightly."

"I have a very high pain threshold and a very low fear threshold."

"I always look for the hardest way to do the easiest thing." (Jay M.)

"If you don't grow, you go."

"Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory." (Betty Smith) 
"We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world." (Helen Keller)

"Fear is a darkroom for developing negatives."

"I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate." (Elbert Hubbard)

"A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor."

"When you starve with a tiger, the tiger starves last." (Griffin's Thought)

"While I'm in a meeting, my disease is out in the parking lot doing push-ups." (Mike M.)

"Laziness is no more than the habit of resting before you get tired." (Jules Renard)

"It is not length of life, but depth of life." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Two step formula for handling stress: 1. Don't sweat the small stuff. 2. Remember that it's all small stuff. (Anthony Robbins)

"Listen or thy tongue will keep thee deaf." (American Indian Proverb)

"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." (Abraham Maslow)

"A day without sunshine is like night."

"People that don't go to meetings, don't hear about what happens to people that don't go to meetings."

"You can't think your way into right living...you have to live your way into right thinking." (Pat H.)

"If you find working the steps too hard, try living them instead...that's where the real joy in the program lies." (Pat H)

"United we stand; divided we stagger."

"Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you." (Andre Gide)

"He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over. "

"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm." (Winston Churchill)

"There is an easy answer to your problem that is neat, plausible, and wrong."

"Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation."

"Nervousness is just God trying to shake the truth out of you."

"Belief without action is the ruin of the soul." (Edward Abbey)

"He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough."

"I have often regretted my speech, never my silence."

"Our defects of character are the bars of a cage. The central point is not to study the bars, but to get out of the cage."

Life without recovery: Even roses have thorns. Life in recovery: Even thorns have roses.

"If you do not know where you are going, then any road will take you there." (David L.)

"We are human BEings, not human DOings."

"Recognizing someone else's human dignity cannot cost you your own."

"I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me."

"Funny...I ruined my health by drinking to other's!"

"Don't Entertain The Thought."

"Progress Not Perfection."

"The chains of alcohol are too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken."

"I didn't get into trouble every time I drank, but every time I got into trouble I was drinking.

"Happiness is not a place you arrive at, it is a way you travel."

"If my brain didn't need me for transportation, it would have killed me a long time ago!"

"If you're not a lion tamer, don't go into the lion's den."

"If I don't let go, I lose my grip."

"If God is your co-pilot, SWITCH SEATS!"

New York Steps 1, 2, and 3: "I can't, He can, so let Him!"

"If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got."

"We'll love you until you learn to love yourself."

"Don't give up before the miracle happens."

"Unless I accept my virtues, I will be overwhelmed with my faults."

"Pray daily, God is easier to talk to than most people."

"Willpower tells me I must, but willingness tells me I can."

"Emotions aren't facts."

"Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less."

"If GOD drives you out, BOOZE will bring you back."

"No God, no peace...Know God, know peace."

"It's not the yets we have to worry about, it's the agains."

INTIMACY = In-to-me-I-see

"ME + U is a power greater than ME. U + US is a power greater than U."

"Winners do what they have to do and losers do what they want to do."

"It is easier to stay sober than to get sober."

"My anxiety is in my indecision."

"Whatever you put before your sobriety; you shall surely lose."

"Why put off today, what you can put off tomorrow."

"He who fails to plan, plans to fail."

"Anything worth doing well, is well worth overdoing."

"Nothing changes if nothing changes."

"Attitudes are contagious. Is yours worth catching?"

"The only weapon that becomes sharper with constant use is the tongue."

"Nothing is so strong as gentleness, and nothing is so gentle as true strength." (Ralph Sockman)

"Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is." (Thomas Szasz)

"To gain that worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else." (Bernadette Devlin)

"May you live all the days of your life." (Jonathan Swift)

"He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over."

"Don't mistake pleasure for happiness. They're a different breed of dog."(Josh Billings)

"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." (Mark Twain)

"Friendship is like money, easier made than kept." (Samuel Butler)

"I'm not much, but I'm all I think about."

"Don't let the urgent get in the way of the important."

"People who relapse usually do so because they accepted the things they could have changed."

"AA is not for people who need it. AA is not for people who want it. AA is for people who do it."

"Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar."

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. (Leo Tolstoy)

"The Road to recovery is ALWAYS under Construction." (Geoff P.)

"The impossible is often the untried." (Jim Goodwin)

"A man who is 'of sound mind' is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key." (Paul Valery)

"Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian." (Dennis Wholey)

"One hundred percent of the shots you don't take don't go in." (Wayne Gretzky)

"Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress." (Thomas A. Edison)

"Statistics are used as a drunk uses lampposts--for support, not illumination."

"Most of us are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be." (Abraham Lincoln)

"Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else."

"I only have one character defect left ... and it's just that I think about myself damn near all the time."

"My life is none of my business. I just suit up and show up and do what is in front of me to do and let God take care of the results."

"Conscience is the inner voice warning us that someone may be looking." (H.L. Mencken)

"God respects us when we work and loves us when we sing."

"Inch by inch it's a cinch; yard by yard it's hard." (Alesia)

"Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery, Today is a gift from God - That's why it's called the present."

"If you're coasting, you're going downhill." (Alesia)

"Pray as if it's all up to God, work as if it's all up to you." (Alesia)

"AA may not open the gates of heaven and let me in, but it sure opened the gates of hell and let me out."

"Not drinking is a symptom of my recovery."

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"I'm not much, but I'm all I think about."

"Those who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers."

"Meeting makers make it. "

"There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction. " (John F. Kennedy)

"Courage is fear that has said a prayer. "

"Time spent laughing is time spent with the gods. " (Japanese proverb)

"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. "

"To oppose something is to maintain it. " (Ursula K. LeGuin)

"The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one. " (Elbert Hubbard)

"Life isn't fair, life isn't just, life is just what it is. "

"Since it is One Day At A Time, then whoever awoke the earliest today has the most sobriety. "

"I was a Periodic Drinker. I drank, period. "

"I finally got into recovery when the unknown became more acceptable than the known. "

"AA won't solve my problems, It will help keep me sober to work on them. "

"If I drink, there are three doors to choose from; bad, worse and terrible. "

"When the Program doesn't work, am I still negotiating the terms of my surrender. "

"Life is too short to be small. "

"Failure isn't in falling down, it's in failing to get back up. "

"My sponsor taught me that I am not the con man. I am the mark. "

"We need trust to combat fear."

"A Captain of a ship needs a crew. Accept the help of others. "

"The healthy person finds happiness in helping others. Thus, for him unselfishness is selfish. We don't have something until we have built up enough to be able to give some away. "

"Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent. "

"It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis. "

"If you can't get what you want, learn to want what you get. "

"Serenity isn't freedom from the storm; it is peace within the storm. "

"Some things have to be believed to be seen. "

"The two hardest things in life to handle are success and failure. "

"Worry is interest paid on fear. "

"The wind does not wait for the tree to bend. "

"The main value of Iying has yet to be discovered. "

"Love is wishing the other person well, and being willing to help them achieve it. "

"Minds are like parachutes they must be open to work. "

"This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. " (Shakespeare)

"The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it. "

"When you know that you don't know, then you know! "

"It isn't that they can't see the solution. It's that they can't see the problem. " (G.K. Chesterton)

"If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life. " (Arthur Ashe)

"Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent. " (Marilyn vos Savant)

"Don't count the days, make the days count. "