Quotes about Twelve steps

"The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.  The persistence of this illusion is astonishing.  Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death."

"Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people."

"A certain American businessman had ability, good sense, and high character.  For years he had floundered from one sanitarium to another. ...placing himself in the care of a celebrated physician...finished his treatment with unusual confidence.  His physical and mental condition were unusually good.  Above all, he believed he had acquired such a profound knowledge of the inner workings of his mind and its hidden springs that relapse was unthinkable.  Nevertheless, he was drunk in a short time."

"The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.  He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves."

 "The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe."

"The alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual way, "It won't burn me this time, so here's how!"  Or perhaps he doesn't think at all.  How often have some of us begun to drink in this nonchalant way, and after the third or fourth, pounded on the bar and said to ourselves, "For God's sake, how did I ever get started again?"  Only to have that thought supplanted by,  "Well, Ill stop with the sixth drink."  Or "What's the use anyhow?" 

"The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink."

"At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected."

From the Big Book:
"Sometimes these excuses (from the alcoholic) have a certain plausibility, but none of them really makes sense in the light of the havoc an alcoholic's drinking bout creates. They sound like the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can't feel the ache. If you draw this fallacious reasoning to the attention of an alcoholic, he will laugh it off, or become irritated and refuse to talk."

"We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men. We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop.
The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this."

 "Here is the fellow who has been puzzling you, especially in his lack of control.  He does absurd, incredible, tragic things while drinking.  He is a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde.  He is seldom mildly intoxicated.  He is always more or less insanely drunk.  His disposition while drinking resembles his normal nature but little.  He may be one of the finest fellows in the world.  Yet let him drink for a day, and he frequently becomes disgustingly, and even dangerously anti-social."

But what about the real alcoholic? He may start off as a moderate drinker; he may or may not become a continuous hard drinker; but at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption, once he starts to drink."

"...the ex-problem drinker who has found this solution, who is properly armed with facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours. Until such an understanding is reached, little or nothing can be accomplished."

"It (alcoholism) engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferer's. It brings misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents--anyone can increase the list."

"An illness of this sort--and we have come to believe it an illness--involves those about us in a way no other human sickness can.  If a person has cancer all are sorry for him and no one is angry or hurt.  But not so with the alcoholic illness, for with it there goes annihilation of all the things worthwhile in life." 
  

 "We are average Americans.  All sections of this country and many of its occupations are represented, as well as many political, economic, social and religious backgrounds.  We are people who normally would not mix.  But there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful."

"There is however, a vast amount of fun about it all.  I suppose some would be shocked at our seeming worldliness and levity.  But just underneath there is deadly seriousness.  Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish."    

"An alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature. Our struggles with them are variously strenuous, comic, and tragic. One poor chap committed suicide in my home. He could not, or would not, see our way of life."   __Bill Wilson

"We meet frequently so that newcomers may find the fellowship they seek. At these informal gatherings one may often see 50 to 200 persons. We are growing in numbers and power." __Bill Wilson
(*in 2001 A.A. is composed of over 100,000 groups.)

"I have seen hundreds of families set their feet in the path that really goes somewhere; have seen the most impossible domestic situations righted; feuds and bitterness of all sorts wiped out. I have seen men come out of asylums and resume a vital place in the lives of their families and communities. Business and professional men have regained their standing. There is scarcely any form of trouble and misery
which has not been overcome among us."__Bill Wilson

"We commenced to make many fast friends and a fellowship has grown up among us of which it is a wonderful thing to feel a part of. The joy of living we really have, even under pressure and difficulty." __ Bill Wilson

"Faith without works was dead.  And how appallingly true for the alcoholic!  For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead.  If he did not work, he would surly drink again, and if he drank, he would surly die.  Then faith would be dead indeed.  With us it was just like that."

Common sense would thus become uncommon sense. I was to sit quietly when in doubt, asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as He would have me. Never was I to pray for myself, except as my requests bore on my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive. But that would be in great measure.

"My schoolmate visited me, and I fully acquainted him with my problems and deficiencies.  We made a list of people I had hurt or toward whom I felt resentment.  I expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals, admitting my wrong.  Never was I to be critical of them.  I was to right all such matters to the utmost of my ability."  __Bill Wilson

"There (in the hospital) I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and direction. I admitted for the foist time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away, root and branch. I have not had a drink since." __Bill Wilson

"Thus was I convinced that God is concerned with us humans when we want Him enough. At long last I saw, I felt, I believed. Scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes. A new world came into view." __ Bill Wilson

"I saw that my friend was much more than inwardly reorganized.  He was on a different footing.  His roots grasped new soil."  __Bill Wilson

The wars which had been fought, the burnings and chicanery that religious dispute had facilitated, made me sick.  I honestly doubter whether, on balance, the religions of mankind had done any good.  Judging from what I had seen in Europe and since, the power of God in human affairs was negligible, the Brotherhood of Man a grim jest.  If there was a Devil, he seemed the Boss Universal, and he certainly had me.

"My intellectual heroes, the chemists, the astronomers, even the evolutionists, suggested vast laws and forces at work.  Despite contrary indications, I had little doubt that a might purpose and rhythm underlay all.  How could there be so much of precise and immutable law, and no intelligence?  I simply had to believe in a Spirit of the Universe, who knew nether time nor limitation.  But that was as far as I had gone." __Bill Wilson

"I had always believed in a Power greater than myself. I had often pondered these things. I was not an atheist. Few people really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that this universe originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere. __Bill Wilson