I come to AA for my recovery because alcohol was what I first picked up and the last thing I put down.

When I took my first drink, I felt power. When I took my second drink I felt more power. I had no idea of powerlessness.

I wonder why I drank because when I took my first drink, I threw up and blacked out.

I had my first real drunk at thirteen with some friends and some jungle juice.

I chucked down a couple of beers at first. The rest went down I had to ask, "What am I really doing wrong?".

A sense of belonging led me to drink. I wanted to participate.

Growing up, my image was studious, but underneath, I wanted my dark side.

I spent the first three years of my life in the hospital. My first words were not Mommy or Daddy. They were IV, medication. Then I went to the New England Home for Little Wanderers. On my twelfth birthday I asked my caseworker to help me find my parents. She did. That's when I graduated to incest. I first drank and drugged to keep inside of me my relationship with him.

Growing up, I wanted to be anybody but me.

Basically, I was the last guy in middle school to get armpit hair. Boy that sucked!

A man who appeared to be about thirty addressed us from the podium, "I" got sober seventeen years ago."

I found heaven in my first drink.

I had no idea what would happen after I took my first shot.

In the seventh grade, I had a whole collection of bongs.

My past memories just stopped at the front door when I picked up.

My best drunk was my first one. I chased that buzz to obsession.

I crawled home from my first drink.

My first drunk, I got very drunk.

With my first drink at eleven I ended up in the hospital with acute alcohol poisoning, with tubes in all my orifices draining the alcohol out of my body.

Don't waste time trying to get the buzz you once got. It ain't going to happened.

There are those who drink for unknown reasons.

The first drink did get me drunk.

I have my first taste of alcohol as a seven-year-old child. What a vile taste! I swore I'd never have another. I wondered what I could do to save my parents.

I spent thirty-four years chasing my first high.

I look at my son and remember being a kid. I picked up a drink and all of a sudden I was thirty-three.

On my first date at twelve, he bought a six pack and drank one. I drank five and blacked out. I decided I didn't want to date anymore. I'd just drink. I always wanted to be an alcoholic.

All the drugs I did, I had the feeling it was going to get me in trouble.

I lived in a room this size with six other people, all drinking constantly. Empties everywhere, I thought it was alright.

At a young age I was drinking and smoking pot on the street corner. I loved it and couldn't get enough.

The more I drank, the less I did. I quit football, I stopped studying.

I chose a college away from home so I could drink more.

Drinking gave me a personality.

I drank in bars from age fourteen. My goal was to get to eighteen and have my own apartment with a fridge full of beer at all times.

I drank frequently to excess when I drank.

I thought that the point of drinking alcohol was to get completely destroyed.

What a pint of wine did for me in my head was like what a can of spinach did for Popeye.

At first I loved the high, then I hated what it did to me.

If I drank a little bit and I drugged a little bit, I felt good.

That feeling I got when I first started drinking was the best feeling I ever had.

Booze gave me the opportunity to become something I'd never been.

When I first started using, I liked it. It was good. I fit in. Then it all became trouble. No license, jail and stuff.

I started drinking to socialize. I ended drinking to isolate.

I didn't want to be sober back when I drank.

I just looked forward to partying.

When I grew up, alcohol was associated with very positive things, marriages, holidays, etc. that would change over time.

I started drinking first, then it progressed to heroin and I did everything in between.

Always trying to find the quick fix was the story of my life.

I loved being stoned. I loved being high. It was my sport.

Booze was enjoyable at first, then necessary.

Booze turned me into Rudy Valentino, Fred Astair and Joe Louis all at once.

I drank and drugged for thirteen years. Had fun the first year.

Heroin grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't let go.

I loved Bacardi rum. I even filled the bottle cap and snorted it.

I used to think it was great that the bartender knew what I drank.

Crack cocaine was an awakening.

Everything terrified me--girls, drugs, adults, decisions--until I started drinking. I became an alcoholic.

I was snorting, scratching, sneezing and nodding. I thought it was beautiful.

I was a spiritual person. I knew the difference between good and bad. Bubbles in my beer was good, and bubbles in my works was bad.

I thought it was a requirement of the buzz to get sick and puke.

I started drinking for the effect, to get drunk. I didn't like the taste.

Alcohol called the shots from day one.

I drank to have fun. I had to drink to have fun.

It seems like every time I drank, I got in trouble.

I noticed that when I drank, from an early age, trouble followed.

I was with everyone on their worst night. That, I thought was why I was always in trouble.

I was a bloated drunk sitting on a barstool causing trouble for society. Now I try to live sober, one day at a time.

The car wrecks, the broken bones,... those all happened.

All the trouble I ever got myself into was from drinking.

All my early memories were just horror shows.

At the hospital, I was told there was nothing organically wrong with me.

By the time I was 18 and already discharged from the army, I was doing what I was doing at 12; passing out at the arboretum in Jamaica Plain with a newspaper under my arm. I couldn't even read.

Booze started taking from day one.

From the age of fourteen to thirty-one, it was only on rare occasions that I couldn't drink, like being in jail or the hospital.

I stole more time from people than anything else.

I've had a lot of trouble with alcohol.

I didn't enjoy alcohol. I couldn't sit down and relax with a drink. I had to get drunk.

When I started using, I wouldn't follow the rules, wouldn't try.

My drug use effected every one around me, just like my recovery effects everyone around me.

I was a straight A student. When I started drinking, I started getting in trouble, with my parent, with my teachers, with the police.

I would drink during work and learned the meaning of on the job absenteeism.

The job I had and my addictions were incompatible.

I was a bus and train inspector. I got high on the job daily. I drove the T myself down to Field's Corner to by more drugs.

Work got in the way of me doing what I wanted to do.

I wanted to grow up to be the greatest American writer. Instead, I'm a not so great American waiter.

I came to in my boxers at my girlfriend's house. I was sitting in her bathtub and her mom was yelling at me.

My best friend really hit the hard drugs. I talked with him one night, he blew his head off the next.

In my group nobody had no responsibilities or nothing.

I had no identity. A girl passed me a joint and said John, you're one of the best guys I know, but who are you?

I drove around in my `37 Dodge with a bunch of fifty year old teenagers.

My first apartment was with pot smokers and drinkers. If you wanted to get high, this was the place to go.

It wasn't six months before we were bootlegging out of a hot dog stand.

I though all my using friends couldn't do without me. They did just fine.

When I hear someone lie, I want to lie.

Everyone around me was getting just as smashed as I was.

Because I had a car, I became the alcohol transport man for the posse.

I was a coward. I would pick out a weak person at the bar and pulverize him to gain approval.

A lot revolved around "us" drinking.

Every kid in my neighborhood was drinking. That was the thing to do.

When I got kicked out of the third school, I went to prison.

In school there's always a crowd of kids that the good kids stayed away from. I was with that crowd of kids.

In my ninth year of school, I got eight suspensions.

I applied to three state schools and went to the one farthest from my home so I could drink like I wanted to drink.

I beat the shit out of the school principal when I was on acid. I was out of school.

I just wanted the extra free time to party with all the other kids who quit high school.

In school I played sports. We smuggled alcohol in our gym bags.

In the eighth grade, I got involved with grand theft auto. We once got drunk, and ran into this same fire truck several times.

I quit school to get a job so I would have enough money to drink plenty.

In high school, I would walk down the hallways and the hallways would tilt.

In high school I wanted to be popular. I wanted to be the connection. I wanted to be powerful. I sold drugs to students and what I boosted to teachers.

In high school the other guys smoked cigarettes while I smoked grass like cigarettes.

I was a bad student in high school, and barely a student in college.

I quit high school two months before graduation. I wanted more time to party.

Drinking caused trouble with school, parents, the police ...everything.

All through high school I got kicked out, let back in, kicked out, let back in, kicked out, let back in.

By the time I graduated from High School my life was constant chaos.

The whole point of me being in high school was to get high.

I went to college to get loans to buy drugs. Now I go to college for an education.

The first thing I lost was my college education. I wanted to drink more than I wanted an education.

Cocaine turned my construction business into a non-profit corporation, almost over night.

I worked on an ambulance in Bogata. I kinda did a lot of drugs.

Being terrified of people made me a good worker. I didn't have to talk with people.

My boss said drinking and working don't mix; so I quit working for two years.

I lost all my jobs through the use and abuse of alcohol.

I had a great job for an alcoholic. I was a dance instructor for Arthur Murray, and had a comedy act in a night club. When others performed I was a gigolo.

I had many jobs that I wouldn't show up for, and when I missed a day I would quit. I wouldn't even go back for my pay check. I was so loaded and had no self esteem.

My job is going down to the Cape and have a big champagne party. I'm not going.

I kept a job as long as I could. It was a guaranteed source of income. I could drink.

I was in customer service work on the phone. You would not have liked to be my customer. When the phone rang, I was put out.

I was too sick to do anything growing up. I couldn't even join the scouts.

I had the dry heaves and just got all the garbage out of my stomach. My stomach isn't a garbage can.

My diet out there was half a Twinky and a flat soda.

I ended up in the House of Colors, the correctional facility at South Bay.

Five DUIs are an education in alcohol.

I was a teenage bootlegger.

I did my last six months in the army in a locked ward of a mental hospital.

I ended up in jail, and my abusive Mother got my kids.

I wanted to use. I wanted to feel something. So I felt the cuffs.

A good thing happened to me when I got snapped up by the Needham police officers.

I ended up in the Ha Ha Hilton and loved it. The only decision I had to make was whether to get an ice cream.

I worked for drinking and drugging all my life. I've been in prison, on probation or on parole since I was ten years old.

I hit the trifecta. I got my third DUI.

I lost fifteen friends over the last ten years to banging coke.

My life got very ugly, chunks of puke everywhere.

My second DWI I ran into a cop car and tried to escape in an Opel cadet.

The cops seemed like they always came straight for me.

I was paying the price for drinking and thought it was just bad luck.

I lost my pants in Copley Square, rode a bus home in my underwear. I can't save everybody.

I've had quite a few slaps on the wrist.

I learned how to manage life in the bar. I'd walk right up to the biggest guy and become his friend.

At the beginning, alcohol and drugs interfered with my life. At the end, my life interfered with alcohol and drugs.

I was always on a quest, merrily lost at the same time.

Drinkin' & druggin' is not a pretty site.

By the third liquor store and my third 1/2 pint, things started to change.

I went into the bar and stayed twenty years.

Alcohol removes the inhibition & destroys the judgement.

Alcoholism is progressive; so is recovery.

I drank socially, Seagrams 7 out of the bottle.

I was raised in a barroom.

Addiction is a tough road to righteousness.

My hands were clenched all the time, and my muscles were stiff, and I couldn't sit still.

Abstain from the ritual of idealizing the future.

Alcohol destroys.

Alcohol is an enigma, an imperious enigma.

Alcoholism is an equal opportunity destroyer.

Alcohol for me is not a beverage, it's a poison.

Alcohol is the first thing I want to do. I just can't.

A lot of things caused my drinking to escalate.

It ain't a problem until you make it a problem.

I learned honesty in the Steps because I learned acceptance.

If I continue to be dishonest, I'll use.

If I could buy from several dealers and my roommates not know but one, no one would know how much I did or where it came from.

I had some real good jobs, but I never went for my job. I went to work for me. I never kept a job more than three months, and I always left with their money.

If I continue to be dishonest, I'll use.

I'd steal your wallet and help you look for it.

Eventually, I took the money from my kid's piggy bank to buy crack.

I wouldn't get sober, because I wouldn't get honest.

I have this overwhelming feeling of dishonesty.

I've had a couple of relapses due to lack of honesty.

I was a hustler but not a rustler.

I made $100,000 a year. My wife thought I made $250 a week.

I lied about how much I drank and drugged from the beginning to the end. In the beginning I would drink two beers and say I had drunk six; in the end I would drink twelve and say two.

It was my inability to accept personal responsibility that led me to these halls.

I would fantasize taking my college financial aid money and going out to buy a whole lot of drugs and booze.

I have a level of dishonesty that is unacceptable.

When I'm high, I'm devious.

I told my daughter I went out to the store because I couldn't sleep. Well, not being able to sleep was the true part.

I rebel at having to make plans because that involves me being responsible.

I left my nine year old daughter at home alone, emptied my bank account, and was out there doing my own thing.

I was on a first-name basis with the loss prevention staff of all the major department stores in Boston.

In order to gain honesty I need to eliminate my dishonesty.

I thought I was better than what I was.

The problem is when I look into the mirror.

It's two o'clock in the morning. Too early to go home. Too late to go anywhere else. I was stuck with myself.

I was always the hero of the story.

I thought I was wonderful because the cops never caught me.

Booze took away my self-respect, my dignity, my honesty and my trade.

I was desolate inside.

I'm homeless but I'm not helpless.

I was an ignorant, callous, cold, self-centered twenty-year-old.

I couldn't look into the mirror to brush my hair or shave. I couldn't stand to look at myself.

I felt so dirty no matter how much I showered.

All the time I used I had absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing positive going on in my life.

It wasn't always that I could look a person in the face and tell them that I love them.

It was just easier to get a thirty-pack and call it quits.

I was always trying to change the variables so I could continue to drink.

When I drank, there was no telling how much I was going to drink.

I was notorious for ruining weddings.

I was able to go to five or six in the evening without drinking but pretty quickly, that faded away.

The time of day that I'd start drinking got earlier and earlier.

I got a bank account and ATM card for all the wrong reasons.

If I sat on that barstool before going to a wake, I wasn't going to no wake.

I started doing stuff that `sorry' couldn't take care of.

I slid down a greased pole.

I drank according to the way the stock market went.

I did all that was necessary to kill myself, but I didn't die.

I joined a church. Then I went to church drunk. I just couldn't stop.

I was a bartender for fifteen years. I didn't drink until I closed the bar. Then I drank the rest of the bar.

My life was a triangle--I went from the couch to the refrigerator to the bathroom.

It doesn't matter how much you drink, it's what drinking does to you that matters.

I hit the ground running with alcohol. Then I hit the ground crawling.

I lived in a 50 MPH zone going 100 all the time.

I'd tell you I was care free, but I was really careless.

Drinking took me to places I didn't want to be.

Everywhere I went, I burned a bridge.

I had a problem with alcohol, but no, I wasn't powerless.

I blew chow in exorcist red in front of a cop behind city hall.

A guy pulled a 9mm on me over a dime.

Many things deteriorated in my early snorting era.

I was trying to be a controlled drinker, drinking to three AM daily.

When I tried controlled drinking, every time I turned around, I got a kick in the ass.

I thought I could get better and still continue to drink.

I drank socially, asocially and anti-socially.

I was a social crack smoker.

I drank in the morning. I drank in the evening. I drank when I didn't feel like drinking.

If you want to stay sober, don't put any alcohol in your system.

I needed to get sober as soon as I started drinking.

I couldn't sit down and have just two beers.

I had and have a lot of excessive thoughts about controlling.

At the age of fifteen, I lost my middle finger but that's fine--they put it back on.

Drugs were a big part of my story by the time I was sixteen. That's how my life became unmanageable.

At twelve years old, me and my friends got together and tried everything. A couple died, a couple went to prison and a couple went into AA.

I was barred from that barroom before I was even remotely old enough to drink.

I had a great idea when I was young--if I moved out of my apartment, I'd have more money to drink.

I'm eighty-three years old, and I drank and stole for fifty seven years.

I wasn't even old enough to drink legally when drinking started calling the shots.

I turned into a pissy little drunk at fifteen.

I was a full-blown heroin addict at twelve.

I had an ulcer from alcoholism at age eighteen.

I wanted to spend the rest of my days in th army, working in the stockade in Germany, drinking German beer.

I thought everybody my age, over and under, drank.

I wish someone was there for me when I was growing up to tell me that there was another way.

I was an alcoholic before I picked up a drink.

By the time I was twenty-one, I had a year sober in AA. I was recovering before I was old enough to drink.

Growing up in an alcoholic home I started drinking early, at eleven. I knew what it did, and I liked it.

I had a disastrous drinking career. I got sober at twenty. Never had a legal drink in my life.

Another relationship, another child. That was my life.

The truth of the matter was I wasn't looking for a wife, I was looking for a mother.

Don't marry a woman who likes to fight.

Everybody got sick and tired of my existence. Everybody, including me.

The safety of my children was everyday becoming more and more of an issue.

All the women I dated managed to get away, and I thank God for it.

Once again, the people I affected most were the ones I loved.

Avoid new involvements.

I moved out of my alcoholic and sexually molesting family at sixteen, and lived under a porch for a year and a half.

I wanted a man. When I was twenty I lost myself to a drug dealer.

I didn't know you drank until I saw you sober.

My ex-wife got white knuckle clean and left me to do my own thing.

The longest relationship in life was a year and a half.

I can't forget the pain I inflicted on my family when they had to take my kids.

All the women I ever dated got away, and I think God for that.

I'm three years sober into a relationship, and it's sober on both sides.

I would use and run, go to the bus station and take the first bus no matter where it went.

I used to get dressed up to get messed up.

I got high in the Chuckie Cheese play tubes.

I had an affinity of throwing up. My name is Chuck, my nickname was Upchuck.

Last call for me was looking in my pockets for any money.

I did all the pills in alphabetical order.

I talked about my using a lot. I just never dealt with it.

It's not normal behavior to be down on your hands and knees kissing your dog's best paw.

I loved booze and drugs. I just didn't like what they did to me.

My cat would go crazy with me when I shot cocaine. Animals feel fear and joy and serenity in people.

I used to drink white creme de menthe and soda because it was so obnoxious.

Drugs just killed my sister. I kept getting high.

A bottle of V.O. in my shoe in my closet was my temple of booze.

The right way once bored me.

I went out, I got drunk, I didn't get lucky, I came home and I puked.

My drinking nights extended to seven or eight o'clock in the morning.

You can sit down at the bar and talk to biker babes while I play Asteroids.

Early on I used drinking to socialize. Lately, it hasn't been fulfilling it's purpose.

I drank socially, Seagrams 7 out of the bottle.

No social drinker snorts Dexatrim.

I didn't care where I slept as long as I had a big enough budget to drink.

Drinking and doing coke just seemed so appealing.

I ended up drinking socially seven days a week because there was nothing else to do.

Social drinkers need not apply.

I'd like nothing better than to sit at home with a bunch of cheeseburgers and watch The Three Stooges. I used to do that with a lot of booze.

I never tried to socialize sober.

The reason there are a lot of drugs in my story is because they were easy to do in school.

I do heroin, and I don't smoke. I like crack heads who don't smoke. I sell them my ashes.

By the time I was eighteen, I was doing a lot of cocaine. Actually, a lot of anything anybody had.

Well, I didn't shoot heroin so I'm not a drug addict.

I am a walking CVS and Walgreen's in seven languages.

I started stealing from my coke dealer to support my heroin habit.

I picked up heroin, and lost all of my loved ones for the ways of the devil.

I smoked just a wee bit o' dope.

I had never done heroin before; that was a yet.

My best utensils for cooking are not spoons.

If I couldn't get junk, I'd get drunk. Then I'd get high.

Marijuana led me to heroin, real easy.

I became Crackula.

I heated my veins so much coke, I've got varicose veins like a road map for the blind.

There were stints where I'd drink coffee and not alcohol for a few days.

My friend always had a four foot high bong chilled and packed with hash.

The best drug for me is a drug.

I stuck a needle in my arm to inject cocaine because I thought it would be an interesting thing to do.

A drug is a drug whether you drink it, swallow it, snort it, shoot it or put it between your toes.

We had gum ball machines full of Perkadans.

The best drug for me today is a hug.

Coke, it dropped me pretty hard.

The best drug for me today is a hug.

The type of drug I determined the type of people that could come to my house on a particular day.

I was a regular hash smoker for twelve years.

I went in the bathroom at sixteen to shoot a bag of dope and came out twenty years later.

I imagined myself getting old with a Budweiser in one hand and a joint in the other.

At the racetrack, there was as much cocaine as there was money.

I smoked enough coke to kill a pack of elephants.

I can remember my Barbie dolls. Barbie and Ken were drinking. I thought that's what adults did for fun.

I could never picture myself straight.

I thought all my answers were behind the bar, and the bartender had them.

I did a lot of smoking and joking in this area.

I'm that creature of habit.

I found out my problem-I was an alcoholic.

I'm a chronic alcoholic and a habitual drug user.

I had no idea when I crossed the line.

You ain't caught in the grip.

My drug of choice is more. I'm an addict.

I'm an alcoholic and a heroin addict. No coke, no window watching.

I went to twelve wakes in one year. All ODs, guys thinking they could get high one more time.

I went from a cucumber to a pickle to relish.

An alcoholic was walking by a bar and saw sign, "All You Can Drink, $2.00". He ran in and said, "Give Me $10 Worth".

All of the most addictive drugs are originally plant products that change the brain's circuits.

It's always 3:00 AM in the heart of an alcoholic.

My addiction took me to places where I didn't want to go to do things I didn't want to do.

Alcohol helped me to be a relatively miserable person.

Unmanageability--I couldn't brush my teeth during my alcoholism.

My life will become unmanageable if I pick up a drink or a drug.

I wanted men to look at me to make me feel good. That was the main thing. I was powerless.

The fact of NA is that we alone are powerless over our addiction.

At the beginning of sobriety, I said, "If I could drink safely, I would do it." Today I don't say that.

At the end, I would drink & puke on my shoes. It didn't even have time to get to my liver.

I was real smart. I drank lime juice in 180 proof rubbing alcohol to make it taste good.

At the beginning, this disease is a lot of fun. At the end you go right up to the assassin and say shoot me.

I had no life, more or less.

For a very long time I haven't enjoyed getting high. It was just normal for me.

After you swing from the chandelier and the bed post is broken, what are you going to do?

Alcohol convinced me that I'm not in charge.

After my wreck and for the whole time I was in a coma, I didn't pick up.

Chaos was a regular daily occurance for me.

I can't even OD right.

I was in the kind of bars where you wiped your feet on the way out.

A little white powder controlled my life.

Disasters were all around me when I was active. For the longest time I just thought that was the price you had to pay for drinking.

I was doing things I thought were right and they weren't. Then I was doing things I thought were wrong. Then I was doing things I knew were wrong and didn't care.

I was smoking cocaine for six years and thought it was only a year.

I pick up the drink; I pick up the drug; I live recklessly.

Heroin was my wife, my life, my all.

I used to bring a twelve pack to the movies.

Everything I did was controlled by alcohol, even my choice of clothing or cologne.

I had six DWI convictions, and totaled thirteen cars.

I got the sh-t kicked out of me in every way, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, economically, aesthetically.

Drinking for me, was like sleepwalking; mostly through a nightmare.

I sucked dick for a hit, not a bag, a hit.

I sleep in the house now. I pee in the toilet, not the closet.

Alcohol was my hammer. I was his nail. He drove me down.

I didn't always hit a jackpot when drinking, but every time I hit a jackpot I was drinking.

Alcoholism takes all of your life to live that life. It's not a good one.

At the end, I needed a handful of popcycle sticks and a roll of duct tape to get laid.

I am learning from pain and suffering, mine and others.

I was using my health insurance card like it was VISA. Getting over.

I' a crack addict. I extricated the equity out of my house and burned it up.

I drank over being happy, glad, mad or sad.

I would wake up in bed with a man I don't know. Then I'm HIV positive.

I found it hard to ask the passenger next to me in the airplane where the plane was going.

I can screw up a free lunch.

It was more important than anything in my life.

I found I was powerless over people, places and things, including the police.

I can look back now and see that alcohol made the decisions in my life.

I left the hospital early after I had my baby to start shooting coke again.

I had a gallon of Beefeaters a day. No life. No mind.

I'm powerless over what comes into my head. That's where prayer comes in.

I was doing coke in the bathroom at my office and having liquid lunches.

It got to a point where I wasn't using the drugs, the drugs were using me.

When I pick up a drink, I get drunk. When I get drunk, I get sick. When I get sick, I have to get well so I can have a drink.

The last pot I had I put on cream cheese and bread and ate it. I just couldn't part with it.

I had four walls and a bed and couldn't pay rent because I was paying my dealer.

I was just so addicted to getting high.

I ended up with some real horror stories in my life.

Finally, I got the cheapest room I could, four walls and a bed. I couldn't pay the rent because I was paying my dealer.

There's no doubt in my mind that I'm powerless.

Let me start off by saying that I'm definitely an alcoholic and an addict.

Two million people is a very small group compared to the population that is using and whose lives are unmanageable.

We're so powerless over our addiction that it takes all of us for any of us to make it.

My college sweetheart said, "You're a loser". I said, "I hear ya".

Addiction is a brain disease.

I had bird cage mouth every morning.

Alcohol turned me into a body without a mind.

It's weird how my sick mind works.

I had this conversation between my mind and my body. My body would not cooperate.

Drugs change the brain in fundamental and long-lasting ways.

Addiction is a disease of denial, delusion and deception.

I couldn't stop. I thought it was just a phase.

I feel like a ghost.

I can't really tell you anything, I'm too damn hungover.

I would sit and watch the vertical hold flip on my T.V. But there was nothing wrong with the T.V.

I would pull down the shades, drink and get high. Then I would order cable T.V. because I thought I was missing something.

I didn't like sweaters. I liked jackets with lots of pockets, for little bottles.

I wasn't getting high, I was staying stupid.

An old using friend hobbled up to me all jammed and I saw myself coming up to me.

Alcoholic and drugs changed our perception of reality. We didn't like reality because we didn't understand.

An old lady came into my room to wake me out of a drunk and I thought it was my roommate imitating an old lady's voice.

Drinking and drugging were very tiresome for me.

I always carried guns with me, a pistol, and three rifles in my pickup. I don't know why. I put the pistol inside my mouth and blew the side of my face off. I don't know why. I continued to drink for ten years.

I had to have bile coming out of my ass, my mouth and my nose at the same time. Still, it didn't scare me.

I feel like I have two brain cells left. I'm hoping one is male and one is female so they will multiply.

My health goes quickly now, physical health, mental health, and spiritual health. I lose it all quickly.

I stole my baby's internal organs.

My body hated me.

I drained my spirit and raped my soul.

I didn't have a spirit. My heart, I didn't know where it was.

I lived to use and used to live.

I have to remember that I'm always eligible to do anything.

I was captured by the dark side.

I didn't like needles. As time went on, I started shooting coke and heroin.

The progression of the disease had caught up with me, and I reached out.

My alcohol tolerance used to be way up and it went way down.

It does get worse.

My disease is outside the door doing one-armed pushups.

I had the proverbial hollow leg.

If you continue to drink & if you continue to live, things will continue to get worse.

I had a pint of wine a night, but the pints turned into quarts.

It always got worse, never better.

My disease is comfortable going off in its own head.

My addiction is like rust. It never sleeps.

My disease can afford to be patient. For the rest of my life it just wants one more fuck-up from me.

My disease sits in a Barcalounger, lights a cigar, and waits. That is all it has to do.

A couple of beers used to get me buzzed. Then it took a case.

I thought in no time at all I'd have a corvette in my driveway.

I thought I was Al Capone, but I was only Al Coholic.

I knew where all the studs in the wall were so I could punch it without really hurting myself.

My backbone came from alcohol, so did my big balls.

I was a hundred and seven pounds, and I'd walk through Mission Hill daring people to hurt me. Nothing scares an addict.

I was looking for the CEO of AA.

Al long as I had a Rolex, I thought I wad doing ok.

Sometimes I get disappointed that I'm not going to be the next Napoleon Bonaparte.

I was drunk, shot in the hand with a .357. I got off the ground and said, "See, they can't kill me.

I would sell things out of my house to buy drugs and convince myself someone stole them from me. I even bought very expensive locks for my windows.

I thought I was justified in all the childish and grandiose things I've done.

I was riding my bicycle drunk, fell down and got arrested for obstructing traffic.

I lived in an abandoned car and drank wine and ate Ring Dings and baloney sandwiches.

When I became a daily drinker, my life started shattering.

I.E.1.f. In the morning, I needed to have something to get me off empty.

I got my first DWI two weeks after getting my license.

I didn't go anywhere. I didn't do anything. I just drank.

I was a good student and a good athlete, then suddenly that didn't mean so much to me.

My customer service skills went out the window.

I tried to go to numerous concerts but never made it in.

I never went to sleep, I passed out. I never woke up, I came to.

I didn't take a shower because I wasn't going anywhere.

I couldn't get together enough money to OD.

I was incapable of taking care of my children.

I was real smart, sharp as a beach ball.

I'm use to getting high every morning, even before I get out of bed. It is a real struggle for me to deal with reality each morning right now.

I was with the air control warning system in the Air Force. I was passed out half the time and drunk all the time when I was protecting you.

My wrecked cars could fill this room.

My parents called me once a week to see if I was still alive.

I passed out for so long I had to learn how to go to sleep again.

I had six kids, and I became the problem in the home.

My drinking history was quite hysterical.

It wasn't a matter of me skipping family events, it was a matter of me showing up and bothering everyone.

I was Vice President of a College, snorting coke and playing with students on a daily basis.

I was food shopping at my Mother's house, and shoplifting at my Father's.

I had to be in jail and have you think I was Al Capone. I kept from you that all I wanted was to be there.

My life got smaller and smaller.

I was drinking and using without my own permission.

I never drank at home because I never made it home.

I got tired of going to bed with Bo Derek and waking up with Bo Didley.

I went sober for six months and then went out. Spent all I saved in six months in a week and a half.

I can get real insane real fast.

I was straight up homeless the last three years out there.

Alcohol and drugs diminish our capacity to deal with reality.

I was bogged down by the bottle and souped up with the spike.

Back then, life was real ugly.

I didn't talk with anybody unless I didn't like you and yelled at you.

I drank to intentional blackout.

Once, in a blackout, I tried to steal a car. It had no tires on it and was propped up on milk crates. I must have passed out. The cops came and surrounded the car thinking there was a dead body inside.

If it was the next day, and I couldn't figure out what happened, I knew I must of had fun.

When I blacked out, I felt like something was wrong. But I had a lot of fun between blackouts.

I thought the purpose of drinking was to blackout.

I remember waking up with remorse and having to make phone calls asking what happened last night.

When I started drinking, I blacked out from the first, and almost every time thereafter for almost twenty years. It never occurred to me that there was anything wrong with this.

I would wake up in the morning and call my best friend to find out what I'd done the previous night.

College was basically a blackout.

I never had a blackout, but I lost my license for driving like a lunatic.

I came out of a blackout. I was married and had a son.

I don't remember my first drink. I don't remember my last drink. I'm a blackout drinker.

I left a meeting and went to a liquor store. Blacked out on a half a pint of Southern Comfort.

I still have blackouts.

I hoped each time I could get the right buzz before I blacked out.

I was a small girl with a big mouth. A blackout drinker from the start.

Because I started blacking out so early I decided to stop drinking. I'd do coke instead.

I woke up on a cold Sunday morning after a two-day blackout on barbiturates.

I live art. I could draw what it was like to be alone.

My Father died a vicious, lonely, violent death. I'm eligible to die that way if I pick up.

I quit drinking for a year and started free-basing and vice versa.

There are too many substitutes that I like.

All substitutes stopped working, but I couldn't stop using.

I never had a daily addiction to drinking and drugging, just binges, until I found heroin.

After a casual drink, I smoked pot, popped some pills, then I went in search of the other drugs.

I was still smoking pot when I quit drinking. I didn't want to panic completely.

I left the clubs and started hanging out in the pubs.

My therapist told me to drink wine to relax.

I just wouldn't put down the substitutes.

If alcohol is numbing out my pain, then why should I get sober and need Prozac?

I was always drinking while I did the heavy stuff.

I'm still doing dirty rotten things with prostitutes.

I was never too choosy what I put in my system.

Marijuana really wasn't providing the bang I needed.

I drink water.

Before I knew it, I was back out on the streets drinking. Then I got introduced to cocaine.

My husband and I jumped into pharmaceutical drugs together. Then we found heroin.

Coffee brandy was a good way to come down off speed.

Before I started shooting drugs at sixteen, I didn't know I had a drinking problem.

My addiction was changing faces on me.

Never involve yourself in drugs. They will only create the worst of your life.

I was a complete animal when I drank, and I didn't care.

I was killing myself--one drink and one drug at a time.

I didn't like being around the lights where people could see me.

Last time I tried to kill myself, I took my sister's birth control pills.

Self-pity is a huge, huge part of this disease.

There's nothing respectable about a drunken mother and I was one.

The doctors said I'd be dead before I was twenty-five. They were real close.

When you live like a predator, you're always a victim.

I've been abusing myself because I didn't want anybody to know who I was.

In my drinking career, my only communication was with myself.

No woman ever made me feel as good as drinking and drugging did.

My money was just to party with. No bills, no rent, just total self-centeredness.

I wouldn't go out of my house without a shotgun in my mouth.

The self-centeredness of the alcoholic was me.

I was like the guy who would jump off the thirty-first floor when he was thirty-one, and come back to jump off the thirty-second floor when he was thirty-two.

I'm into this self-destruct thing.

When I drank I beat somebody up or got beat up. It never got any better.

I'm here because I'm selfish.

Wow! I can't believe I sniffed a bag of dope.

I drank dry martinis in the Rivera. Then wine in the alleys. I have to work to stay away from those alleys.

I'm not much, but I'm all I think about. I feel like an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.

Four of my children were put up for adoption because of my drinking and drugging.

My brother died in the arms of his son with the brains from the back of his head all over the wall. That's alcoholism.

I learned to drink in Maine. I became a maniac.

I literally had a guy pull a gun on me over a dime. I put the gun in my mouth and told him to go ahead and do me a favor.

I'm weak. All I'm thinking is what you're thinking about me.

When I tried to do myself in, I was so drunk I was foiled.

I had a black hole in my heart and a horse race in my head. Lust and theft ran neck and neck. The photo finish was not at the wire but behind bars.

When I had big problems in my life, they were all a result of my alcohol use.

I was a cheat, liar, thief, piece of shit, scumbag on the street.

I'm a chef. I wanted to stick my boss in the neck with a fork. He just didn't realize how important I think I am to myself.

I would go for weeks at a time without seeing my daughter. Nothing mattered.

I'm here for a reason, so I won't take my life. I don't have nuttin lot to say.

I tried to raise my children, but I didn't know how. I beat them when I was smoking, I'd beat my crying baby with a wet diaper when she was in her crib.

Every day I had a different story of how I wanted to hit somebody.

I got a brother in New York doing twenty-five to life. He still doesn't remember that he killed somebody.

My family was my number one victim.

I'd get drunk and become a nasty person.

My Mother did everything she could to keep me from drinking and drugging, and I wanted to take her life for it.

My daughter's head got bashed. That's where drugs took me.

The people I hurt the most were the people I loved the most.

My face beat up a lot of fists.

All I learned was how to get drugs and curse people out.

It was a whole lot to just become clean when I was pregnant.

It blew me away to see how much damage I had done to my kids.

I saw people being gunned down for a twenty.

My parents used to give me and my brothers their leftover drinks so we'd get buzzed and dance, and they'd laugh.

I came to America ten years ago and learned all the bad things. My Mother gave me so many chances, but now I feel she's given up on me.

My brother didn't invite me to his wedding, and he had damned good reason not to.

I grew up feeling like a piece of furniture.

I use to develop strategies to not hang on to any money.

I got to be where I didn't want to be around other people because they were weird.

There was a time in my life when my name was "Go Away". Any time someone spoke to me they said "Go Away".

I hit my son because he was messing with my beer.

My family is riddled with alcoholism.

My sister passed away as a direct result of this disease. I let that bring me back out there.

I had more toe jam than Schmuckers, in three flavors.

We grew up watching my Father go through the DTs.

I was a not a very pleasant drunk.

My son used to call someone else "Dad". I know this was a direct result of my drinking and drugging.

My brother got insane every night. I only got insane two nights a week. I decided we should do an intervention on my brother.

I was a not a very pleasant drunk.

I basically went out with drunks and crack addicts.

I make suggestions to my using friends, but I can't drown with them.

I told my using friend I was going to continue to love him until he learns how to love himself.

I found a group of people who drank the way I drank.

The men that I chose to be with as a young teenager were always one's who would beat me, just like my father beat my mother.

I had my school friends and I had my partying friends, and I preferred my partying friends.

You just can't hang around with the old friends.

I would hang out with friends, get a case of beer and some weed and go see The Rocky Horror picture show.

I remember this girl. She was a walking pharmacy. I gave her pot, she gave me pills.

I was either hung over or strung out.

I got friends in jail, I got friends in the cemetery, and I got a few friends left in AA.

I used to tell the guys if youíre not going to drink it, give it to me.

All kinds of people were in my house, from hookers to the homeless.

My house became a shooting gallery, and my son saw it.

There are plenty of people out there to feed the disease, it doesn't need me to help.

I'm scared to be around people who get high, even my brothers.

There's always people trying to take you down. Jealous addicts.

I'd drink a pint of Vodka at two AM and pass out on the street at three AM.

It's amazing that I'd drink anyway despite the evidence in front of me telling me what a bad idea it was to drink.

I could never understand why people would have a drink or two, then go home.

I was a tornado in people's lives.

My drinking shifts ended at seven or eight in the morning. Then at noon.

I was always trying to change the variables so I could continue to drink.

I got hauled off by the cops. I got beat with a chain trying to buy coke. I broke my hand hitting someone I thought was trying to beat me. I led the denial contingent in detox.

I tried just to have a few at a local bar. But there were too many local bars.

If I were in Alaska, I'm sure I could dig a hole through the ice and snow and find a bar.

I was the alcoholic who could never get out of the brown paper bag.

I was looking for anything that would give me a buzz, so I ate some mushrooms I found in a parking lot.

I overdosed four times. I was fortunate that someone was with me to take me to the hospital. Every time I was discharged, I went immediately for more heroin and coke. I couldn't stop even when I was scared.

I woke up for dope and to smoke that coke.

Fish want to swim. Birds want to fly. Alcoholics want to drink.

I go wherever I have to go to get help.

When travelling the oh so fast highway of life where others can exit, I stop and build a house which becomes my prison.

By the time it was morning, I needed a morning drink.

At the end, I was constantly having accidents, falling down stairs giving myself a black eye. I couldn't stop when I wanted to.

What I didn't know was when I started trying to control my drinking, I was already out of control.

I never took just one of anything.

I drank in the bars and shot heroin in backyards.

I was drinking pretty much around the clock.

I'd get one or two in me, and the next thing I knew, I had twenty- two in me.

Everything I did centered around that drink.

I was in the fast lane and used drugs and alcohol to go faster.

I worked in a medical library, and drank to seven in the morning. I would pass out in the stocks.

Every pore in my body was filled with booze.

I did not think that I would ever get sober. I did not think I could.

I had one or two drinks in me, then I had twenty-two in me before I realized it.

I thought I was destined to be a street junkie.

The told me a monkey can't sell bananas, but I could, for two weeks.

I wanted to achieve the perfect buzz before I fell off the bar stool.

My little monkey turned into a big gorilla.

It if is a half pint or a gallon, it's all the same size.

My uncle was dying of cancer, and I used all his Duponts.

The worst thing that can happen in my life happened.

I overdosed on heroin. Someone found me. I got revived and found I had three more bags on me. I overdosed again.

I did what I had to do to get high--Nytol, Dexatrim, guys.

I used to cry for a better way to get high.

I'd drink to the point where I puked.

I OD'd so many times, I'd just pull up to the hospital and shoot up in the bathroom.

I was more strung out than a laboratory monkey.

I would do anything I needed to do to get a drink or a drug.

I always had to have one more drink.

The rooftops and parking lots of New York City are paved with plastic crack viles.

I'm a physician, addicted to valium. I ate my mail.

I found myself in a very comfortable rut.

I had more than a hundred CDs and sold them for four dollars each so I could continue to get high.

I had more and more really risky situations.

Plenty of nights and plenty of days people had to carry me home.

I tried to stand up many times before but I just couldn't.

My last run I had four habits to support: alcohol, dope, base, and theft. I couldn't support myself.

You see, I'm not only addicted to the dope, I'm addicted to the lifestyle.

Every time I drank, I did drugs. Every time I did drugs, I drank. Alcohol was definitely there for me.

If I did too much speed, I drank.

sexual experiences. Came twice!

My instincts sometimes collide with each other and with others.

My natural desire for sex, material, and emotional security cause me trouble, practically all the trouble there is.

I was fueled and ruled by my own skin.

At the end of my using, all I could do was steal, con and cop.

I fucked and sucked everything I could--man, woman, animal, beast. I didn't care; I just fucked everything in the barnyard.

My ingredients for living was fuck everything and run.

Smoking crack will take you places you never imagined you'd go.

Smoking crack will make you do things you never imagined you'd do.

I can trick in recovery too.

I find it hard to talk freely about my morality without exhibitionism.

The seven mortal sins are a universally recognized list of common human failings.

Smoking cocaine is like sucking the devil's dick.

There was not one moral value I learned as a child that I didn't compromise as an adult, drinking and drugging.

In the heart of this disease I did things I knew I shouldn't do.

We're not punished for our sins; we're punished by them.

I know I can easily get insane real soon, at any time.

I thought I had died from an overdose ten to twelve years ago and was just going through a stage of purgatory.

Finally, I just had enough of this insanity.

My relationship to booze was insane.

I used to clear out the bars by throwing up about eight feet across the floor.

To maintain my insanity, I had to lie, cheat and steal.

I really want to give myself a chance. I don't want to go through that insanity again.

I spent six years in total insanity trying to prove I didn't belong here in AA.

It was always a moment of insanity when I came down.

I had to go through a lot of self-imagined crap to get here.

I became obsessed with ending my life.

Self-reliance and no God leads to insanity.

I didn't understand that I was insane when I was drunk.

I thought I was trying to get high, but I was trying to kill myself.

My whole life, when I was using was a psyche ward.

I kept doing the same things and getting the same results.

When I got lost in the Everglades I had forgotten that I had moved to Florida.

When I used, I had no limits.

When I was insane, everything I did was life threatening.

When I was on cocaine, I sued to see cops in the trees.

We got so paranoid off cocaine that we thought there were people looking in our window on the fifth floor.

I thought things would be different each time I drank. They were the same.

There was a lot of insanity going on, of course. There always was.

For a long period of time I went around thinking I already died from an overdose, that I was now in purgatory.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I drank to achieve the oblivion I felt when I was younger.

The peace and love movement of the sixties didn't close down for me until 1992.

They told me I'd go a long way, because I gotta long way to go.

Oblivion drinking led to oblivion drugging to oblivion behavior.

I was middle-aged before I knew it.

When I opened my eyes in the morning, I had thirty-seconds to get off the horrors.

The more money I get, the more out of myself I get.

I had about twenty-five addresses within a six year span.

People told me for years, I was an alcoholic. I couldn't see it.

I was the shiny red apple you bought at the grocery store and brought home with pride only to find it was brown on the inside.

I was on one side of the fence wanting to get sober while I got high on the other side.

I hadn't a clue that I wasn't sober.

I hated the word `alcoholic', and I didn't want to be an alcoholic.

I thought I could do this again because I thought I was unduly alarmed.

I'd tell myself a lie and believe it.

I was a predator, and I felt like the victim.

I thought I could hide the smell of booze with clean clothes, a shower and a piece of gum.

I knew AA worked, but I wouldn't touch it.

I didn't know I was buried alive inside of me.

I found out I wasn't a unique misunderstood genius.

I wore a raincoat to shield me from the raindrops of denial. It was a throwaway coat because I only stayed sober three months.

Nobody was going to tell me the booze and drugs were making me feel so depressed.

Deep down, I knew the drinking was up.

After a while, denial becomes defiance.

I said when my wife kicks me out, I'll stop. She kicked me out and I didn't stop.

I was a drunk alcoholic, sick and couldn't stop drinking and I didnít know it.

Through the end of my drinking, a part of me still said I was O.K.

Us alcoholics and addicts, we are very intelligent people. We complicate everything.

I realized pretty quickly that I wasn't fooling anyone.

I never had any denial. I always knew I was an alcoholic.

When I was a down child, I didn't wanta take no one's advice.

I was in a state of solid denial for five years.

I was the last person around me to find out I was alcoholic.

I don't need this program you see because I'm not an alcoholic anymore.

If you stab yourself so many times for so many years, you should know something is wrong.

I just always thought that I was ok.

The most perplexing thing about this disease is its denial stages.

My mind has a built in self-defense mechanism. Sometimes it forgets where I came from.

I really got stuck on stupid.

Denial is the falsehoods I tell about myself that I believe.

The difference between a rut and a grave is six feet.

I have about nine bills coming to me every month. I don't know where it was going to before.

Come Friday afternoon, the first thing I'd check wasn't the weather report.

I didn't know anything about alcoholism, but I didn't believe I was an alcoholic.

An addict will complicate a glass of water.

I was stuck in my own head.

Alcoholics lose the ability to be honest and don't know it.

I came to AA fully convinced I wasn't an alcoholic.

I was just faking it, doing the two-step program.

DENIAL=Don't Even kNow I Am Lying

I was always looking for a way out, not a way in.

I was stuck in that tree with the monkey holding onto the bottle. What the hell was I holding onto?

A lot of us get back to denial, even when sober.

I gained a lot of skill at protecting my right to drink.

It took me thirty-four years of use to admit I was an addict.

It is possible to be honestly dishonest.

It is the side of myself that I refuse to look at that rules me.

I'm FINE--fucked-up, insecure, neurotic and emotional.

My best thinking got me here.

I came to AA fully convinced I wasn't an alcoholic.

I didn't know that I couldn't stop.

I knew that my salvation was in AA, but I couldn't get myself to go in.

I thought everyone had a worse problem than I did.

I didn't think I could be an alcoholic because I was not old enough to drink.

I thought if I could make my outside like everyone else's outside, then I'd be happy.

I wasn't ready to admit I had that big of a problem.

I didn't like to cry around people because I didn't want anyone to know I was a human being.

I thought all I had to do was calm it down a bit.

I always thought that something, somewhere was going to happen and all this would change.

I suffered severely from self-justification.

I was filled with self-sufficiency, and I cut myself off from any power greater than myself.

We're so Goddamned smart when we come here, and it's our best thinking that brought us here.

Many of us tried to quit using with will power alone.

I thought to myself that I was invincible.

I thought I could beat this disease by outsmarting it.

I thought that I could drink and do nothing else.

I continued to get worse by using my own will.

All my thinking took me out there.

I strived to dominate those about me to gain self-importance.

I didn't think I wanted to quit, but I thought I had to do something so I became the coffee maker.

Caretaking and controlling carry codependency.

I was warned by doctors, parents, wives and children, but I wanted my will.

Every time I played the big shot, I turned people against me.

Everything that looks good to me is not good for me.

I kept doing the same things and getting the same results.

I hand a broken leg, and I was still on the street getting high.

I had big upper lip, lots of money. I drink for one year, no stop.

The thing I fought hardest for in life was my right to drink and drug.

I honestly intended to just pick up one, even at the end that was my intention. I never did it.

A pat on the back is twenty inches away from a kick in the ass.

I had a reservation the size of Wyoming.

I got a DWI and said they'd never get me again. And they didn't, until two nights later.

My ego has always been bigger than my ability to listen.

My getting recovery was like learning to water ski. I'd crash over and over again, but would never let go of the rope.

Don't isolate here.

I started to get resentments. I wasn't honest.

My mother wouldn't send me twenty dollars when I was in Bridgewater. I resented it. Today, my resentment has turned to gratitude.

How can I justify a resentment if I'm the cause of my own pain?

I went up to the attic between my ears without an adult present.

I'm the last person I check in with when I want to get high.

I was a resentment machine.

I settled for less and thought it was more. I had a resentment to life.

I had unreasonable expectations of everyone else but myself.

I was a victim, being robbed at knife-point while trying to cop dope.

Whenever any person said anything about the way I drank and drugged, I would change the subject.

Don't isolate.

I had real and imagined resentments toward everyone in my life.

If you're all by yourself, alcoholism will come out of the bushes and eat you alive, like a lion on a gazelle.

I'm in bad company, when I'm by myself.

I'm in a bad place when I'm in my head.

I was drinking alone, thinking alone, and the phone wasn't ringing.

When I was first told I might be an alcoholic, I was totally incensed. I didn't know what I didn't know.

I never realized that what I had was a life style, not a life.

Once everyone was much better or much worse than me. I thought I was not equal to no one.

My never-ending feeling was that if I could just move to somewhere else, I would be O.K. I brought my problems with me every time.

I went from table to table singing Broadway melodies and exposing myself. Something scared those people. When I was later informed what I had done, I decided I had passed the test. I was an alcoholic.

I put everything on the outside back together, but forgot about the inside.

If I owed money, broke the law, caused trouble,... I just moved away.

My only accomplishments from going state to state were the different jails I went to.

I made another geographical cure but this time, I took the program with me.

I moved here from Pittsburg on a geographical cure which brought me to my knees.

As I got older, Greyhound got to be my best friend.

If you crate up a jackass, ship it some place, when you uncrate it, it's still a jackass.

I moved to another town and stopped drinking, for a minute.

I went from Ireland to Saudi Arabia thinking I wouldn't drink. I found the home brew black market and drank everyday.

Once, it took me six months to get arrested again.

I've never been incarcerated in a state penitentiary in the U.S., but I can tell you what a Turkish or a German prison is like.

I thought I'd just drink, then I'd die.

My thirty, sixty, and ninety day lockup was a vacation from the streets.

I remember shooting dope at seven AM, and waking up at seven PM with the needle still in my arm.

Finally, AA got me. I was in prison walking within high fences toped with razor wire, feeling better than I ever had in the past.

Booze did everything it was supposed to do to me. It took everything I had before I tried to commit suicide.

The only sobriety I ever had was in jail.

Nobody went to jail, detox, or emergency rooms for me but me.

For me to drink and get high is to die.

I've had my heart zapped four times in the last three years.

I went on a commitment to the jail. It was nice to be able to tell the truth and walk out free.

I was sentenced to have an alcohol evaluation test. I thought that was a terrible sentence. After my alcohol evaluation test, I realized I wouldn't be President the first week after I quit drinking.

My drinking periods were not too long. I ended up in jail every time, quickly.

When I started going to meetings in prison, I was completely full of shit. I was playing everyone.

I attempted suicide six times before I got here. When I came here all I could think about was suicide. Now I think about suicide only once or twice a day.

I'd get out of jail on Friday and go back on Monday.

If you choose to do nothing about your alcoholism it will kill you. And it may take a long time.

I can't have my kids looking at their father through Plexiglas and metal bars.

Yesterday my Tewksbury roommate took his life.

Finally, the cops came and got me. They were real cops. I wasn't hallucinating.

I don't want to get morbid but death plays a big part of my recovery.

I ODed to the point of death.

Death was chasing me to the point where I didn't want the doctor to bring me back.

I began to do the merry-go-rounds of hospitals.

I thought I had my DWI beat. When I went to court I planned to be home celebrating. I got two years. I'm kinda glad. My life has totally changed.

113 arrests. 69 convictions. all behind my addiction.

When you go to jail you're going to get married sooner than you think.

It is good to be back from the dead and know peace.

I was a failure at suicide.

Sobriety is a matter of life and death.

We just lived pure Hell together before it got worse.

Death plays a big role in my recovery. When my brother died, I got drunk. When my father died, I got sober. When my sister died, I got the steps.

My Mother passed away sober.

I went from jails to institutions to life.

It wasn't long before I sold two ounces to the head of the drug task force of the New York State police in the presence of twenty-two undercover state troopers.

Unfortunately not everybody stays sober.

In the past six years, I've seen a lot of people dead.

The drugs just killed my sister.

There used to be a time when they just look at your crime, not your crime and your history. Mine is bad.

I wasn't going to kill myself, but I didn't care if I died.

I came to the E. R. at Waltham hospital.

I ended up moving into a very wet shelter.

Clean and sober is better than dead and buried.

I was on the mental health hospital merry-go-round. If things can get better can get better for me they can get better for you.

You have to be shit-faced to be dead.

I lost my best friend yesterday. I lost him to this disease.

Death was on my ass.

We're not dead when we're dead, we're dead when we're shit-faced.

If you're a self-admitted alcoholic, and you continue to use, I guarantee it will kill you.

Don't think that your bartender is your friend. He ain't. He's just a co-signer to death.

I spent my first year safely behind the walls between Concord and Gardner.

I want to die naturally.

My struggle over picking up a drink is a life or death one.

I did my last six months in the army in a locked ward of a mental hospital.

All your addiction wants is your unconditional, life-long suffering.

I couldn't just go to a meeting or to a detox. I had to go to jail or OD.

Death is another shortcut.

I continued to use and steal cars until I went to prison for two and a half years.

Drinking led to snorting. Snorting led to smoking coke. Smoking led to jail.

I would use and come so close to death and come back. I know how it works.

In jail, my fetus became my drug connection. That's how I got a methadone habit.

In Aruba, on the 18th floor of a hotel, I stayed in the bathroom for two days. I told my wife I couldn't come out because some one was outside the window.

I stayed seven days in the white room at Mass General.

I've been hospitalized in nine different mental hospitals. Are my meds to be excused?

My addiction is I drink and drug and go to jail.

I ended up in a mental institution. They call it a detox, but it is a mental institution.

I was under every bridge, in every jail and in every mental hospital. Today I'm a productive member of society.

Most of my friends committed suicide. You can't scare an addict.

It ruins you whole day when you're dead.

I became homeless. Shelters barred me.

Fifteen years ago, I had seven automobiles, two bulldozers, and an eight hundred-acre Thoroughbred horse farm, and now I have a four by eight-foot U-Haul storage bin.

It's hard to learn to be a mother. I left my six-year-old son when he was eight months old. He told me he hated me three times this week. He's got every right.

I missed a lot of life by being high. I missed a lot of my son's life by being high.

I had been locked up for six months for drugs and was not able to see my kids.

Being wired robbed me of the joy of my kids.

I got all my losses back. It just keeps getting better.

I lost my license to drive so I rode my bicycle drunk.

I lost my license for nine years due to drinking and drugging.

After I got divorced, I sort of went insane. Out I went with the crack.

I've been using alcohol, coke and heroin since I was thirteen. I had a son who was adopted through DSS. I had a daughter and another son. They both died of overdoses. I was in the house when my son died. I didn't notice it for eight hours. I don't use today.

Alcohol had such a grip on me I left my son for seven years.

I have to be hit over the head for a long time.

I went into a bar and stayed twenty years.

I was nine months clean, and my Mother still took her pocket book to the bathroom.

I lost all my possessions, except for my toothbrush and a pair of bolt cutters.

I'm thirty-seven, and have been drugginí heavy since I was thirteen. I've been stabbed twice, shot once, had my skull fractured and my neck broken. I didn't know why I keep doing this.

I took a drink; I took another drink; then a drink took me.

I came to a point of having no friends, just fiends.

I had a lot. I didn't lose it. I threw it away.

I drank, I drugged, I lost.

I gave it all up to drugs. I gave up my Father. I gave up my

Mother. I gave up my children. I gave up my assets. I gave up my freedom.

I joined a group, the local bar. I lost everything on my own.

How much has it cost me? Was it worth it?

I was loaded with no self-esteem.

I went from a hero to a zero.

I lost my job as a cop. I lost my family. I lost my pension. I kept my heroin & took it to detox after detox until I went to jail.

I was a poster child for the high cost of low living.

Even your pets don't want you when you don't respect yourself.

I fell into that trap, & I lost everything.

I almost killed people.

I didn't pay for drugs for a year and a half. I was a mule. I thought it was great. Then I lost everything, in no time.

I lost my socks, my underwear, everything.

Drinking and drugging were A1 important in my life. So nothing happened in my life.

I had a bicycle. I threw it into the river as a sacrifice coming off an acid trip.

I've paid for the right to recover. I paid all my worldly possessions. I paid with the pain of my wife and children. I paid my morality, my self-respect, what dignity and honor I had. I paid with everything I had but my life.

My wife died. I was a single parent with three kids. I drank until I gave them up, one by one, to DSS. I chose to drink rather than raise my children.

My only loss to alcohol was the suicide of my brother, who took his wife with him. Everything else I threw away.

If you're a boozer, you're a loser.

I gave away five children and three wives. Willingly.

I've been on my knees to this disease.

The hotter the flame, the stronger the steel.

I had enough. If I was told to dive off the Prudential building to get sober, I would have done it.

There are things that you just have to let go.

There wasn't anything left out there for me except a body bag.

We hit bottom when we realize what despair really is.

Alcohol brought me to a physical bottom; drugs brought me to a spiritual bottom.

You've got to hang on so you can let go.

My bottom was my bottom.

I ended having a party overnight and the following Monday, my personality completely changed.

My life was caught in the whirlpool of water in the bottom of a toilet bowl.

When I got to the bottom, it was O.K. with me.

I've been giving up control and feeling freedom.

I hit some pretty hard bottoms.

I've hit, finally, my bottom.

I could admit I was an alcoholic, but I couldn't accept it.

The first twenty-five years of my drinking didn't really beat me up. But if I add the alphabet soup of the rest of the drugs over the next twenty-five years, I took a wallop.

I didn't plan to get ready. I just got ready.

My skin was breaking out from the second stage of syphilis. I thought I was allergic to musk oil. They asked me at the hospital what men I'd been with. I didn't know. Maybe ten, three or so the first hour. I thought she was talking about last night. I surrendered.

At the end, I had just enough breath to stir the air around me. Then I had none. I could no longer disturb anything.

I was done.

I got to the end. I couldn't imagine taking another step in the direction I was going. I asked God for help.

At the end, I was busted, disgusted and couldn't be trusted.

At some point I came to realize that when I sat there having my second beer for breakfast, I would never do anything but drink if I didn't stop altogether.

At the end, I weighed seventy pounds. My children wouldn't come near me. I was very sick.

I didn't quit, I surrendered.

Cocaine brought me too my knees.

I must keep the gift of desperation.

I don't believe in coincidences in this program.

I wish to give myself to God. I ask him to give me the courage to do so.

I had to completely empty myself inside.

I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I asked, "What the hell is one glass going to do to me anyhow?"

I was sober a long time but I took back my will and shit the bed.

I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Accept what your addiction has done and submit to defeat.

I had my own views on everything. I would change the Declaration of Independence to suit my needs.

I wasn't surprised at anything I did when I was drunk.

I was doing good out there until I took my will back, or tried to.

I don't do anything any more with will power. I do it with a fellowship.

I wanted to keep drinking, and I just couldn't.

I did it my way.

I came here because there was no place to go.

All I do is what they tell me to do here.

I don't know why I'm clean. I did surrender my life to God. I am working the program. I'm baffled.

Don't look too hard at the fact that you can't drink or drug. Give your will to a Higher Power. Look at what you can do with your life.

I was defiant. Nobody was going to tell me nothing.

Get on your hands and knees before you get knocked down.

I didn't want to work. I was losing my will to live.

I hadn't had the last drink I needed to get me to my knees to get me here.

First you surrender to the bottle, then you surrender to the group, then you surrender in larger ways.

I am not willing to pay the consequences of taking my will back.

Everything in its own time.

I was here two months and saw fifty people go back out. That's because they didn't surrender.

Let it go.

Let go of control so you can get control.

I went on a severe drinking spree, which hopefully bottomed me out.

I came here because there was no place to go.

I'm down. This war is over. Alcohol kicked my ass.

I thank God for crack cocaine which brought me to my knees.

I kinda surrendered.

It is very fortunate that I came to the low point in my life.

I figured out that I was coming to the end. Thank God I did.

I was an empty shell at the end.

I sat down, and the nurse was taking my vitals. It was like she could read my mind.

My disease, if it wasn't going to kick my ass in the daytime, it is sure going to kick it at night.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm the sickest individual in this room.

The disease divides us. The program unites us.

Being here and realizing my disease, I know I'm in a safe place.

When I say this disease ravaged me, it did.

My disease sits in my head and tells me "I've got a better idea, let's just do it".

I became anti-social, psychotic, depressed, burned out.

Here's the problem, I'm an alcoholic.

My disease doesn't care who I am or who I think I am.

The disease is weird. I have this fight in my head. I want to get high in the worst way.

All three aspects of the three-fold disease overcame me.

No more dopamine, no more pleasure.

If you're here, you're here for life.

I've been sued civilly for my alcoholism.

I don't want to wake up after a seizure and look for my pipe.

I wasn't a bad woman that needed to get good, I was a sick woman that needed to get better.

This disease has been around me my whole life.

The disease is pitiful.

I don't care who you are or what you look like. This disease doesn't either.

It's my fucking disease. It must be because I want to get high, and I don't even know it.

I have a disease that's progressive, chronic, incurable, fatal and arrestable.

A lot times every day I believe my disease. It talks with my voice. It sounds like me, but it's not me.

I have a disease that's progressive, chronic, incurable, fatal and arrestable.

I ended up drinking because I was an alcoholic.

I was really surprised when I found out that I was an alcoholic.

Alcoholism got in my way of living.

I'm just an addict in all kinds of ways.

I'm really addicted to poverty states of being.

I couldn't drink every day. I was always too sick the second day.

It is important to know who the enemy is, and where he lives.

I'm sicker than my addiction.

If you don't like disease, use addiction.

My disease kept me hustling on the corner in rain, sleet or snow.

My disease tells me to sit at home and keep my secrets. Fuck my disease.

My disease looks like me, walks like me, has the same voice as I do; but it's not me.

If there is another way to beat this disease, I don't know of it.

I'm not responsible for my disease, I'm responsible for my recovery.

I used drinking and drugging to bring me down from this mania I'm in.

You can be sober and still be a manic depressant, but at least you're sober.

Alcohol is not my problem. Drugs are not my problem. I am the problem. They were my solution.

I got caught taking medication prescribed by my doctor. Shame on who?

That bottle contained exactly what I needed to get away from two things: myself and my life.

I've done jails and mental hospitals. The next thing for me is death. I truly believe that.

I got the feeling that nothing else mattered. I just needed to stay high.

Dedicated to get medicated.

You go to the clinic and get your pills, and go to the coffee shop to barter your pills, and you take a long blink.

My last drunk lasted 90 days. I drank 100 cases of beer.

My last drink was on April Fools day.

I remember my last drunk. I picked up heroin.

My last drink was in MCI Framingham. I hope to hell it was my last.

I remembered throwing away a bag of coke I had in my pocket. That bothered me for a good year.

My last run was two bags of garbage dope and a bottle of Wild Irish Rose.

My last drink was in Mexico. I went with twenty girlfriends and came back with none.

Who knows how many drinks they had each day at the end? Not me.

I began to realize I needed to stop.

If you don't remember your last drink, you haven't had it yet.

I have to continue this process if I want to keep what I have.

Not everybody in recovery is in recovery.

Getting sober I had to spend some time with a guy I didn't like. Me.

My mind is on automatic pilot to use the tools of recovery.

The hardest thing I did was get sober.

Sobriety is like a three-legged stool: don't drink, go to meetings, get help. When you cut off one leg, the stool falls.

I went back to my hometown and everyone had to kiss my ass because I'm sober.

The only skills I had when I got here was to sit and listen. I couldn't talk.

When things are going good for me, I can stay clean because I know it gets better.

Recovery is a beautiful thing. I want to do it for the rest of my life.

Staying stopped is the hard part of this illness. That's why it's a twenty-four hour program.

I thought I'd just jumped off the cross.

When I'm climbing the road to recovery, I keep knots in the rope so I won't fall if I slip.

I stay sober by staying out of slippery places.

Today I plan my recovery not my relapse.

Social acceptability does not equal recovery.

Living with twenty-two other women was not my idea of recovery.

I have to build my life around my recovery, not my recovery around my life.

Alcoholism ain't a death sentence.

I thought that my first day of sobriety would be the worst day of my life. It was the best.

The only thing I bring to this meeting is thirty years of drinking and drugging. I don't know how to stay sober. AA does. I do what I'm told.

They gave me the tools. They made me aware.

I've got a lot of work to do. Hard work. I don't like hard work. I've got to do it.

Addiction is a long journey away from yourself. Recovery is a long journey back to yourself.

If I'm deeply rooted, I'll grow strong.

I think I'll stay sober.

My counselor was twenty years my junior, and was radiant. I would do anything she asked because I trusted her so much.

I use to say I'm not in recovery, I'm in discovery.

I have the tools and I know what to do. I have no excuses.

When you're trying to be sober, it's not just about not drinking. Many other things are involved.

When a day sucks, I know how to fix it.

Two weeks after I celebrated my first year sober, I picked up because I stopped using the tools.

I no longer have all the money worries I use to have.

I wanted recovery. I wanted to be recovered. I just didn't want to work for recovery. I did not want to be in recovery.

I don't change enough by just quiting.

First you get recovery then you get serenity.

He told me to cease, expire, conclude, relinquish, extinguish, end, stop, arrest, retire--nine damn words that mean the same thing.

As long as I try, I don't fail.

Arrest your addiction.

I'm here to get sober, to stay sober, and to live sober.

My addiction is my nature, but I can recover.

I'm not responsible for my disease, I'm responsible for my recovery.

It is not hard to stop using drugs. The hard part is to stay stopped.

If you don't support your sobriety, you won't have much.

It's all about fixing what's wrong with us.

If you're cutting in and out of this program, you'd better cut the shit because you're gonna die.

I was sober two years, and still unwelcome in my family's home.

I have not met anyone in recovery who used less than me. My attitude got me in trouble.

I thought I'd just jumped off the cross.

I can't imagine myself being old and sober.

If you want it bad enough, you'll stay away from the bars and the bullshit.

The only form of recovery I'll have is with a group of my peers in the program.

In early recovery, I was skiing, boating and recovering. I was doing life.

I was willing, when I walked into this room to do anything it took to stay sober.

It's Goddamned boring not to drink when you're an alcoholic.

I wanted twenty years sobriety in one year.

I really feel that I'm on a path, a really wide path that allows mistakes but it's my own path.

Fold your arms the way you normally do. Now fold them the other way. That's the way you're going to feel the first couple of years in recovery.

I'm in a weird mood today, but I didn't use.

You're gonna go back out there if you isolate.

I say the charitable sign, "Homers for the Homeless". Six months ago my slogan was "Base Hits for the Boosters".

The peaks and valleys smooth out.

I'm turning the corner on the transitional phase of ninety days.

As soon as I stopped drinking, I got an instant raise.

Be fearless from the very start.

I knew I had to make some changes.

If you can't drink or drug anymore, your life is just beginning.

My worst day in recovery is the day I learn the most.

I'd get drunk and my body just would not cooperate with my mind.

I went to acupuncture detox.

A halfway house is a house for those who are not ready to go all the way. Some are not ready! Although, some don't have any choice!

I ended up in detox. It was the first time in my life I felt safe.

All I did was take my act from detox to detox.

I hated being in the halfway house because I didn't like me. I didn't want to be with people like me.

I would use for a week or two and go to detox for five days. Then I'd do it all over again. I did this year after year, hooked on alcohol and drugs and detoxes.

I stopped doing the drill, and here I am at a halfway house.

I don't really remember how I got to detox and I don't remember how I got out.

I was in and out of every detox in this state.

I started praying in detoxes.

My mother told me in no uncertain terms to get to a detox or she'd throw me out and keep my kids.

When I got kicked out of detox, I felt like a fish out of my fish tank.

I knew the minute I left the transitional care facility, I could pick up a drink.

Bridgewater was the most humiliating thing I ever did in my life.

In my rehab, they told me "We don't take care of children here. We try to get men on their feet."

In my rehab, there were twenty-three residents, three councilors and a bouncer.

I reached the `Penthouse' of homelessness when I got thrown out of every detox in town.

I learned in my halfway house about the importance of routines.

When I had the time, I went to good detoxes: the methadone clinics.

I'm twenty-nine and I've been trying to get this program since I was thirteen. I've been out there. I've tried to commit suicide twice this month. I'm afraid to leave this meeting for fear someone will beat me up again. I'm going into detox today.

It took me three detoxes to get sober this time.

If you're here for your girl friend, your job or your family, good luck. You have to be here for your sobriety.

I came to a rehab to learn how to drink, not to learn how to go to AA.

Maybe they told me not to drink but I don't remember.

My brother gave me a beating of biblical proportions and dropped me off in a detox.

I got hooked on detoxes.

Put me on restriction?!? I'll go off! I'll put you and that restriction in a wheelchair!!

In detox I told them I'd die if I picked up. they told me I'd make a lot of people miserable before I die.

I don't discuss my halfway house restrictions because I'm striving to understand rather than be understood.

At the halfway house, they laid down rules that I had to accept or find some place to live.

I've been in many halfway houses. This is not my first paper route.

I went in kicking and screaming.

I got three restrictions back to back in orientation in the halfway house. I thought everyone was against me. But it helped me adjust to outside life.

When I got here, the most I knew about this disease was that when I drank I got drunk.

Being in a detox or a rehab and getting high is like wearing burlap underwear. It is most uncomfortable!

I didn't want to go to the AA meeting in the detox. I thought I might be an alcoholic.

I had four detoxes in eight months in my mid-teens. I felt by myself.

I was in the Bridgewater detox one hundred and fourteen times.

I wanted a double shot of periki (ether & alcohol, ?).

I got sober in this place.

I love this place but I don't want to live here no more.

I was afraid to go to a halfway house. There might be criminals there.

Everyday you stay here, you are protected. You are further along in recovery.

I stayed here (the Center for Addictive Behavior) seven months and hated it. That was eight years ago. I haven't had a drink since. I've had great people all around me.

I came in here sounding like an outboard motor--but-but-but-but-but-but.

I went to the diner when I was at the halfway house. I got the hots for the waitress so I wrote the phone number for the pay phone at the halfway house on the place mat. She never called.

I got a 48 hour spin-dry in detox.

I went to Bridgewater once a week. I used it as a winter resort and a summer retreat.

I went into detox, then a halfway house. I had been clean nineteen days. I knew everything about alcoholism.

I wanted to quit drinking so I decided I'd go to the Ha Ha Hilton forever. It turned out to be a detox.

My Father was here when he was twenty-one. I'm here and I'm twenty-one.

I've been to over one hundred detoxes. I was hooked on detoxes. Now the detox is offering me a job.

In a rehab I faked a heart attack so I could go out and cop and get high, then come back so I wouldn't violate probation.

I remember shooting up in the bathroom at a meeting. There were a hundred recovering addicts out there so I tried to crawl out the window but it had bars on it.

I had enough good sense to know that AA had what I needed to go on living life.

As it says in the book, AA is a design for living.

There are plenty of things for me to do to keep my side of the street clean.

You don't get any trophies in AA for being nice.

In AA, your weaknesses are turned into strengths.

went to my first AA meeting at seventeen. I got sober at twenty-two. I've been sober a long time. I did all the inside things first.

From the beginning, I felt at home in AA.

I've stayed sober since my first meeting, and I'm grateful for that.

AA fills the number one slot in my life.

Going to meetings helps.

I can convince myself, by myself, not to attend AA.

Through AA I get the freedom to live the other twenty-two or twenty-three hours a day the way I should live.

The first thing I had to do when I gave up drinking was to build up a defense against the first drink.

There are no limits to getting clean and sober.

There's something special about this program.

AA is an equal opportunity program.

This isn't a graduation course.

I have received many, many rewards in this program.

Since I came to AA, my life has changed drastically.

I've been active in twelve states and over fifty cities. AA is the same anywhere.

The last thing my mother and I said before she died in my arms two months ago was "I love you". That was only possible because of AA.

This is an art. People don't have to say anything and you know what they are saying.

In order to have a friend; you have to be a friend.

My introduction to AA was at drunk driving school.

The only thing this program wants is for me to be disciplined, responsible, reliable and dependable.

Once you get the taste of AA, you know you can no longer use in safety.

I thought my life was over because I was in AA.

Because of the fellowship, I have a chance to break that cycle.

I would walk in AA and see people laughing, smiling and happy. I couldn't stand it.

When I first went to AA, I was high, and thought it was a freak show. I wanted no part of it.

I've been active in twelve states and over fifty cities. AA is the same anywhere.

I didn't have any shortcomings so this will be a short course.

I really wanted to know what all of you people here knew.

AA was the last house on the block for me and thus far, the only thing that has worked.

I didn't get AA, AA got me.

I came in and then I went out, and I spent a whole lot of time crying about going out.

I get hugs and kisses just for being here.

I'm a product of this program.

I have people in my life that call me and don't want drugs.

The bottom line is that this program saved my life.

I walked into the doors of AA and was so embarrassed.

All you got to do is bring your ass in here and hang out, and you'll meet a lot of new friends.

I had a head full of AA and a belly full of booze.

Nobody has to be an AA martyr.

My first two AA meetings were a freak show to me, and I wanted no part of it.

I came to AA sober because I knew I couldn't stay sober.

AA ruins drinking.

I realized I belonged in AA from first day I came to a meeting.

No one in AA has ever told me no. No one has shut the door on me.

I rebuilt my life in jail because I had a year in AA, taking the suggestions before I got sentenced.

What AA means to me, is people--the wonderful people I have in my life.

I lost my appreciation for AA and got complacent.

I came here with a chest full of clothes and an empty shell of a body.

I liked AA because there was no authority figures.

Everything I heard in AA was true in my life, but I wasn't ready to accept it.

I came to my first AA meeting. I was a full-blown alcoholic by fifteen.

All I had was a shred and barely that when I walked through these doors.

The people who said that things do get better obviously were from a different planet.

I feel a warmth and comfort at every AA meeting I go to all over the country. It doesn't matter if it is a group of four on the Cape or a group of 1,200 in Santa Monica.

I was constantly planning my next drink in safety at AA meetings.

When you come to AA, you're never alone again.

If I can fit into AA, I can fit in anywhere.

AA is my umbilical cord to God.

There is life after AA, and you have to go get it.

I learned to put the shit down before I got sober.

I got sober after six months in AA. In that time I learned that I could love and be loved.

AA is a kind of spiritual kindergarten.

I'm always O.K. with the fellowship but sometimes I trip on the Steps.

Everybody here is not recovering.

I grew up in an AA family.

If you want to save your ass, come along with us.

I had a really good day today. I wasn't sitting at Casper detox dope sick.

If you want to see fresh pain, go to a detox.

This is the place to get help.

The fellowship is showing me a new way of life.

I read the literature because it helps me be better.

One of the things that attracted me was the Preamble.

AA is thicker than blood.

No place else to go but AA for me.

AA is like my lifeline.

When I first came to these halls, I came for everyone but me.

By the grace of God and the miracle of AA, I stayed sober despite myself.

I know AA saved my life, but I don't know exactly how it did it.

I had every excuse in the book for not coming to AA.

The greatest message of AA is that it is not just about stopping drinking.

I hated AA but I knew I was an alcoholic.

You have a life, and you do get invited to do things. Fun things.

It wasn't until I came to AA that I became aware of my mental obsession and my physical allergy.

Like everyone else, I came here unwilling. I was heated up.

I never heard people talk like they talk in AA, and these people did it openly.

All the counseling in the world can't take the place of AA.

AA is not for those who need it; it is for those who want it.

AA and not having a driving license got me in the best shape of my life.

I could never, ever have done this alone.

I hit the gym, not the meetings. I took care of the outside of my body, not the inside. I'm back.

A lot of people don't stay in AA because they don't want to do the work. You have to do the leg work.

I haven't had a drink since my first meeting. Even without wanting AA, I got it.

A guy at DMV gave me an AA meeting list one time. Six years later, when I asked for help, it was still on my beside table.

AA is like a sore dick. You can't beat it.

AA is a safe haven for me.

AA ruined my drinking.

AA is everywhere.

AA is like the Mafia. Once you get in, you know too much, and you can't get out.

AA is altruistic.

I jumped into AA, and got all wet with it.

AA won't get you to heaven, but it will open up the gates to escape from hell.

AA never turned me away.

AA beats the DA.

I wanted what you people have. I want what I now have.

AA helps every person I'm around.

I chose to get my recovery in AA because alcohol was the first drug I picked up and the last one I put down.

I was forced into identifying with the speakers.

I do the footwork; I go to meetings, I do the Steps, I read the literature, I get the message, I don't use.

Alone we can't, together we can.

I never been up here before. I don't know what to say. I don't mind it here too much. Actually, I like it here a lot.

I have the worst story in AA, because I had to live it.

Good things happen to me since I came back to AA.

I didn't get the program at first. They had a lot of lingo, "Hang on", "Let Go" "Surrender", "stay strong", "give up", "keep coming" and stuff. Now I have a good relationship with my parents and with my brother and sister.

I thank God for having you to help me.

It was such a big relief for me when I walked into AA.

It's necessary to point out that I don't graduate from this program.

It's been two years, and I don't find the need to kill myself.

It's nice to be around people that care and want you to do well.

I've run in the last five Boston Marathons. I'm going to compete next year in the triathlon. These are gifts of AA.

If I didn't get treatment in AA, I'd probably be lying down in the cemetery next to my sister.

I come to meetings for powers of example.

This way of life saved my life.

I think I'm here now. I've got to make sure I stay.

Every time I'm faced with a hard decision, I come to this meeting.

I did everything I could not to be here. I'm here anyway.

All I have in here is brothers and sisters.

I'm listening to an AA tape in my car. This guy speaking is really terrific.

I didn't know booze got me to AA. I thought I was just sad.

I'm trying not to fully abandon the program.

Every length of time between meetings is a long stretch.

My wife found sobriety through AA. I did it my way. I don't recommend my way.

My friends and family couldn't do anything to help me so I wondered what AA could do.

I look back over the years, and I owe everything I have to this fellowship.

It's a great feeling to have friends who don't expect anything back.

Listening to everyone here has been very good for me.

It's a great feeling having somewhere to go so early in the morning.

It's a miracle that I turned my life around and it's one hundred percent due to AA.

All I want is peace of mind. I found long periods of it through AA.

I'd rather help a drunk out there than a drunk in AA.

Listen to the message, not the messenger.

I'm in the car for the ride.

I love AA and everyone in it. That's where the winners hang out.

This program taught me that I don't have to "survive" anymore.

AA is not my whole life. It give me the opportunity to have a life.

I have received a lot of gifts. One is this seat in NA.

I hope I get this program this time. I'm trying my best.

I hated AA and the people in it. I hated myself.

When I got here the alcoholics and addicts were very happy. I didn't understand that at all.

They didn't call me to go to this halfway house, I volunteered.

There are some really nice people in AA. There are some really cool people in AA.

The program will address the concerns of our lives.

I didn't even know AA existed until 1992.

I seem to require a lot of maintenance. I get that by showing up.

This program really works if you work it.

AA is like having sex. When it's good, it is very, very good. When it's bad, it's still pretty good.

Early in recovery I thought people in NA were automatons. I grew in the program and learned, that they weren't.

I came to AA and my life suddenly got busy.

Two of my drinking buddies joined AA. They were traitors. I then had to buy my own drinks.

This is a program of people helping people.

There are not too many musts around here.

This is my first NA meeting in fourteen years.

Today, I have real friends in my life, and I can be real.

What happened to you today could happen to me tomorrow so we need to be together to help each other like a family.

I got saved by being an alcoholic in Alcoholics Anonymous.

AA taught me to use money for what it was intended for.

Unless I give the gift away, I don't think that I can stay here too long.

We're addicts. We have conniving minds.

We're powerful. We belong together.

I pretty much seemed hopeless when I came here.

The best gram is the program.

I know less today than I did when I first came in ten years ago.

I thought, "Where have I been"? This is right.

This is a group program. I love Alcoholics Anonymous.

This program is giving me some gifts from time to time.

I try to be the best AA'er that I can be.

At my first AA meeting, they were talking about alcohol and God. I thought these were the most boring people in the world. You had to be sentenced to go to this all the time.

He's a black man. I'm a white man. Bid deal. We're both drunks and addicts. But we're the best of friends.

This family is like a balloon, if you blow it up too big I fear some needle make it explode.

Alcoholics anonymous projects love.

AA is the outstanding institution in society for giving.

I didn't think I was one of you AA people, so I kept drinking.

I went to AA first when I was twenty-one and went for three months. Quiet drinking for three months. I convinced myself that my problems caused my drinking when my drinking caused my problems.

Anybody can get sober.

I hadn't dropped to my knees for four years in AA. Things got worse every day.

I just got saved by being in AA.

I was doing meetings. I was doing commitments. I was making the coffee, and I wasn't drinking.

You don't have to believe in anything to be a member of AA.

He didn't jump into AA. He jumped out of life.

My name is Gary, and I'm an idiot.

I came to AA because I had no where else to go. I was disgusting.

At first I was terrified of socializing in AA.

I love AA, and I used to hate everyone who says that.

As for AA, I'm concerned. It's worth every minute for me to be here.

I was willing to drink, but I didn't want to get in trouble. AA showed me that to not get in trouble I had to not drink.

Besides the tools and the Steps and all, my life has been more joyous since coming to AA.

Mixed with marijuana, AA wasn't too effective.

When I came to AA, I was in two very serious, very dysfunctional relationships.

The history of success in AA is phenomenal.

The person I brought to AA was alone, lonely, eager to blame and relatively miserable.

The way I live my life might be enough to make the people in AA drink. The way you live your life might be enough to make me drink.

I needed people outside of myself, the people to show me what to do.

The first time I spoke I said, "my name is Jim and I'm an alcoholic. I hate being here." Two people patted me on the back and I said it was great to hear from you.

I was so scared walking into AA.

It's a real good feeling to be welcomed back to AA over and over again. I hope my last runs was my last run.

Maybe that's what I need to do, join AA.

I did the drill right from the beginning and I continue to do so.

At my first AA meeting, I wondered what the coverage charge was going to be.

I don't live my whole life in AA, but AA makes my life whole.

Nineteen hundred meetings every week in eastern Mass. If you can't fine one, ask Ray Charles. He'll find it for you.

You can't hide from people in the fellowship.

I had no intentions of becoming a member of AA.

I came to AA because I had nowhere else to go.

Whether I want to be or not, I'm a power of example for AA, and I need to be careful what I say.

Ninety-five percent of our brothers and sisters sadly will die without even sitting at an AA meeting.

Our founders knew we are susceptible to the temptation of life.

Being a good AA'er is like being a good person.

The reason I love this program is that everyone participates.

I try to be the best AA'er that I can be.

I got to AA by accident. I certainly had no intentions of going myself.

Without a program, sobriety is like being thrown into battle without any capabilities.

The friends I have today like me for who I am.

...most of all, I hated the people in AA.

Had I known I would get sober I would never have come to AA.

Go to bed sober, and you'll wake up sober.

I spent my life searching for the perfect husband and I found him in the program.

I needed to come here to raise my spirit. I was dying.

I haven't been alone since I came here.

I said I was in AA, but AA was not in me.

I have so much love for AA you wouldn't believe it.

I found the halls behind the walls, at Rahway.

I came to AA to get help, not to get over.

It's not now the ballot or the bullet as Malcolm X said, it is the bump or the brotherhood.

I sensed that the people in AA were onto something.

It's a simple program for complicated people.

It's great to be sober and in an AA meeting tonight.

I got to AA by a series of accidents. Now I learn there are no coincidences!

If it were not for AA, It's still be living in a boarded up building thinking about killing myself.

I've had the most fun in AA that I've ever had in my life.

My life depends on coming to AA. I need alcoholics.

If you're miserable, why be sober? You have to get happy to stay sober. AA does that.

I developed a fighting spirit in the martial arts and in AA.

I didn't choose to come to this program. Someone just came up to me and dragged me here.

No one in AA has lied to me.

If I thought I was going to drink, I drank. If I thought I was going to call someone in AA, I called them.

I didn't come here to win friends and influence people, but in the end, I had more friends than I could handle.

If you're here, you're not all there.

I figured since I was here, I might as well give it a shot. Today, I'm still here.

I came to this program fourteen years ago, but I haven't been sober for fourteen years.

If I show up, I'll grow up.

I haven't had a drink since my first meeting. Even without wanting AA, I got it.

In sobriety I became a professional clown. With a high voice like mine, and made up like a clown, you couldn't tell if I was a man or a woman. It was like some of you at this meeting.

I've been visiting an inmate in Cambridge Jail once a week. He's doing ten years because his roofing business was more important than AA.

I need everybody else, and we need each other.

If it's not tight, it's not right.

I'm not doing this on my own.

I've been like a customer in AA. I boosted from the store until I got caught.

I'm in AA, and I exploit the opportunity to be as free as possible.

I've been in AA for a long time. AA just hasn't been in me for a long time.

I have to make a commitment to be in AA for life, to stay sober, and to be there for the newcomer. Just like someone was there for me.

If you're new or coming back, I give you credit.

I want the newcomer to know, this program works!

I joined an AWOL when I was twenty.

If you're new and you're nervous, you're already with us.

If you're new and feeling a little crazy, get used to it.

Newcomers remind me of where I've been; old timers give me hope.

It's the grace of God that gets us here. It's the grace of God that keeps us here.

God never showed up in person to me, but he has send a lop of people to help.

I want to keep the character God gave me in the beginning.

I said, "God, it's your will that I came here because you sent the E train".

When you get with God, there is order in the universe.

There just wasn't a God of my understanding who could stop me from drinking once I got started.

Thank God for the `bad' detoxes for they saved my life.

I knew everything I needed to know clinically fifteen years ago about this disease. That didn't get me sober. This program and my Higher Power keep me sober.

We've been confused about God through misinformation.

If I allow God to speak through me, I don't have to come up with my own solutions.

Oh God, I'm a sickie.

By the grace of God, I stayed sober out there in the streets those six or seven weeks.

This is God's gift, appreciate it.

Be a trophy of God's amazing grace.

My God has given me certain experiences so you won't have to experience them.

What was given to me was the God of my parents' understanding.

I hated the fact that I was going to have to do something about God if I was going to be in the program.

I used Luke last night, The prodigal son. That was me. I thanked God for Luke. I'm grateful.

When I found out God wasn't Italian, I was in big trouble.

Today I have a kit of spiritual tools that I can use.

When I go to my Higher Power with my situations, guess what? He hits it right on the head.

God took care of me the whole time I was out there.

I asked my Higher Power to relieve me of my sexual obsession, and I got the chicken pox.

I think God has a lot to do with keeping me alive until we get here.

God put a good probation officer at my side.

It's a simple spiritual program that works.

In the halls of AA, I found a God I could understand.

I feel very fortunate that I had a Higher Power when I came in here.

Instead of having a power greater than myself. I always tried to be a power greater than myself.

Today I use spiritual tools.

The spiritual part of our disease is total self-centeredness.

What right have I not to love muyself?

My children could tell that I was the devil.

I keep my channels open to my Higher Power.

I feel more in tune and connected with my Higher Power.

Spirituality is to the program what water is to the ocean.

I think God has a lot to do with keeping us alive until we get here.

I had no problem with a Higher Power. Everything had more power than I did.

I grabbed onto a Higher Power. He takes care of my needs; my wants can come later.

I hope your Higher Power is as good as mine is.

I first got sober through the grace of God, but not with the use of God. I was miserable until I relied on God for my happiness.

I can't, He can; I let him.

I get on my knees. I ask for God's will. I get everything I need without asking for it.

I asked God for strength that I might achieve. I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.

I lacked the spiritual touch. They call it conscious contact with God.

God's plan for me is to love. He loved me enough to lift me from insane addiction, from jails and prisons, from self-destruction. I ask God each day to help me imitate His love for me by giving me more love for you.

I came in here with God in my life.

I live in the protective custody of God and AA.

I go on commitments because it gives me a Higher Power.

I made alcohol my Higher Power.

I got so sick of just sitting in the chair. A step of faith got me up here.

A drug dream is a spiritual awakening.

God is doing for us what we can't do for ourselves.

Any newcomers out there think it's better to work recovery without the full program they way it's laid out, I assure you it's not.

God works through people, all people.

Give it up to God, and you'll be all set.

Coincidences are God's way of staying anonymous.

I found God at that table.

GOD is a Group Of Drunks, with a Gift Of Desperation, Getting Off Drugs, with the Giving of Dozens, getting Good Orderly Direction.

God will know how to draw glory even from our faults. Not to be downcast after committing a fault is one of the marks of true sanctity.

God seldom gives us virtues wrapped up in a ready to use package.

Ask, & it will be given you; search, & you will find; knock, & the door will be opened for you. (Jesus Christ, Mt. 7:7.)

Ask God to help you become free, free from addiction, free to love.

God gave us two ears and one mouth so we could use the ears twice a much.

God doesn't make junk.

God gives us the gift of thought processes.

God keeps me sober because he is the only one I ask. I know that AA teaches me how to live.

God came into my life, and taught me sobriety through other people.

First things first. I need to thank my Higher Power.

Fear knocked at my door. Faith answered. No one was there.

Faith builds a high tolerance for ambiguity.

Addiction is a loss of spiritual values.

Faith is experienced in the absence of doubt.

I didn't see the light, I felt the heat.

Be good to yourself.

Before I had my faith, I didn't think I had anything to do with the program.

Faith has given me joy as well as confidence.

Alcohol won the battle, but I got the solution to smooth out the war.

Believe that we believe.

Bend your knees instead of your elbows.

I may not be the person I could have been. I may not be the person I wanted to be. Thank God I'm not the person I used to be.

Faith is extremely practical. It is not weak, it is strong.

Faith is action. It is not passive.

Faith is a belief in the unseen.

If you're having trouble with God, imagine the trouble God is having with you.

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

I haven't a clue how I ever got it; so it must be the grace of God.

Life is God's greatest gift. If you didn't do well with it, try sobriety. It is a new gift of life. Your gift to God is what you do with it.

My attitude was "I trust in God, everyone else pays cash".

Life is God's gift to us. What I do with it is my gift to God.

I'm in AA, and I exploit the opportunity to be as free as possible.

If you've got a lot of problems, give them to God tonight; He's going to be up all night anyway.

If you don't believe there are no coincidences, you haven't been around here enough.

In God we trust.

If you don't have a Higher Power, use mine.

I had this ongoing spiritual awakening since coming to AA.

It's a gift of God that I have friends now, not running buddies.

Lift our spirits.

If you're going to deal with spiritual matters, you have to have a spiritual understanding.

I had a moment of sanity when I hit a curb driving drunk with my wife and kids in the car.

Intolerance toward spiritual principles will defeat us.

If God does the steering and I do the rowing, I'm ok.

If it were up to me, I would have been dead long ago. Someone else is in control.

Life was one gift I received with no charge.

I let the right people decide things for me.

I didn't follow the suggestions and I relapsed.

How long does it take before you want to go to meetings? -- A newcomer.

Don't forget where you came from.

I want to drink now. I don't know why I'm standing here. I must want something else.

Do the right thing. Go to meetings. Be there for your kids.

I tried everything suggested.

Don't compare, identify.

Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary.

Fake it `til you make it.

By not drinking and by going to meetings, I have learned there is a better way of life.

Give it lip service, and it will happen to you.

I did 90 & 90, 90 & 90, 90 & 90. I'm working on my fourth 90 & 90.

If you're hearing this, you have a good shot.

Lost of meetings, lots of chances; few meetings, few chances; no meetings, no chances.

Bring the body, the mind will follow.

Don't worry about it; just keep coming.

I got in the routine of being a part of my group.

I can relate to that.

I was going to prove that I was not an alcoholic by not going to AA.

I just did what they did. Then slow by slow I got what they got.

I had seven years. Then I tried to stay sober without meetings. I started planning to drink. I drank.

I took the cotton out of my ears and stuck it in my mouth.

I go to fourteen meetings a week. I'm straight.

I'm thirteen years clean, and I still go to a meeting almost every day.

I tried to do my first 90 and 90 in two weeks.

Introduce yourself to the speaker after each meeting. That way you'll know a new person every day.

I was so sick, the suggestions had to be requirements.

I was different. I didn't have to take the suggestions. I went from stark raving drunk to stark raving sober to stark raving drunk again.

Keep your own side of the street clean.

My parachute has lots of holes in it. I go up. I go down.

Keep it simple.

Just do the next right thing.

Keep it real.

Keep it in the now.

I was asked the magic eight words: Would you like to go to a meeting?

KISS=Keep It Simple Stupid

Just believe that we believe.

My wife doesn't understand why I go to so many meetings, but she likes the results.

It blew me away that someone could admit they were wrong.

I go to AA, my wife gets cured.

It really helps to share my feelings.

By God connecting with me, I'll be able to connect with other people.

I saw the sense of spirituality of God in my Grandmother.

I'm into letting changes happen.

My Higher Power is for me. I need to keep him today.

Plenty of times, a lot of us should have been dead out there.

I'm baffled by spirituality.

I know my Higher Power is there. My Higher Power saved my life just last week.

I didn't really have a problem with hearing God.

Like the song says: I didn't want to believe in God. I just wanted to see his face.

Enough grace restores me to sanity.

Thank God we're not all real sick on the same day.

Thank God that I can openly change.

Spirituality is one of the greatest gifts of the program.

Since I realized I had a Higher Power, I have been a lot better.

Sobriety is contingent on a daily reprieve provided you have spiritual contact with God on a daily basis.

Say God is good. Avoid saying I am great.

It was a miracle that I turned my life around. It was my Higher Power and AA. I'm glad I did it while I'm still alive.

He told me on the phone I'd have a spiritual awakening when I came upon the ground of Father Martin's treatment center. I didn't and got a resentment.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

God intervened in my life the first time I shot coke. The Boston police picked me up.

When I let God in he lets me out. I provide the perspiration. He provides the inspiration.

God willing, in three weeks, I'll have three years.

I couldn't begin to do this without starting with the inner core of my spiritual being.

I had to reinvent my notion of God in a rehab.

GOD=Grasp Of Divinity, GOD=Grateful Or Dead

God didn't save me from drowning to take me out to deeper water and let me go.

I wanted the program to have guarantees. I wondered why God wouldn't guarantee my sobriety.

A few weeks ago I felt so alone that I began having a spiritual experience.

I forgot that I have a God who cares.

God has a plan for my life. He didn't bring me this far for nothing.

I leash my dog crossing streets. I need God to put me on a leash when I'm in a dangerous situation. My dog learned quicker than I have.

Thank God there were some people who were still willing to talk to me and bring me to AA.

Every time we took a drink or a drug, we kill the essence of our life.

True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God.

You can be the kind of person here your Higher Power intended that you be.

I feel like it was meant for me to be here.

I'm thankful for God today for taking the pain away.

Today, I have a better understanding of what God will do for me.

There has been many times when God blessed me with great things, and I called it luck.

We have the God-given gift of creativity.

If I look and listen to you, I might be able to find the God in you.

For ten years, I've been in and out of AA. I believe it didn't work because of one word--spirituality. I didn't have a clue what it meant.

God meant for me to be at this meeting.

I have relinquished the title of "God".

We intervened in priests' drinking and sent them for treatment to an incredibly elegant place overlooking the ocean. Nothing is too good for God.

God is present in everyone here.

The ego edges God out.

I'm glad I have my own God to believe in.

The Higher Power I've come to believe in is AA.

I used to do a lot of God hopping. I couldn't figure out where he was.

I'm thankful for God today for taking the pain away.

This is a God-given program.

I'm not here because I love God. I'm here because God loves me.

If my Higher Power feels that I need to go back and do a year's time, I'll go and give it to him.

I don't know if I had a spiritual awakening, I have a spiritual turn around. I'm not robbing people now.

There came a time when I had the undeniable presence of God in my life.

I haven't yet heard someone say his Higher Power is Aunt Jemima.

In the end, everyone was holding hands saying the Lord's prayer.

I have a tendency to get back into my personality instead of my spirituality.

The newcomer asked if they could talk about something that was not spiritual. The old timer asked me, "What is the part that is not spiritual?"

I definitely have the strongest belief in my Higher Power than I've ever had in my life. That's been what's keeping me sober.

I can't forget that I got here through the grace of God.

I kinda of missed a few meetings, then it snowballed into missing a lot of meetings.

I changed everything but my fingerprints.

I changed my room. I changed my sheets. I changed my habits. I changed my life.

I have to change everything on the inside and on the outside too.

I'm working on this change thing.

It was much easier physically to be in court.

It's mind over matter. I don't mind, drugs don't matter.

It's been nice and it's been real, but it's not been real nice.

Knowledge is of two kinds, that which is absorbed and that which is heard. And that which is heard does not profit if it is not absorbed. Hadrai 'Ali

Lead by example.

Life happens.

Living life on its own terms is severe shit.

Look at the yets in your life.

My head is the darkroom where I exposed all my negatives.

No one can enter the kingdom of heaven without making peace with the child inside.

I will come to AA even though I've been sober a long time. I've been in this group over ten years. I learned here what happens to those who don't keep coming.

You have to give up the right to remain silent if you want to remain sober.

I wouldn't go to a meeting unless it was over.

It's so clear to me tonight that if I did not do what is suggested, I would not be here.

I made it to a meeting tonight and that's critical.

The suggestions I give are the ones I get.

The sharing part was the last part I was willing to get involved with.

I thought meetings every day was a sentence in itself.

If you stay away from meetings long enough, you'll drink.

Sometimes you just don't want to go to a meeting.

AA was like started a new job. I had to show up and take the suggestions.

I would never raise my hand at a meeting. I was sometimes high, I was sometimes scared, I was always ashamed, and I was not listening, learning or changing. But my unconscious kept recording things.

It was so hot yesterday. I would really have liked a cold beer, and I let someone know.

You're supposed to go to meetings when you want to and when you don't want to. I didn't want to go to a meeting tonight so that's why I came.

Someone told me this too shall pass, and I told him to fuck off.

My disease wants me to go to a meeting tomorrow.

The very best thing is to make a commitment to be here every night.

I looked around the room and saw the biggest bunch of social misfits, and I fit right in.

By coming to meetings, I find out what happens to people who donít come to meetings.

I don't go to a lot of meetings, but a lot more than I used to. I can really feel the difference.

I walk away from every AA meeting with a little bit of hope.

I'm going to do my very best to follow my leaders.

I went to outpatient again and for some reason, I did everything they asked.

I make suggestions to my using friends, but I can't drown with them.

I don't miss my meetings because I won't miss my life.

The times I do spend in an AA meeting, I cherish.

I was half in the bag when I went to my first meeting.

I tell my story and get a temporary reprieve from this disease.

I keep in touch with all the people in the program, not around it.

I didn't always want to do what they told me to but I did. I'm sober ten years now.

Going to meetings was easy because it was mandatory.

I've got nothing to lose by doing it the way that I'm told to do it.

If I want to get better, I have to show up.

There's no ifs ands or buts, either you do or you don't want to get sober.

I was trying to do the things you're supposed to do to make things better.

I could do this whole meeting just on my bottom lip.

When I started taking the suggestions, my life really started getting better.

I come back from a meeting one night and the disease was right behind me.

Got nothing to do? Go to a meeting.

I used to do what I had to do. Now I do what I'm told to do.

I've gained so much strength going to meetings.

The man at the meeting said, "If you think you have a problem with alcohol, come along with us."

After twenty years I stopped going to meetings, and I stopped asking for help, and I got drunk.

I was still going to meetings but I forgot to pray for a few days. I relapsed.

I started to plan my days around meetings instead of drinks.

When I go on vacation, my disease doesn't. So I go to AA wherever I go.

I thought the suggestions were great for those people but not for me.

I show up and shut up until it is my time to contribute.

I came into AA and got a new shot at life.

Am I listening?

I went to meetings--three or fours--in a row and had a good weekend.

I sat at the back of meetings and made fun of the speakers. I didn't want to listen to women or people from the suburbs. I wanted to hear stories about drinking from old guys from Boston.

I really love this stuff, and I'm soooo here today.

I still feel different, been at meetings.

I get all my answers from my groups and meetings.

Did you drink or drug every day? Then you go to a meeting every day.

There is no such animal as a short cut if you're an alcoholic.

I haven't been to this meeting for a while and it shows.

I get passionate at the podium.

The only way to work through this program is to attend meetings.

Doing 90 & 90 was the first thing someone told me to do that I did.

I never tired it the way it was laid out.

Nobody thinks I clean this long, but I am. I'm doing good with AA and NA.

I'm here because I'm not all there.

If you're sitting in this room, you're getting the message.

If you're here thinking you can still steal, drink, drug, lie, sell, you're in the wrong place.

When I go to a meeting every day, that's when everything is ok.

I was just so totally in tune with this meeting that I caught serious amounts of SOSs. Bombardment. Just look at the blisters on my writing hand. That's spiritual.

I guess I don't hear enough.

I need to be in protective custody.

When I feel the best is when I go to a meeting every day. Only then do I feel ok.

I can't do anything without you guys. I'm sure about that.

I went AA cafeteria style. I take what I want. I use what I take.

When you come to AA meetings, you find a ton of crack heads and a bunch of heroin junkies.

I'm looking for any excuse just to get out of here.

Perfect attendance in AA is to be there every day.

I went ten days without going to a meeting. I couldn't believe it.

I'm going to a new meeting, and I'm taking some new folks with me.

I didn't want to be here. I hated AA and everyone involved.

What it is, is the meeting before the meeting.

Today, I actually hear the content of what people are saying and it means something.

I usually just come and listen, and I've felt comfortable with that.

We don't do this thing alone, we do this as a group.

We don't have to be distinguished among our fellows to be useful and profoundly happy.

Today, I follow it the way it was laid out. It's the only thing now that's working for me.

Take care to share. Heb 13:16

I was lying in the middle of a football field have some very enjoyable hallucinations. I met a lesbian witch with three years sobriety in AA. Then the sky turned strange shades of color.

No group, no sponsor, no meeting, just insane alcoholism, that was my life.

I was going to AA everyday. then I stopped. That's when I picked up.

I sat in denial aisle, second from rear, with my arms crossed.

I get my balance from the person who's sharing.

The sobriety is in this room, not in the kitchen or in the back, but right here.

I hated being told to smile and keep coming, but I stuck around and now I love it.

I thought just going to meetings was enough.

Meeting makers make it.

Make ninety meetings in ninety days.

I never planned to end up in AA.

Lots of meetings, lots of chances; a few meetings, a few chances; no meetings, no chances.

Minding my own business is a full-time job.

It takes a man to show that he has weaknesses.

If I feel like shit, I pick up the phone, and it usually makes me feel better.

If it is going to help keep me sober, I'm going to use it.

If you don't do what you're supposed to do, you're not going to get better.

If you let the trash bag fill up, it will overflow. Dump it often.

My name is Tom, and you're an alcoholic.

If you think it is hard to follow, try leading.

If I can't hear the speaker, I try to read his lips.

If you want to get what we got, you gotta do what we do.

If I don't come to meetings, I won't have my TV to watch.

I'm here to take the suggestions. To me they got to be ordered.

If you've given up, just do what you're told.

I realized that even if I didn't like the people or the program, I liked what the people said.

If you want what we have, you do what we do. It's as simple as that.

I sort of let my relationship with my sponsor go.

I told my sponsor that I never lost the desire to drink.

My pride and my ego get in the way sometimes. This is why having a sponsor is so important.

This time, I chose a sponsor who had more time than I did.

I met my sponsor in the crack house.

If I asked someone to be my sponsor, it was guaranteed I'd never again talk to that person.

My first sponsor was twenty-four years old and had ten years of sobriety. He was from Akron, Ohio.

I was really upset when my sponsor went to jail.

Between my sponsor and my group, they saved my life.

My sponsor has never been my lawyer, my accountant or my banker. He is also not my life adviser. He is the guy I share the Steps with.

I'm envious of normal alcoholics. They don't have to call their sponsor before they buy a newspaper.

My sponsor is human and not available to me every time I heed him. But God is available to me at any time.

God is the sponsor who is always available.

I haven't been through the sweetest times in but I don't drink over it.

Be a sponsor.

I made every excuse in the book not to call my sponsor.

Call your sponsor and ask what your next step is.

I call my sponsor each day, whether I talk with him or not.

I've been blessed with a good sponsee.

I have two sponsors, one is eighty-two years old and in a nursing home. She has sixty-two years of sobriety.

My sponsor said he'd rather see a sermon than hear one.

A couple of women asked me to be their sponsor. God, where did that come from?

I chose a sponsor who was in the detox with me. We crossed off six of the Twelve Steps. They didn't seem too important.

Man makes plans; God makes results.

Getting a sponsor is the First Step to working the Fourth Step.

A good sponsor is as much helped as the person being sponsored.

I try not to make many decisions on my own.

Call me before you drink, or don't call me.

I didn't have a sponsor. I didn't have a group. I just didn't get it.

I joined my sponsor's group. That was a very important step.

Do what you're told, not what you want, and your recovery will fall into place.

If we use them properly, it is a good idea to have more than one sponsor.

I joined my sponsor's group. That was a very important step.

My sponsor told me we could disagree, but we shouldn't be disagreeable.

I'm very active with my group and I reap the benefits of that.

My group is very important to me now. It is the key to my success.

I've never taken an active role in my recovery.

I've had more fun in sobriety than I can remember having when I was drinking.

I'd have to say that the best thing I've done lately is to join a group.

I feel that my group is the best group in AA, and you should feel the same about your group.

I've had more fun in sobriety than I can remember having when I was drinking.

It took me a few months to learn how to have fun, but I had a blast this week.

I joined a group and the only person that knew I was a member was me.

Sure, millions of meetings will help you calm down, but you have to get up and work to make things happen.

The key for me is staying involved.

I stay active in AA. There is too much pain out there waiting for me. I don't want it.

I got active when I can around this time.

I didn't raise my hand the first five years. When I did, I learned how good it makes me feel.

I got active and busy.

I'm very active with my group. I've had every job but the coffee maker.

If you don't work the program..., well where you are now, that's about as good as it will get for you.

When I got active in my group it took the place of alcohol and drugs.

If your sitting at a meeting thinking about getting high, well that shit is supposed to happen, and you're where you're supposed to be.

When I go up into the attic between my ears, I have to go with an adult.

I'm closer to picking up a drink now than I've been in five years. This program gives me the tools to use. I'm getting more active.

I'm a member of this group, and this group terrifies me.

When I got active in AA my life moved forward.

I get complacent.

Get soaking wet in AA.

Get active.

I get what I need from my group.

Don't get your feet wet, dive into this program with all your clothes on.

Be a participant, not just an observer.

Going on commitments is how your home group gets to know you.

I joined a group; this group. Then I got active, right here in this building.

Join a group, a group won't drink.

It is very important to be active in your recovery.

If you're not doing something, something is doing you.

Join a group, get involved, make a commitment.

My group let me come early to set-up the hall. Wow, that was cool.

I've been very active with my group, and I feel like I'm working the program.

Join the 20/20 club--come to a meeting 20 minutes early, leave 20 minutes after it is over.

My sponsor decided that the group we were in just wasn't cutting it, so we moved.

Join a group closest to where you are staying.

If you hold the Big Book in one hand and God in another, you can't pick up a drink.

I read the Big Book so people would stop asking me "When are you going to read the Big Book?"

I was swinging the Big Book sledgehammer.

The Big Book and the Steps are on the level of the Bible in my opinion.

I read page 86 in the Big Book daily to get inspiration from God to do the right thing.

I came to meetings and read the literature and finally realized I can be better for myself.

All of this stuff is written down, all you've got to do is look it up.

I wasn't reading any of the literature, and my life was getting quite awkward.

If you needed a Big Book and a sponsor to get high, you'd get one.

When I get up, I get down on my knees.

I ask for God's help to keep me away from a drink and a drug and to make me a good person.

I ran with AA for twenty-five years. I had to get rid of my pride and start asking for help.

I ask for God's help to keep me away from a drink and a drug and to make me a good person.

I should have asked for help here and there, but I didn't.

I don't ask for help, I beg for it.

Every morning I would come to and ask God to please stop me from drinking.

This program taught me the need to ask for help.

I'm upstairs, and I'm locked in.

I don't call upon my God in the morning and the evening; I call upon Him as I walk.

A lot of the time, I ask for help. A lot of the time, I don't and I suffer for it.

I found out that the "footprints" prayer was really true because I was definitely carried.

I did something that was so very hard for me to do. That was to ask for help.

It's so annoying now when I know I need to ask for help and I don't.

It sure relieves the pressure of life to ask God for help.

I got on my knees last night, and all I could say was "Fuck you".

If you don't ask for help, you probably won't get it.

When I went to detox, I was eighteen. I thought I was too young to need help. I was not able to ask for help.

I ask God every day for honesty and strength.

I got off social security disability. I worked in one job for ten years. I have a Higher Power. I have an excellent sponsor. All this since I started letting people help me.

I prayed, I asked for help to get to this program. God showed me the way.

I know that by just asking, it works.

If you're having problems, reach out for help.

I pray for things and things start happening.

I pray for vigilance.

All I had to say was "God, take the pain away."

I was brought down to my knees in sobriety.

When I first came to AA I prayed. I prayed to your God, not mine. I didn't have one.

Get help.

I hit my knees right off. I don't go out and brush my teeth or nothin'.

I prayed every day; then I stopped; then I picked up.

I had to get down on my knees to get up on my feet.

And It only took me three little words, "Lord help me".

An Irish Catholic, I came to my senses. It was a very difficult thing to do. I asked my parents for help.

I was a teabag Catholic. I only asked for God when I was in hot water.

I get on my knees. I ask for God's will. I get everything I need without asking for it.

I say the Serenity Prayer about once an hour.

And I do this program through prayer and meditation.

I asked God for help, when I was before the judge.

At the beginning and the end of the day, it is time to pray.

I would get on my knees to get the rock, so I can get on my knees to pray.

I ask for help from others. When I don't, I'm in trouble.

I can't do this alone.

Do the best you can.

I get on my knees. I ask for God's will. I get everything I need without asking for it.

I ask my Higher Power to help me stay clean, just for today.

I've learned that you need to get down on your knees and ask for help. You have to pray to your Higher Power, and I do that.

It starts with your getting on your hands and knees.

I told God how tired I was. I needed a cane. I needed his hand.

I'm here on a wing and a prayer, and the wing is broken.

If you are not praying, you're missing the most important thing.

I'll pray out loud. I don't care if my roommate is listening.

Beware of black cord fever.

Relationships in recovery are like pouring Miracle Grow on my character defects.

I used to think that issues were things that women had. No offence ladies!

I still don't understand that line, "Most married folks in AA have happy marriages". Mine's pretty mixed up.

Behind every skirt there's a slip.

I don't hear from any old using friends.

I survived my abusive Mother.

I had thirty years sober. I stopped going to meetings. My wife died. I lost my bearing. The lion roared like you would not believe. I went out for three years. I lost my job of thirty-five years, my house, and my savings. I just got back.

I wanted what she had. This is a program of attraction.

I picked up again, then I put it down, then I picked up again, then...

When you come back after using, it is so painful.

I thought it'd be easy, that I could come right back to AA.

I picked up after three to five years. I stayed out six to seven years.

If I leave here, I know where I'm going.

When you come back after using, it is so painful.

I'm sick of starting over.

I know if I go out, it'll be a cigarette, a line, a joint and lots of booze.

I was sober thirteen and a half years. I relapsed. It took me eight years with two valiums a day and eleven detoxes to get back.

A lot of people don't have the chance to get back here.

I don't lie to myself today, and that's a God-given blessing.

Every time I came back to AA with all the sincerity in me, I'd pick up again.

The next drink may be the very last, you may never recover again.

When I relapsed after seven years, I didn't pick up for a year.

I took a year's sobriety and turned it into a major disaster in three weeks.

If I leave AA I know where I'm going. There is no guessing.

I was headed right back to where I came from.

When I was clean I didn't understand that no one is exempt from relapse.

If I want to pick up I know my misery is waiting for me.

If I pick up a drink, my life is all done.

I'm so depressed. I'm looking for any excuse to go out and pay the consequences.

I don't want to give people the chance to point fingers at me.

I'm so used to getting clean and letting "me" fuck it up.

I must have had a half a dozen slips in thirteen months, but they were all quickies, and I didn't count them.

The weight of depression was so bad and the thought of going out seems to lift it.

Coming back has been real hard.

I thought trying to get sober over and over again was insanity.

Going back out there has nothing to do with morality. We just don't want you to get sick.

After I lost my time and relapsed, I drank to die.

If a relapse happens, make it a teachable moment.

A SLIP is when Sobriety Lost Its Priority.

All my relapses ended in prison.

A little piece of reality is that you might not get back.

After my slip, I just didn't think it was attainable for me.

A two-second decision can change your whole life.

I relapsed because I tried to do the program my way.

I copped an attitude about alcohol and people who drink. That was the beginning of my isolation and my relapse.

Don't drive looking in the rear view mirror all the time. You will have an accident.

I used to be shit. I can be what I used to be.

I relapsed into sanity.

Don't waste time wishing you could be with old friends and the old excitement.

I didn't go back to my old friends to use, but I did use to go back to my old friends. I've got no reason to go back.

He said, "I picked up." I said, "You what?" He said, "Yeah, I went to New York City and got me some `Dollar Crack.'"

I relapsed when I picked up a drink and planned to stop on Monday morning because I go to work on Tuesday. Well the Monday mornings kept coming.

Everyone has another run in them.

I relapse a little bit every day, mentally and sometimes spiritually. Each day I recover.

Every time I went out, it got worse.

I got out of jail, had $10, bought two forties and stole another car.

I have another run in me, but I may not have another recovery.

I just gave up nine years of sobriety. Taking perks led me to heroin, jail and here. I avoided my health, my meetings, and my sponsor. I'm grateful to be here.

Eventually I did what any good alcoholic does, I broke out with people who drank and get drunk.

I didn't know what pain was until I picked up another drink.

My first two years I skated through, then I had my first little tragedy, then I had my first big one.

My relapses moved me upstairs. I had to agree that I was an addict.

It didn't take me long to become really depressed and suicidal.

I couldn't take not having the misery in my life, so I went out again.

This time, I'm not the one who's stepping out.

I'm not going to throw away something I have just to recreate old times.

When things are going good, I find it harder to stay clean.

When things are going bad for me, I can stay clean because I know it gets better.

I had to build up a defense against the first drink.

I don't want to do this vicious cycle again.

I didn't want to go back out there because I knew what was out there.

If I choose to stay sober, I never have to get sober again.

This is the closest I've come to my playground.

HALT=Hungry, Angry, Lonely & Tired

Nip it in the bud.

I'm walking along on a cliff. One little slip and I fall off and I'm gone.

After a while, the program became a part of me.

I planned my meetings around the TV Guide, and I wondered why I couldn't get the program.

Fight the first thought.

I don't hear from guys in the barroom. They think I'm still in the bathroom.

I'm here to prepare myself for when my addiction comes calling.

I'm walking along on a cliff. One little slip, and I fall off, and I'm gone.

Leave users.

I saw it happening right in front of me all these years, and I knew it could happen to me again.

If you hang around the barbershop, you'll get a haircut.

If I have a headache I want an aspirin. If I take an aspirin I want a Motrin. If I take an 400 I want an 800. If I take an 800 I want a bag of dope.

Left to my own devices I will use again.

I'm responsible for my own relapse.

I'd be with my friends who were using in the car. I'd stick my head out the window. They'd ask why. Because I don't want to get high.

I had twelve years, then I got mentally drunk, then I picked up.

I didn't think that someone I didn't like could get me to drink.

I don't want to start all over again.

I don't want to be back out there, and I know it.

I thought I was ok because I didn't have a desire to drink. Then I got into a relationship. I dropped my meetings, and I picked up. I had no defenses against the first drink.

Nobody is exempt from using.

There is always a reason to pick up. I try to find a reason not to pick up.

Think drink, consequences; drink, consequences. Be ready to pay the price.

There always free cheese in a mouse trap.

It was so clear that I shouldn't have a drink that day. This was the promise of my sobriety.

You don't want to wake up the sleeping tiger.

My sign posts don't all point in the same direction.

All it took to get me back out there was bumping into an old friend.

There are so many things that can take us out.

At the end, I was valueless.

I've had so many ups and downs in my life, I don't know for sure where I am in this process.

I didn't fly around with Donald Trump delivering cocaine.

When I drink I don't end up in Palm Beach sipping an exotic drink, I end up in jail.

I was uncomfortable in my own skin twenty four hours a day seven days a week.

In the end, I was in control of nothing.

I know I can be right back in one of those cots in the shelter.

Keep the end of your story up front.

As long as you make every day count, you don't have to count every day.

I'd like to stay away from a drink and a drug today.

I'm on a natural high this morning.

I count my clean time. I didn't count my drug time.

It's hard for me to say that I'll stay sober today.

By keeping it in today, I'll be O.K.

All I've got is today. That's all I can do anything with.

I went one day without one drink, and I've stayed sober for the last nineteen years.

When you learn not to drink one day at a time, then you go and learn the Steps.

I only got a day. I keep it in that day.

This isn't school. Every day isn't an `A' day.

I need to just stay sober for the rest of the night.

One day I went to bed and hadn't had a drink that day. I was so proud. I later realized that most people do this every day.

When I quit drinking, I tried many, many things to make my life better. Only AA worked.

I only have to live with myself for twenty-four hours.

People told me that all I had to do was everything I was told to do for just twenty-four hours at a time.

I can't stay sober on yesterday's sobriety.

I talk to a sober alcoholic every day.

I do what I have to do. Every day it's easier.

I got a rush off the fear.

I help myself each and every day, no matter what.

Half measures availed us nothing.

I got a one-day reprieve, not a cure.

I want to live every twenty-four hours to the fullest.

I need to stay away from one drink for one day.

I do a little life every day.

I want to collect what is available to me every single day I have left.

I don't care if you have an hour clean or twenty-two years clean, you're a split second away from picking up.

If you don't pick up a drink, you won't get drunk.

If you do the right thing each day, it will get better.

It works. The big guy was here.

If I don't pick up the first drink, I can't get drunk.

I'm a witness that this program works. I'm with other witnesses each day.

NA will give you the freedom from addiction.

I'm a witness that this program works. I'm with other witnesses each day.

It may take a while to destroy the foundation you built. If you stop working the program, you may not pick up for years, but you will pick up.

It's funny how it works. I don't understand how it works, but I can see that it does work.

It's not a bad day. It's just a day I've had some bad thoughts.

If you do the right thing each day, it will get better.

It's the first drink that gets you drunk.

Insanity precedes the first drink.

I'm a drink away from a drunk.

I can do this if I stay out of my own way.

I didn't get the program, but I kept coming and it finally got me.

I've been drunk, I've been dry and I've been sober. Dry is insane.

I basically was a dry drunk. Now I know the definition of the term.

I couldn't believe I'm approaching four years of sobriety and still felt so crappy.

I didn't have a job a month ago, now I have two jobs.

I don't have a great big job, but I just got a promotion, to $6.40 an hour. I moved from French fries to hamburgers at Wendy's.

I don't get a kick out of coming to work so early in the morning and cleaning up after a hundred men. But I need to be there because it's clean, honest work and I need to show up.

MIRACLES, NO COINCIDENCES

Don't run out the door before the miracle happens.

If you have doubts about making it, look at me, I'm a miracle.

On Father's Day, when I was in treatment for drug addiction, my ten-year-old daughter gave me a photo album. She was on a commitment, a DARE commitment, having won the essay contest on drugs. There are no coincidences.

It's a wonder I didn't get killed out there the last time.

The miracle is every day.

A lot of us don't realize the miracle that we are in today.

Stick around; don't leave. Just don't leave before the miracle happens.

Another miracle of this program is that I became a power of example for my drinking family.

My miracle can't happen if I don't show up.

I'm always amazed that any of us are sober, we had it so bad.

Never in my wildest dreams twelve years ago would I have thought I'd be here saying I had twelve years sober.

I've had a lot of IBMs, itty, bitty miracles.

It takes a lot of caring to make a dream come true.

I'm a miracle.

There are times at night while driving home from a meeting with the boys, cops would absolutely, positively pass right by me.

I feel like it is meant for me to be here.

I kept seeing coincidences that weren't coincidences.

I absolutely love sobriety and would do anything to keep it.

I don't know why some people stay sober and some people never get the program.

I really didn't want to die but I wanted to die.

I'm really screwing up. I don't know what I'm doing.

I've been to a lot of programs. For a long time I complicated it.

My whole story is about me looking back to try to figure out what happened.

I need to lock my armor on me to protect myself from my addiction.

I know that where I was before was not a very good place.

Whenever anything got good, bad was just around the corner.

Loose lips sink ships.

It feels good to give myself a break.

I have a real big problem slowing down.

I go slower, get help, and do it right.

People used to tell me to slow down.

Even though I don't like it, I still walk to work today.

Give yourself a break.

If things are going slow, go slower.

All the gifts in sobriety are coming up around me. They're just not enough.

Don't turn your back on all the basics when you face a situation.

I thought conditions drove me to drink. I didn't think and needed change. I thought the world around me needed change.

One of our gifts as recovering addicts is we can sense the desperate that is crying.

Today I'm changing the way I think.

I wanted to change but I didn't know where to go.

Being sober taught me that everything is real.

The only thing that changed while I was drinking was the bars I went to.

If I don't change the person I brought in here, it will all be about drinking and drugging in a quick way.

I am facing situations in a way I never have before.

Hi, I guess I'm Ron. I guess I'm an alcoholic.

There is the old self/new self battles. I ride it out.

I was beginning to hear the message of what I should do to stay sober.

I've gotta be changin my way, or they gonna be closin that coffin on me.

Today I'm changing the way I think.

Stop looking at the clock and start listening.

You keep doing what you used to do, you'll keep getting what you used to get.

Growing up at the age of forty-six is like sleeping with a smelly blanket on a cold night---you gotta have it but man does it stink!

I'm not playing blackjack with my life. I'm not looking for twenty-one.

I've been getting clean with two years of sobriety. I notice new things every day that were right in front of me all along.

I've got a whole lot to learn, and I guess I'll never learn it all in this lifetime.

We are learning to for the right thing for the right reason at the right time.

I need to grow. I need to pick up the tools and grow.

You can grow or you can go.

There is a lot to be said for the simple life. It is that way when I don't try to arrange it.

My social skills have been quite retarded lately.

I can't rely on the thinking that brought me here to keep me sober.

Grow up and put the toys away.

You learn from your bad days when you get out of your own way.

I listen to what other people are telling me now.

I had good intentions when I was drunk but I never made a move.

Today, I'm spending the day with the twelve-year-old son of my girl friend, by myself. I'm scared to death.

Today, I'm struggling with the change in my life, but it's a positive change, and it's more than worth the struggle.

Now I'm a woman that learns from her mistakes.

I have to change the person I brought to AA.

Today, I'm giving myself an opportunity to grow.

I am growing up.

I'm reminded every time I read this how much I've changed, how much the program has changed me, and how much farther I can and must go.

The growth in me today is that I show up clear-headed for things.

They told me that in addition to becoming sober, I needed change.

We're here to change.

I have to change my behavior to make it fit my heart.

I no longer have all the money worries I use to have.

We can not, do not, outgrow this program.

There's a lot to be learned in this program.

What's happened is that I have changed.

To amend is to change.

Learn how to keep it.

Running away from life does not change life.

I didn't change at all. I need change now.

If I stop growing, I lose my momentum. I have to continually refuel at my meetings.

I'm learning how to get out of situations before situations get out of hand.

When I get bored, I make phone calls.

My mind is on automatic co-pilot to pick up the phone or the literature.

My disease doesn't want me to call anybody.

I was afraid to call my sponsor until I got past that first phone call.

I never gave the phone a fighting chance.

Every telephone number is a day of sobriety.

Help me pick up the four hundred pound telephone.

PREPARE FOR DISTRUST--FAMILY, RELATIONSHIPS, JOBS, OTHERS

I've done some damage to my family, my people.

My suggestion is: No matter what, no matter what, don=t pick up a drink.

I didn't drink yesterday. I need to do the same thing today.

You don't pick up no matter what, even when you want to.

I have to remember what worked for me the first time I got sober.

No matter what, you don't have to drink, even if you want to.

I've had cancer, broken relationships, and other disasters, but I'm still here, and I don't drink.

I can do anything and everything I want to do, as long as I don't drink.

I've had a lot of problems in sobriety-relationships have ended, I've had cancer but I don't drink and I don't use excuses to drink.

I've come close a few times to losing my sobriety.

There are just too many nasty "remember when's?"

I've been miserable for the last three to four weeks. That's an awful long time to be miserable without a drink.

I took a scoop of string beans, and it tasted like coke.

I wake up from drug dreams with a hangover, dope sick. But I don't use now.

Things from the past can come up, and bite you in the ass.

I just remember the kitchen table with all that Budweiser and Tequila.

That Heineken looked real good today.

If you wake up and realize you were using in your dreams, that's a freebie. It's not if you wake up and realize you're in a hospital.

We drank ourselves into euphoric splendor and we drank ourselves into living death.

My compulsion and my obsession has been lifted, just like the Promises said.

I still have the urges at times. I don't have the compulsion.

I carry the twenty-four hour chip in my pocket. I've got six months. I've still got the compulsion. I'm a newcomer.

I went in there and what amazed me was that the obsession of the drink was gone.

I was always obsessive and compulsive.

The first thing I'm going to do in my life without compulsion is AA.

I entered college with an eighth grade education. I was totally compulsive and completed college in two years.

I was standing outside a liquor store looking at the bottles. They were swaying, doing the hula dance.

I was always running to Chapter Five.

I was feeling pretty good and I didn't want that drink, but there was no force on earth to keep that drink out of my mind.

I had a scholarship to be a diver, and on my way to work with an Olympic diver, I was too busy smoking weed and thinking about what bicycles I could steal on the way home.

I have no desire now to drink or drug, and I know that has a lot to do with me being here now.

Issues are like tissues; you just blow through them.

Where I don't want to be, I should be.

I reached a point in my sobriety where I was miserable, but I wasn't drinking.

Like myself, I've seen others forget that they're alcoholics.

I'm the proverbial dry drunk.

The Twelve Steps are the blueprints to the program.

Going through the Steps is definitely the easier, softer way to sobriety compared to my way.

I need meetings because they keep me sober and around sober people, but I need the Steps because they help me to change and live.

The Steps and the Big Book are like a math textbook; you must start from the beginning.

I see a balance to the Steps and my Higher Power.

I've been going to a Step meeting every Tuesday night for three years. It has totally changed my life.

I accept being a human being. I really try to practice these Steps in all my life.

All the Steps are starting to look the same to me.

I quit without AA and the drinking went away, but all the reasons why I drank didn't go away.

If you don't go through those Steps, how are you going to teach someone else to do so?

I realize that none of the Steps are designed to hurt me.

You don't have to dance but you should learn the Steps.

I stick with the Steps sometimes without knowing it, but they saved my life.

The Steps are all melding together.

The elevator is broken; you've got to take the Steps.

I want to be a useful, content, joyous person. That's why I work the Twelve Steps.

The solution in the Steps of the fellowship gives me the love to work them.

I started to write stuff down on a piece paper, all the Steps.

I got tired of doing the Steps piecemeal.

Sometimes I do the Steps real well, sometimes I don't, but I do my best always.

The Steps have to be worked carefully to keep from hurting people more.

The only time I attempted to work the Twelve Steps was too rapid. I didn't really gain too much from it.

Everything I own, I owe to the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions.

The freedom is in The Steps.

It's a bitch trying to practice the Twelve Steps all night and not to practice them in order.

The goal of this process is to practice the principles of the Twelve Steps in our daily life.

The Twelve Steps are mostly looking inward, not backward.

The reason for AAís Twelve Steps is the joy of living.

I still have a problem doing the Steps.

It's a bitch trying to practice the Twelve Steps in my daily life and not in yours.

I've worked very hard for my sobriety to be honest with you.

No matter how long I've been in the program, I can still benefit from practicing Steps Ten, Eleven and Twelve on a daily basis.

Everything is coming up around me, all the gifts of sobriety.

Before the Twelve Steps I was sober, but I wasn't feeling very good.

It was a good idea for me to do the Steps formally.

I work the Twelve Steps to the best of my abilities.

I am sort of jumping around in the steps instead of having a formal process.

Trying to practice the principles of the Twelve Steps is about getting better each day.

Finally, my ass was on fire to get into the Steps.

I apply the Steps and Traditions today. Let me tell you, it ain't easy.

All the bad started fading when I applied the Steps.

You do the Steps in order. They're in order for a reason.

One the one hand, I'm amazed at how well I do the Steps. On the other hand, I'm amazed at how poorly I do them. I can't do them perfectly.

The Twelve Steps. They all seemed to fit.

The AA waltz--1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3.

I had two years in AA without a drink or a drug, but without the Steps. I was not drinking and not living. I didn't want to drink and I didn't want to be alive.

AA helps with the drinking, the steps help with the thinking.

I used to be NUTS--Not Using The Steps.

I know how to stay sober. I just have a hard time applying it.

All my steps in recovery were baby steps.

Do something good for yourself today.

I really believe in this step.

As long as I have the people, the meetings and the program, I'll be O.K.

I don't need anyone to help me be a loser. I can do it by myself. I need people to help me with the Steps. I can't be good enough alone.

At some of the Steps we balked.

And again I'm going back to stop, 1, 2, 3.

I was a two-stepper. I went from One to Twelve.

If I don't grow, I go.

If you're having trouble with a Step, go back to the previous Step.

I found truth and serenity in the Twelve Steps.

No matter how deep in the dark woods we are, it takes only Twelve Steps to get out.

My life has gotten so much better, Step by Step, through this journey.

I didn't want a half a pint, I didn't want a half a bottle, and I don't want half of the Steps.

I get more out of a meeting when we read something out of the books. I go to a lot of Step meetings.

The Twelve Steps are not the culmination of recovery for me. I'm going back to Step One.

I spent from 1983 to 1987 coming to meetings and trying to put the drink down. In 1988, I came to believe in Step One and Step Two.

In the first year people come. In the second year people come to. In the fifth year people come to believe.

I wanted to commit suicide because I hated myself because I couldn't stop using. The First Step was so important in my life.

If you don't feel Step One in your heart, if you don't surrender, you ain't gonna make it.

I came to believe there's a void between Steps One and Two.

I don't have a job. I don't have no money. I have faith.

The Two Stepper was me for a while before I realized it.

Step Three was hard for me. I had to quit being boss.

Instead of having a Higher Power, I wanted to be my Higher Power.

When I started looking at my part, I didn't want to see that shit.

It's powerful putting all that shit down on paper.

Step Four is the beginning of a life long process.

No matter how I was feeling, when I finished writing, I felt better.

If you're writing, it's worth every stroke of the pen.

Drinking and drugging are symptoms.

Doing the Fourth Step is like jumping high hurdles.

I delayed taking a moral inventory because I attributed so much of my troubles to others.

If I can unlock the door with the key in the Fourth Step, I'll see through to the path laid out for me.

I've been batting around the program since 1990, and this is the first time I've been half-way through Step Four.

I spent four and a half months on my Fourth Step.

Before I wrote down my Fourth Step, I was convinced I was a piece of garbage.

Until I got rid of my baggage with the Fourth Step, I had no idea how heavy it was.

I had a pile of notebooks, and it took me two years to write out my Fourth Step.

It's a tough job taking all of your inventories. It really is.

Anger, Resentment, Fear and Sex are what you deal with in the Fourth Step.

Conversion means starting with who we are, not who we wish we were. Kathleen Norris.

I had to make sure I didn't do my Eighth and Ninth Step in my Fourth Step.

I knew I had to do a Fourth Step. There was just no getting around it.

I was here when my first sponsor started this Step meeting in 1985. He pushed the Fourth Step.

I hit a wall in sobriety about five years ago. I got stale. I needed to clean house again. I started the Fourth Step over. There is no perfect way.

My character defects make me sick.

When they told me to take inventory, I said "we'll I got three thousand in the bank, a house, a car".

Working on my issues is not how I stay clean. I stay clean so I can work on my issues.

I was perfecting my defects like a machine.

I'm stuck on Step Six because I have some defects of character that just don't seem to want to go away.

My character defects want me to be in the spotlight.

Character defects were the chief causes of my alcoholic addiction.

I have many character defects, and they don't go away quickly.

If you're swimming the English Channel and you're carrying a large rock of character defects under one arm, let go and swim with both arms.

When I was using I never thought I would doing the things I am now doing, humbling myself.

Deal with guilt.

Forgive yourself.

The Eighth Step will allow me to look at me to see what is ok and what is not.

I spend August 1982 through November 1982--the holiday season--working on my Eighth Step.

The promises are the Nineth Step promises. They came true after the Nineth Step. There are also the Twelfth Step promises. There are more promises throughout the book.

I'm grateful that someday I'll be able to make amends, to try to pay something back.

I try not to hurt anybody.

I took my personal inventory this morning as I do every day.

I didn't even realize I was working on Step Ten until I read the literature.

When you're doing some Twelve-Step work, you should have someone with you.

It's great to be here on a commitment. I won't drink tonight.

If it wasn't for the message, I wouldn't be here.

I'm here to carry the message, not the mess.

I have done a lot of service work in this program and am reaping the benefits.

Don't shoot the messenger, listen to the message.

My first commitment in AA, no one showed up but me. It was trial by fire.

My recovery hinges on my ability to share the message.

Be a good enough friend to yourself to be a friend to others.

I believe that without the Twelfth Step, there would be no AA.

If I don't recognize it, I can't use it. If I don't use it, I can't share it. If I can't share it, it won't come back to me.

Reach out to another person even when you don't want to.

It just so happens that this guy has five months sober. I thought he might need my help.

Some time I do a good deed and I want to get paid for it. Sometime I don't. Today I don't.

Basically, I find that in the Twelve Steps you're not going to see anything that you don't already know.

The joy of good living is the theme of AA's Twelfth Step.

Working the Twelve Steps required a lot of writing for me. I was told I had to be active.

If you had something I wanted, and I had something you wanted, we'd each get what we wanted.

When you stop helping others, you cut yourself short.

Helping the person that needs help is the Twelfth Step in recovery.

It just so happens that this guy has five months sober. I thought he might need my help.

We try to carry the message to others. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't, but we try.

If I can share this message with a newcomer, I believe I'll be Twelve Stepping.

What I like most about the Twelfth Step is the power of example you become for others.

Going of a commitment and speaking allows me to Twelve Step.

The only person that I've not been too successful in Twelve Stepping is me.

If you give me your recipe, I'll follow it and carry it for the rest of my life.

You've got to be there for people, and people will do the same.

If someone hadn't Twelve Stepped me, I wouldn't have stayed.

What I do for you, I do from my heart, and that's no price for it.

Carry the message, not the disease.

Even if you're not in a halfway house anymore, you can still reach out.

Cling to the thought that, in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have--the key to life and happiness for others.

I am responsible for bringing the message to the sick and suffering.

I have sat my children down and told them about drugs and alcohol, that they should go on with school, that they should be what they are really worth. Then one day we will unite.

I'm here for you because someone was here for me.

I love passing the message.

Never hurt another alcoholic.

Listen to the message, and let the message in.

It's not the messenger, it's the message.

Many are called; few are chosen. The few must carry the message.

In the 19th century fires were put out by bucket brigades. You didn't care who was in front of you or who was behind you, you passed the bucket. AA put out the fire of alcoholism in my life. I receive the massage and pass it on.

I have to understand serivce: that which I do, and that which is done for me.

Don't make a list of the things you want from this program. You'll rob yourself blind.

I was amazed before I was halfway through.

How it works is the program. The promises are the results.

I was halfway amazed before I was halfway through.

I wouldn't have this chance if I weren't sober.

PROMISES AND REWARDS

Things are not working out the way I expected them to but they are working out very well.

The promises came true in little bits and pieces after I surrender. They came full-force in Step Nine.

Freedom from drugs and alcohol will allow you to accomplish whatever goals you set in your life.

I don't want to sound corny, but the Promises have come true for me.

If you come to these meetings, you'll change your attitude. If you change your attitude, you'll change your thinking. If you change your thinking, you'll change your behavior. If you change your behavior, you'll change your life. If you change your life, you'll change your destiny.

If I use a bag today, tomorrow, I won't be the same person.

I make time for things--recovery, family, job, and significant other.

What happens on any day if I don't have a routine is I have time.

I had a moment of clarity one night. I don't know why. I was completely drunk.

I'm just now getting my marbles.

Look where you started from and look where you are now. Things could be a lot different.

Illusions cannot be sustained in reality.

Using is a power. So is recovery.

I don't want to leave no mixed message.

Don't confuse me with the facts.

I'm learning now to respect the process it takes to work this program.

During my drinking, when I drank, my life was miserable. It was just as miserable when I didn't drink.

Picking up leads to pain, not discomfort.

You got a good attitude? You'll get good results. You got a bad attitude? See ya!

I wound up in this mess so full of pain that I wanted the earth to stop so I could get off.

The alcoholic's life is a life quite desperation.

I never liked being an alcoholic, and I still don't like it.

This disease brought me to a level of despair I never ever want to go back to.

All I wanted to do was stifle pain, stifle life and stifle me with drugs.

The price of admission through that door is pain.

Now I can put my head on the pillow and get a whole night's sleep.

My recovery is going well. I could have let my attitude overcome me but I overcame my attitude.

Pride and fear are the boogey men of the Fourth Step.

If you are going through the terror, right or wrong, it will work out.

I drank because of my pain, and I liked it.

It wasn't the physical pain in my life that made me think about AA. It was more the mental anguish.

My attitude is just as strong as my disease.

Alcohol may numb out your pain, but it also numbs out your joy.

When I'm in pain, I've got a good support system.

The price of admission through that door is pain.

Recovery is not about pain; it's about discomfort.

I would bawl in front of the mirror hating myself.

To carry secrets, I have to be scared or ashamed and I'm neither today.

I had morning and late night feelings of utter despair.

My drinking led me to pursue melancholy morbidly.

I knew how to ride the wave of pain and misery.

All I knew was pain and anger, and I had plenty of that.

Pride keeps us in the streets for a long time.

I wasn't able to show my face around here because I wasn't clean.

I thought I'd be O.K. after I killed the pain.

Sober to me was a state of mind that went on and off.

I came out of my house this morning smiling. The frown on my face the last few months is doing no good.

I've been in many hurting situations. That's why I drank like I drank and drugged like I drugged.

All I had to say was "God take the pain away".

I'm not ashamed of my big ears no more.

If the way I respond to you affects you in a bad way, that's your problem.

I'm going through so many mixed emotions in early recovery.

I let my pride beat me down along with my drug.

The last six months, my attitude has stunk like raw sewage.

Life around me was pretty miserable.

I'm used to feeling and dealing with the bad things in my life.

I'm not angry because I'm scared. I'm angry because I'm resentful.

Drinking helped me to deal with my feelings by making me not feel my feelings.

Drinking kept me in a somewhat O.K. place.

That guilt will eat you up.

My attitude got me no where fast in the past.

I had to face the pain or I was going to drink again.

I got offended when a drug addict told me my social skills were limited.

Hurt is under anger. Every time I stick my hand under anger I get bit.

I can't explain your pain. I testify to overwhelming pain in my life.

Everybody has his own pain. I had enough for me.

Sobriety works on many different levels.

I got sober because I couldn't take the pain any more.

I was in so much emotional pain that I couldn't stand myself.

Talk about your feelings 'cause your feelings will take you out.

All comedy is set in motion by some kind of pain.

Danger is anger with a "D".

Get that feeling; you can't beat it.

Avoid abuse. Refuse abuse.

If alcoholics don't change their thinking & feeling, they will relapse.

My recovery was a paradox because the better and safer I felt, the more in touch I was with my past pain.

If I didn't blow my anger and get drunk, I had a good day.

If you want pain, don't drink and do nothing.

It felt good to get sober. You could throw a brick, at me and it would just fall off.

I cried long enough. I laugh in recovery now.

If you're miserable, why be sober? You have to get happy to stay sober. AA does that.

I use to brush my teeth with the light off to keep from looking at myself.

If I had no pain, I'd never want to change.

If pain hadn't brought me here, I wouldn't have realized how messed up I am. I'm grateful to be an alcoholic.

If you don't like pain, don't do painful things.

If you haven't been through it, you don't really understand.

So many of us have been to places we wish we never were.

I've got too much information to pick up.

I know what happens when I use; I don't know what happens when I don't use.

I got a good education. That's what remains after you forgot what you learned.

College was one of the most fulfilling life experiences I have ever had.

I was making tons of money, had all the recognition anyone could want. But I had no soul.

I still don't understand life on life's terms.

Continuing sobriety requires consistency.

It is the experience of education and not the education itself that makes it a worthy pursuit.

It was the things I picked up along the way that kept me from getting high today.

It is very important for an addict to have someone to blame.

The jerk was never me.

I was great at blaming everyone everywhere for what was going on in my life.

I still want to place blame on others for my problems. I need to take a look at myself and the storm I'm in.

I hurt a lot of people in my path, but, of course, it was your fault.

If you blame everybody, you're a victim and you'll use.

I could get around the responsibility of my own life by blaming those in charge.

If only they would do what they were supposed to do, then I would do what I was supposed to do. Then I'd be happy.

Detach with love.

I'm nobody to judge anybody.

Anything that made me feel uncomfortable made me feel resentful.

He who refuses to remember the past, is destined to repeat it.

People looked at me like I had three heads.

I had a slicing, cutting word for everything my best friend said.

When I was clean I didn't understand that no one is exempt from relapse.

If I resent, I'm going to use. If I keep secrets, I'm going to use. If I become ungrateful, I'm going to use.

The times I relapsed, I didn't want to stay sober, I really wanted to drink.

Know-it-alls go out.

All those excuses are right there at the bar.

I've been doing shit to sabotage myself.

When I relapsed again, I just did a shot to see if I could. In one week, I was drinking a fifth a day.

If I choose not to be powerless, I'm going to be really powerless.

All my life people have been helping me. I always wanted more. If I didn't get more, I resented it.

I'm not used to spending Labor Day straight.

Yesterday's a cancelled check; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is cash in hand. Spend it wisely.

It's me stopping me from going any farther.

I didn't know all this was poison for me.

I never knew what was wrong with me before I knew I was an alcoholic.

I'm a carpenter. I measure twice, cut once. I try to do that in this program.

This is the only program I know that relies on self diagnosis.

I'm still scared today, but it's a good scare.

Stay in the moment. Put your head where your feet are.

I had to really, really look at me.

I'm not in recovery. I'm in discovery.

I used to think I was a victim, but I was a volunteer.

Hocus-Pocus! Keep the focus.

Sometimes I have a hard time staying focused. I left the house this morning without my teeth. Stephen A Webb aka The Governor

I can't see through my own bullshit.

Today I am who I am, and if you don't like me...oh well.

To be aware is to be alive.

I need to live in the real world and stay sober.

I have to prove myself to me, not to anyone else.

Every time the Academy Awards come on television, think about us addicts. We deserve some awards for all we acted out.

My awareness is getting keener.

I haven't been focused the way I should've been focused. I focused on anything but staying sober.

Lo and behold in 1988 I realized I was a drunk and needed to be here.

I went to school for food and beverage management. I didn't know if this was a part of my addiction.

Always reach for the moon. If you fall short you will still land on a star.

I'm only a human being. I make mistakes.

I can use my head now in sobriety. I couldn't before.

I never realized I was addicted. Now I realize I am an addict for the rest of my life.

Just let the bullshit fly. Don't feed into it.

I overcame my resistance with exuberance.

The rest of the crap that goes on around me is garbage.

Today, I work on what I have to work on.

Change begins with the person we are, not the person we think we are.

I won't remember my story if I don't repeat it.

I had three kids. I knew it, but I didn't realize it.

Hey, my name is, uh. My name is uh. Uh.

Hi, my name is Shawn. I'm Shawn. I'm an alcoholic. I just didn't know what to do with Shawn.

I learned that my problems are not so big.

Constant vigilance is hard work.

I have only one character defect, my inability to see the other five hundred.

I'm an alcoholic. Drugs I just threw that into the mix too.

It is easy for me to say fuck myself.

My thoughts materialize, become manifest.

I'm not drunk; I just walk this way.

I'm known as the sickest drug addict and alcoholic in Dorchester. Have been for a while.

I had one basic problem--alcohol. If I took care of that one problem, all of my other problems are just "situations". They are bound to get better.

I'm not ready for the street yet.

If an alcoholic knew better, he could do better.

I'm going to think of using. I'm a drug addict.

I'm been an alcoholic every moment of my life. Before I took my first drink. When I was drinking, and now that I'm not drinking. It too me a long time to admit that.

Look at the light, not the lampshade.

I'm not overwhelmed going to therapy appointments.

Put the club down you've been hitting yourself over the head with.

I have to change this ass-hole into the person I am becoming.

Are you going to unlock your potential?

AA gives me the opportunity to earn respect, self respect and respect for others.

I think the drink through now.

I abused every liberty that life afforded. Now I fully accept the necessity of discipline.

After I got my third year medallion I still couldn't stand in front of the mirror and shave.

Give 100% to yourself before you give it to someone else.

It will take all the courage you have to stay sober.

I got self-respect by firing an M16.

I have to replace fear with faith so I go on commitments.

I'm going to the Board [parole] soon. My gun is filled, and I'm going in blasting everything I know they want.

Walking to the meeting with eight guys from my house, asking each other how our day was, that is spiritual to me.

When I start coming out of myself I start to feel better.

You don't even know what is happening, but you know it's good.

They talk about how money helps you grow spiritually. I still can't see how that's possible.

When I let spiritual thinking into my life I began to see strange coincidences that weren't coincidences.

When my life is really high or really low, I know it's not going to last.

I had a lot of faith, but I lot a lot of faith due to drinking and drugging.

This guy asked if anyone knew anything about spirituality. I really wanted to know.

The quality of my faith has lagged behind the quantity.

I say to my Higher Power, let your words not mine be spoken.

I came in here with God in my life.

I had the human quality to know when I was nourished.

By the grace of God and the fellowship of AA, I'm sober today.

I lacked the spiritual touch. They call it conscious contact with God.

I can't make anything happen in life. My staying sober is a gift of God.

All my prayers will be answered in his time, not mine.

Move out of the obsession of self.

I'm grateful today because I know I came a long way.

If you're grateful you can't be hateful.

If you're grateful you can be helpful.

A lot of things keep me grateful.

If anything, I'm grateful to be sober.

These days I'm grateful I have a room that locks from the inside.

My attitude has turned to gratitude.

I'm grateful I was a blackout drinker from the beginning. I can't remember most of my drinking.

I'm grateful to be a grateful member of this group.

I'm grateful that I don't have those liquid handcuffs strangling my life today. No dope, no withdrawal.

I finally have a license and a car with matching front and rear plates.

Be happy you're free and walking about. Some people will never get out.

My life is wonderful. It really is, and I'm so grateful for it.

I'm grateful even when I feel bad. I couldn't feel like using.

I'm grateful that people don't run from me today.

I'm grateful that I don't feel invisible anymore.

Every day clean is an unmerited gift to me.

Some people are just not grateful for being sober.

If you're having a real hard time, make a gratitude list every hour of that day.

I got gratitude when community service kept me humble.

I was so moved to gratitude.

I'm very grateful that I have everybody in this room here for me.

I'm grateful for everything in my life today.

Up until fifteen minutes ago, I wasn't too grateful. Then I saw the flood of people come in and I found gratefulness.

I'm grateful to be here. I'm really digging it.

I know a grateful heart won't use.

I'm grateful that everything was stripped away from me because that forced me to look at what was left, which was me.

I heard about attitudes and being grateful, what others have given up, and was so grateful for being at the meeting.

I'm grateful I came here. I know the alternatives.

I'm grateful for car payments, mortgage payments, etc., because before I was worried about having a place to live.

I'm grateful to this program and the people in it.

It's really nice to feel grateful for being straight and sober.

I'm also grateful to myself. I have to be selfish these days.

I am grateful to have people in my life who love me for who I am, not what I have.

I'm really grateful for being here this morning. It's right where I need to be.

I think I can be understanding; I know for damn sure I can be grateful.

A grateful heart will never drink.

Grateful addicts don't use.

Gratitude is not an option for a recovering individual. It is the source of peace.

I love to see these big strong men be gentle. That's where the term "gentlemen" came from.

I have an attitude of gratitude.

Be open-minded; remain teachable.

I don't stay sober unless I have gratitude.

Grateful people are those who can celebrate even the pains of life.

I'm grateful for the sun shinning down through a beautiful, cloudless sky on our beautiful group of addicts, having a meeting outdoors.

I'm grateful for all you guys being here. If you weren't here this place would be empty, and I'd be alone.

I was just sitting here thinking what an ungrateful bastard I am.

I'm grateful for a handshake.

I'm sorry I took so much time, but I have so much gratitude I want you to know.

I'm grateful I have a desire to go to meetings.

I'm extremely grateful that God gave me another breath.

I'm grateful for a handshake.

I'm grateful to have the message today, yesterday and the days to come.

I'm grateful that this park is no longer my home.

I'm grateful for staff pulling me up when I'm self-willed run riot.

If we don't have gratitude, we'll have an attitude.

If you're ungrateful or complacent, you'll pick up.

If we don't have gratitude, we'll have an attitude.

My Higher Power is a sucker for gratitude. So I show it to him and he helps me.

I'm grateful to not lie, cheat and manipulate.

I'm grateful for staff pulling me up when I'm self-willed run riot.

Make a gratitude list.

I got kicked out of the Nichols program. But I have been able to use the tools, and I'm grateful for the Nichols program.

Left to my own devices, my choices are horrible.

I was living in any moment not this moment.

The only thing I did right when I first came to AA, was I kept coming.

Twenty years ago I was forced by friends, family, employers and the courts to go to AA. I didn't like AA, and I didn't like anyone in AA.

It took me fifteen months to graduate from a three-month therapeutic community.

No matter how hard your program gets, stick and stay.

It took me nine years to put thirty days together.

It took me fifteen years to get one year.

I don't yet know what it is, but if I keep coming, I'll find out.

They would say "`Keep coming' til you want to".

I got sober in spite of myself.

Give yourself a chance to let this thing work for you.

I just really collapsed in my second year.

Here I am all sweaty and smelly, but I'm here.

If you're new, keep coming. It's sooo worth it.

After a year and a half sober, I got my job in order, I got my house in order, and now I need to get my insides in order.

Now in my fourth year, I'm able to balance my checkbook.

It took me sixteen years to get four months.

As long as I stay clean and sober, good things happen.

Today I suit up and I show up.

I have a lot farther to go than I thought.

Stick around because the fog clears up and wonderful things begin to happen.

Slowly I'm getting there. I don't know if I'll ever get there, but I'm headed in the right direction.

I take a long time to improve.

I picked up a drug in 1962, and I'm dealing with putting it down now.

It takes me longer because I'm a little sicker.

They tell you in five years you get your marbles back. In another five years you get to play with them.

If you keep coming, you'll realize that you are a sick cookie.

It's awesome to see anyone stay around.

If you're coming back, throw away the toys.

I'm gonna keep coming, and I hope you do too.

It's hard to go before the parole board, knowing you're a changed person and be treated like a piece of shit. Payback.

The longer I'm sober, the more I see where I am and how far I have to go.

I'm going to keep coming because it really works.

I'm glad I stuck around.

Keep coming and give yourself a break.

This program takes time, sometimes a long time, sometimes a very long time.

It took me nine year to get thirty days.

How do you get twelve or fifteen years sober? One day at a time.

For the newcomer, keep coming. If you've been here 90 years, keep coming.

Keep coming back. It works if you work it; so work it, you're worth it.

It took me nine years to get thirty days, and ten years to get six months. Keep coming.

If you don't feel the difference, if you don't see the difference, then you have to start coming around some more.

If you stick around long enough the program will get you and you will get it.

It took me longer to get here than it should have.

It took me a long time to get thoroughly whipped.

I don't know, maybe I'm starting to get a little bit ahead of myself but I feel great.

I've got fifty days. I'm not all right, but I can get alright.

I've been coming here to this building for eight years.

Never give up on yourself.

Closed mouths don't get fed.

I try to keep an open mind. I try to remain teachable. I try to be open and honest. Very difficult.

I can be slightly insane today and that's O.K.

I'm clean. I was open-minded enough to listen.

AA has given me the ability to make choices in my life.

My stuff is basically put out there. There isn't always discretion.

I don't have to do what I did.

I never knew that it was my right to do the right thing.

I woke up this morning with choices and with these choices, I make changes.

I can't settle for less any more.

I was denied parole and did my time at Harbor Lights.

Using don't sound good. Losing don't sound good.

The choice to get sober just came over me.

We've got a chance today guys, let's take it.

Using may work for a while but somehow it always ends up kicking me in the butt.

We don't need to do this the hard way.

I choose not to use.

I have a choice today. I might as well make the right one.

If I pick up, I made the choice. No one made me pick up but me.

I've seen many, many tragedies because people didn't choose this way of life.

Drinking today is not an option. I'm a blackout drinker and the progression is fast.

Anything you put before sobriety you sacrifice.

I take this as a joke and feel like I'm struggling for less.

You know, I'm a pretty important guy today. I'm sober. I wish all those other jerks would realize it.

We can't do anything until we get sober.

I don't make a lot of money at my job, but I make good money, more money than I ever made illegally.

My primary purpose is to stay sober today.

It just dawned on me that the first thing I have to take care of is my alcoholism.

I didn't come here to solve my money problems.

I don't pick up, no matter what.

I'm not going back to stinking, being dirty, with a wig on, weighing ninety-four pounds.

Instead of life or death think of life or drink.

Been there, done that, don't want to go back.

There's no more going out there and giving it another shot.

I don't want to be part of the living dead anymore.

I went to downtown Boston and didn't want to drink. That was the first sign for me.

I don't need to use today, I don't need to trick today, I don't need to sell myself today.

Alcohol don't cut it no more. It was more important than anything in my life.

I don't know what's around that corner of the road to recovery, but I do know what's around the corner of the road I used to take.

I didn't want to go back to my past.

Today, I don't have to much, but I'm not willing to give it up.

Today, I can't imagine going through what I went through. I must not use.

That spike can take a hike.

For a person like me to pick up a drink or a drug, I'd rather have someone take me out back and shoot me.

It's impossible for me to conceive of going back to the life I had six years ago.

I thought it's be a great idea to not drink today on the 4th of July.

I think of Miss America on July 4th, dressed up in an American flag outfit. She was so sexy. But I don't drink.

I don't want to drink for the rest of my life, because today might be my last day.

I really don't want a drink, but I'm glad you asked for it made me think.

I decided to get off the pain train.

I've been a crash dummy my whole life. I want to be a janitor and clean things up.

My boyfriend's name is not Budweiser.

It's all about change.

I'm sixteen months sober, and I feel like I'm just walking in the door for the first time.

My past can be my future.

Being in recovery is like having a bowling ball suspended over your head. You're always aware that it might fall.

Because I've got a little time doesn't mean I cured.

Be a beginner every day.

I have to stay green, because if I get ripe I'll get rotten.

AA is a good place to learn what it means to be humble.

When I was learning about humility, number one, I didn't understand it and number two, I didn't like it.

Get humility so you won't get humiliated.

I had to be struck with humility before I could be open for faith in a Higher Power.

Everything that's good, bad or indifferent, is a part of me today.

There are a million things I do each day that are humbling.

I came here on my own. I want to pay attention to everything.

I believe I'm humbling myself now by being in this halfway house and saying I'm homeless.

I have to humble myself, especially when I'm being disrespected.

If I'm not humble, if I'm not grateful, I'm a dead duck.

Page 125 seems like an awful long way down the road.

It's amazing how humility and gratitude gives us such strength.

It's hard to stay humble when you sound so good.

Humility and intellect are not incompatible as long as humility comes first.

True acceptance is accepting all the inconsistencies of life.

If you have a problem responding to me, read page 449.

Being macho and being humble don't mix.

I need to be where I'm at.

I got the job. I got the bank account. I got the stuff now that normal people got. But I'm not normal. One ounce of booze or one hit is the difference.

I'm ok, you're ok.

Learn humility, not humiliation.

I'm not the AA poster child. I've got a long way to go.

I've been sober twenty-two years, and I still wish I wasn't an alcoholic.

I haven't had a drink since 1973, I didn't intend to stay sober.

I miss the excitement of drinking, not the consequences, but the excitement. I haven't had a drink in twenty-four years.

I have got through a lot in sobriety. I'm going to get some more.

Tomorrow, I've got thirty days. It took me a long, long time to get thirty days.

Jesus, I'm here. I've been here for a couple of years.

The longer I'm sober, the more I see how much longer I have to go.

I got sober five years ago because I knew that I was insane.

Don't count time, make time count.

The only clean time I had was on a respirator.

I love being with winners all the time.

Celebrate every success, no matter how small.

I don't have any amazing things to say. I'm celebrating two years tonight.

My sobriety date is on leap year. I get a year every four years.

I'm not up here to pat myself on the back.

I've been clean seven years, eight months. I can remember it all like it was yesterday.

If you don't think time means something, get some and lose it.

Find those people, the winners. Hang with them, and do what they do.

I forgot how to be a friend. I'm learning that over again.

Don't follow me because I may not lead. Don't lead me because I may not follow. Walk side-by-side with me.

You're the only person that can save you.

If I want to see the light from my Higher Power, I must be honest in my prayers.

I had no trust of anyone who didn't drink.

WHO! = Willingness, Open mindedness, Honest.

I'm really good about bitching and moaning when it comes to any kind of responsibility.

I haven't stole nothin' in three years.

I don't spoil Christmas any more.

Ninety percent of the things in my life I'm responsible for. Ten percent is other people, places and things.

Honesty? I had no honesty. Today I wouldn't buy a hot set of tires.

My trust package is going down hill. I need to get out of the house I'm in.

I'd love to buy some hot tires for my car, but I can't. This place got me wicked honest.

My whole life all I did was lie.

I'm very honest about my alcoholism, but not very honest about anything else.

Pretty soon I was boosting every day.

I'm making an honest effort. I know when I'm not.

Your life is not my responsibility. Your problems are not my responsibility.

I don't listen if someone speaks from left field. I listen when they speak from the left tit.

He used to be brutal. Now he's brutally honest.

HOW=Honesty, Openness & Willingness

If this was a program for those who need it we wouldn't have enough room. This is a program for those who want it.

I have to change this as-hole into the person I am becoming.

My life is riding on this message. I'll leave this meeting, go home and look into the mirror. I need to know that I was honest.

I'm not going to lie to you. I'm going to believe what I say. I'm not going to lie to myself anymore. If I lie to myself, I will come to believe the lie.

If I'm not truly honest with myself, I will drink and drug again.

I'm not patting myself on the back, I'm enjoying the honesty.

Live with vigorous honesty.

I've got a mind that can't be trusted.

Hope came as a result of doing the work.

I pray that I'm giving someone hope out there because you all have given me hope.

I ask are my aspirations viable? Will they hurt anybody?

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.

Hope is temporary, love is forever.

I don't give hope, I ask for faith. I want you to ask too.

I don't feel like I'm dying anymore.

I didn't hit bottom, I lived on it. There is no hope on the bottom.

I don't get anyone clean. I don't get anyone high. I'm here to give you hope.

I saw the hope, the happiness and the sobriety in the people in AA.

I'm unemployed but not unemployable.

I'm looking forward to this new adventure.

I'm homeless, but I'm not helpless.

I had to separate hope and faith.

I thought I was so tough when I got to AA, but I was afraid to sell raffle tickets.

Once I got through the fear of selling raffle tickets, I went out and applied for a job.

In my addiction, I'm a coward.

I got to the point where I hated my own skin.

I felt like a pile of garbage with a head stuck on.

My fear sets in, and I don't want to go but I force myself.

Some of the places my using took me were not pretty.

My self-loathing got so strong, I wanted to commit suicide even when I was sober.

Because I had no self worth, none of the men in my life had any self worth.

I had no fear and started getting suicidal. Tried three times.

I still want to escape from myself.

The problem is when I look into the mirror.

The two things I need to keep in front of me are fear and gratitude.

I'm fear driven like most alcoholics.

When fear creeps up, my mind lies to me.

I got a rush off the fear.

To carry secrets I have to be scared or ashamed, and I'm neither today.

I never have to be alone again.

I was able to leave my nervous self at the door and go right to the keg.

I must walk into darkness to find the light and walk into fear to find peace.

I want to go back to Bogata, but I'm afraid I'll do the drugs.

I don't run today.

I had a lot of guts, when I drank.

I was always scared. When I succeeded, it was succession through fear.

My Father was an alcoholic who never got treatment because of his fear and pride. It killed him. My brother, an addict and a policeman, is following that pattern.

May it lead us out of the shadowy valley of fear and into a paradise of peace and good cheer.

If I wasn't scared before, I was horrified.

I never received as much love as I do in this program.

My mother and I had a cup of tea this morning. She told me she loved me. She loved me from fourteen to twenty-four when I was a using prostitute, but she just couldn't handle it.

I'm good to people who are not good to me. Twice as good, because I love them.

I'm discovering the joy of the journey.

Happiness will overcome us if we let it.

I don't know how to be a joyous, happy, content person.

I don't know about you. I want to be profoundly happy. That's why I'm here.

Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.

If I love the most the person I like the least, I might get the message.

Man needs love more than anything else.

My whole life was trying to find a quick fix to happiness.

If you want to learn patience, go to patients' accounts.

AA has patient people. I didn't think I was like AA.

I miss what I used to do, the chaos and the insanity, but that's part of life and shall pass.

I think the drink through now.

I want everything yesterday.

Move on when you can move in the right direction.

Complacency is a killer, and I don't want to be complacent.

Today I'm standing up for everything instead of falling for everything.

There's just so much I need to do, but I just procrastinate.

Action, to me, was sitting in the back of a Big Book meeting and putting everybody down.

Now it's time for me to stand up.

I walk my talk.

The farther away I got from a drink or a drug, the closer I am because I tend to forget. I got a built in forgetter.

I heard what I heard when I needed to hear it.

My wantness was all wrong.

I'm trying to make it with what I need not what I want.

We'd fill the Fleet Center if everyone who needs to be here came.

If you really want it, it's here.

If you don't need it, you're not here.

I want better things for me, and I know there are better things out there.

Even though things are going great in my life, I know I still got that stinkin' thinkin'.

I don't get perfect; I progress toward perfection.

I knew this wasn't going to be a quick fix.

It's a long road to trudge and it's trudging.

The only thing I do perfectly is I don't use everyday.

Things get better. We get sober simply because we don't pick up today.

As things went on, things progressed.

I ain't perfect, but one thing I do perfectly is not use.

I have my own phone.

I don't often step back; I seem always to be going forward.

I'm not the perfect addict. I'll never be the perfect addict.

It is good to be on the right track, but if you don't move, you're going to get run over.

I'm a help now. I'm not a pain in the ass.

You can be homeless even if you have a place to live.

I'm now a productive member of society, and I'm proud of it.

Just being in recovery today is a blessing.

I can play with my grandchildren and not worry about being a sick individual.

I wanted to drink, and I wanted to get high and live happily ever after.

Do I live life on life's terms? Yes, happily and sober.

It's there for me and it's there for others.

Sober is better.

The other day, I went on a jet ski and a trampoline for the first time. I never had time to enjoy these things because I was on drugs.

It's been quite a journey.

I learned how to live sober because I learned how to stay sober.

I have constructive behavior patterns now.

I was desperate to stay sober because I didn't want to lose my children.

I went over to my parents' house today, and I was welcomed.

Do it sober.

I actually went through all the trials and tribulations of relationships and a couple of weeks ago, I got married.

I was always rippin and tearing. I never paid attention to my family. Yesterday I helped my Father with a cookout, and we smiled all day.

I'm going to get my children back some day.

I'm in recovery, my wife gets cured.

Sober People are hip squares.

I feel terrible, but I don't drink and that's balls.

I did a lot of damage to myself out there. That's done. Now I take care of myself every day.

It's great to be anywhere sober.

I have a life today beyond my wildest dreams.

I love being sober.

I want to get busy living, not busy dying.

My Mother said I'd better hurry up and die because if I didn't, no one would come to my funeral.

I like being sober much more than I like being drunk.

Nothing in the world can compare to my sobriety.

Now that I'm sober, I'm able to keep thousands of dollars in my bank account, and I didn't steal any of it!

Today, I got up and I was free, free from alcohol.

It's a better life being sober.

I don't settle for less no more.

I stuck around and things got better and better in my life.

Tables and chairs exist. Humans are supposed to thrive.

The only reason I have so much in my life is that I stopped drinking.

The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead.

This program has given me life. Using can only enhance my feelings.

In my drinking days, nothing could compare with my current life.

Getting better is a life-long thing.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life. I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

I learned how to stay sober because I learned how to live sober.

Life isn't always great for me today, but it is always better than it was.

Life is good to me today. I don't have to settle for less. And you don't have to settle for less.

Life is good & life is bad. Now I can show up for it.

It's great to be in recovery. I play golf. I got a hole in one. I bowl. I won a bowling tournament last week.

I'm now a productive member of society, and I'm proud of it.

I don't think I could live such a peaceful and fufilling life without AA.

Each small task of everyday life is part of the total harmony of the universe.

I can go through a lot of things now that would have killed me before.

Now I like myself for who I am.

I set no boundaries or limits on my new-found position.

If you're going to get excited about something today, get excited about life.

I've got twenty-nine years sober, fifteen of it was not in these halls. I came here to be sober and serene.

I know the difference between chaos and serenity, and I know which one I want.

I have that peaceful, serene feeling inside.

I've known chaos, and I've known serenity, and I know which one I want.

I'm cured. I swear!

I've been married for fifty-five years, off and on.

The first time I got sobriety, I lost it. I started a new relationship, it went sour, I picked up. Then my sobriety was lost, the biggest loss ever.

I'm not the man I used to be, not the man I thought I'd be, but I'm the man I can be.

=================================================================

DID NOT FIT CODE (reassign later)

Bullsh-t. The answer to all my addiction.

CIA=Catholic, Irish, Alcoholic

Doors don't always swing both ways.

I raise my glass to human reason. May it protect all, black, yellow, and white.

I didn't think I should leave this woman alone in the bathroom while she was choking on a french fry.

I knew if I didn't pass out, I'd go out.

I'm the animal in female form, like you. I love to fuck.

If you want to be a tough guy, stay sober.

If I can do it, you can do it.

If you think you got it, you ain't got it.

Almost anything can happen to me.

Come here but go away.

For so long, my life was just about self preservation.

I was a drug addict long before it was popular.

I show up for life.

I don't respond to everyone the way they would like. Everybody doesn't respond to me the way I would like.

I never had a straight thought.

I had a little lawyer who charged big bucks.

I know that my behavior is real radical.

I did a lot of smoking and chocking in this area.

I went to Women's Inc. and sat at the table with my counselor for a month.

If we hold hands and move forward like we're capable, AA will

Jimmy Carter was the only President in my lifetime who I respected.

My life was full of holes on the streets.

Nevertheless I was a junkie.

One thing I like to do is most, and a most pit opened up on a sober cruise so I moshed.

This guy called me an ass-hole. I said yeah, but at least I'm sober.

This shit is just beginning. Use your vivid imagination.

Whether I'm drinking or not, I'm drunk.

You did then what you knew; when you know better, you can do better. Maya Angelou

In my drinking career my only communication was with my self.

It was always human beings I was at odds with.

Last year, I was supposed to be an outpatient counselor. I got the job, then I got drunk.

Look at that turkey, that wimp. He doesn't drink enough. Don't even give him a drink.

Money was never a solution for me.

My wife still calls me a rebel without a cause.

My biggest accomplishments in life was passing a field sobriety test.

My lungs are in excellent shape today, I can smoke.

My fifteen year old daughter is a great kid. She's nothing like I used to be.

No one needed Chapstick last summer.

Not every morning is a good morning for me.

Now that I'm in AA, all those things I talked about sitting on that bar stool are coming true.

Now I can stand up for something instead of falling for anything.

People don't cringe when they walk by me anymore.

Some people never want to get help. That's why we need interventions.

Sometimes keeping it simple ain't so simple.

That whole alcoholic story happened to me.

The truth is I don't have another run and the truth is it isn't getting any better out there.

This disease has no other purpose than to take you out of this world.

Today I don't stink.

Today I can live up to all my aliases. I can be a son, a father, a worker and a friend.

When I was active, I kind of told my life story to anyone who would listen.

Yes, I'm an educated addict.

All I can do is set an example.

At any stage of use, I came more out of myself. Alcohol, coke, women, heroin, selling, pimping, all took me more out of myself.

Being gay is like being an alcoholic, you didn't ask for it.

I must have been better but I didn't know it.

I had this massive life change as I started to get sober. It was insane.

I was trained to drink in Pittsburg.

I stared at this beer bottle and said, "Man his shit really fucks up my life."

I found a way to dig my own grave with my teeth.

I don't ever want to forget where I came from.

I was always in a crowd where I could look down at other people.

I saw a shrink and got a little better for a while.

I didn't have anything to get relief anymore.

I don't feel weird walking through the East Village now.

I used to drink right here on the front stairs.

I used to make the assumption that you either drank or you belonged to the Christian club.

I don't want much, I just want to be free.

I know how to make this Budweiser. Send him to AA.

I hate my inner child.

I was a drunken mother. There was nothing respectable about it.

I went back to my home town and everyone had to kiss my ass because I'm sober. I only wanted people to tell me I'm doing good.

I can't come to Boston just to socialize.

I lived my life through other people's lives. I wanted their opinions.

I'm just gonna go for it.

I'm like,--I'm wacked.

If I wasn't high, it just wasn't me.

================================================================

I.A. On my first date at twelve, he bought a six pack and drank one. I drank five and blacked out. I decided I didn't want to date anymore. I'd just drink. I always wanted to be an alcoholic.

I.A. I really, really, really, really wanted to be cool because I didn't want to be me. That's why I drank.

I.B. When I drank, my personality changed and not for the better.

I.B. Alcoholism ambushed me.

I.C.1. My children became the parents when I became the child.

I.C.2. I hated my roommates. They had interests in life.

I.D.1. In my drunken state, my best buddies were robbing each other.

I.D.10. I spent twenty-nine years trying to stay high. I loved it.

I.D.10. I decided to try heroin in New York and started to ask people where I could get it. I found a guy who had it and I married him.

I.D.10. Growing up, I never saw anyone smile or relax except in a bar.

I.D.10. I went to college in Kentucky, then to graduate school in New York. I wanted to be a junkie and knew that was the place to do it.

I.D.2. I remember being force fed humble pie when I was drinking.

I.D.2. I was humiliated quite often when I drank, and I humiliated other people to get even.

I.D.2. I was so enamored by my sense of self.

I.D.5. By the time I was seventeen, booze was calling all the shots in my life.

I.E.1. I came to enjoy it, and I came to appreciate it after I realized I wasn't greater than it.

I.E.1.a. Oh God! My mind is starting to fade.

I.E.1.c. I had a real spiritual sickness.

I.E.1.f. For an addict, a pimple can become Pike's Peak.

I.E.1.h. I don't ever have to go back to being wacked out and alone.

I.E.1.j. PMS = Poor Me Syndrome.

I.E.1.l. I was brought up putting on different masks.

I.E.1.n. Alcohol and drugs beat the livin' shit out of me my whole life, yet I sacrificed so much to get more.

I.E.1.n. When I take any amount of alcohol into my system, I must have more.

I.E.1.n. All that mattered was the next one.

I.E.1.n. At least once last year, I had to call 911 for myself.

I.E.1.n. I have dyslexia when I read the directions on my pain pills: not one every eight hours but eight every one hour.

I.E.1.q. We're not punished for our sins, we're punished by them.

I.E.1.r. As long as I don't pick up a drink today, those crazy thoughts won't come true.

I.E.1.r. I walked around for many, many years, part of the time thinking I was dead.

I.E.1.s. I drank to achieve the oblivion I felt when I was younger.

I.E.1.s. When I'm out there drinking and drugging, I'm a cocky, hostile arrogant individual.

I.E.1.w. Some addicts have to O.D. and die for the rest of us to stay clean.

I.E.2. They asked me if I felt that even my slightest problems were caused by alcohol. I didn't think so.

I.E.2. My best thinking didn't include not drinking.

I.E.2.a. I can't say I'm FINE anymore. You probably know what that word really means (fucked-up, insecure, neurotic & emotional).

I.E.2.b. I struggle daily about how much of my will I should take back.

I.E.2.b. Self-reliance without God is insanity.

I.E.2.b. I do slack off on my program and that's why they invented restrictions.

I.E.2.b. The further from a drink or a drug I am, the closer I am. I can forget where I came from.

I.E.2.b. Left to my own devices, I am an active alcoholic.

I.E.2.b. I was the last word on everything.

I.E.2.d. It is it is hard for me to have faith that I can really be a better person. It is easier for me to think that about you.

I.E.2.d. When I was first told I might be an alcoholic, I was totally incensed. I didn't know what I didn't know.

I.E.3. Practically the only thing I haven't done is die and have this disease cured.

I.E.3.a. I got evicted from a place where I didn't even pay rent.

I.E.3.a. There was always a price to be paid. Today, I don't want to pay that price.

I.E.3.a. I didn't have any real losses except friends.

I.E.4. I basically shut my brain off as best I could during my first year and a half of sobriety.

I.E.4. I usually hit lower and lower bottoms each time I'm out there.

I.E.4. Half measures availed me nothing. Relapse/surrender/self will.

I.E.5. I never knew I could have a habit with alcohol.

I.E.5. My sponsor was talking about alcoholism being a disease of illusion.

I.E.5. Like the earth rotating about its axis, my life rotates about its cycle.

I.E.5. Among other things, alcoholism was a thinking problem for me.

I.E.5.b. Pretty much, I just wanted more of anything I was doing.

I.E.5.c. I know I'm never ever going to be cured and that hurts.

I.E.6. Drinking was not my problem in life. It was my solution.

I.E.6. I had this void in me and anything I tried to fill it with didn't work.

I've been feeling real negative last week, and in the last week, I've been picking myself up.

II. Recovery? I like it and I don't like it. It has it's ups and it's downs. Friends and enemies.

II. I think recovery is awesome.

II.A. I'm twenty-eight years old, and I never ever thought I would fall into a life like this.

II.A. My first couple of years of sobriety, were many, many five minute periods of confusion.

II.A. I want to stay in recovery today.

II.A.1. The smell of a detox really brought me back.

II.A.10. If you scream and cry "I can't stay sober", it's because you're not doing something right.

II.A.10. Once again, my mind is opened up to AA which is very important to me.

II.A.11. I mentally use before I physically use.

II.A.12. I can't tell you if I'm gonna be drunk tomorrow. I can't tell you if I'm gonna be sober tomorrow.

II.A.12. I didn't drink today, and I didn't do drugs today, and I'm happy about it.

II.A.12. If, at the end of the day, I didn't pick up, my mission for the day is complete.

II.A.12. Some days it can be so easy, but some days it can be so difficult.

II.A.12. I'd like to stay away from a drink and a drug today.

II.A.13. I've tried to change myself for years before coming here.

II.A.16. Let me tell you where I'm at in my recovery. I'm stuck in neutral.

II.A.16. I didn't understand the inner change.

II.A.2. You don't get any trophies in AA for being nice.

II.A.2. In AA, your weaknesses are turned into strengths.

II.A.2. I went to my first AA meeting at seventeen. I got sober at twenty-two. I've been sober a long time. I did all the inside things first.

II.A.2. I can convince myself, by myself, not to attend AA.

II.A.2. I've stayed sober since my first meeting, and I'm grateful for that.

II.A.2. AA is a very safe place to ask for help.

II.A.2. From the beginning, I felt at home in AA.

II.A.2. AA fills the number one slot in my life.

II.A.2. Through AA I get the freedom to live the other twenty-two-twenty-three hours a day how I should live.

II.A.2. I found a home in AA, and I don't feel empty anymore.

II.A.2. I started going to AA meetings with a simple trip to a country physician.

II.A.2. I had enough good sense to know that AA had what I needed to go on living life.

II.A.2. As it says in the book, AA is a design for living.

II.A.20. I have a habit of rushing. Things had to happen fast for me.

II.A.21. The closer I get to becoming the person I want to be, the farther away I seem to be.

II.A.21. I didn't grow with gin and heroin. If I got a worthwhile experience when using, I couldn't enjoy it. I had to get more. So I used more gin and heroin.

II.A.21. I'm not the guy I brought in here anymore.

II.A.21. It's never going to be just O.K. I must continue to grow.

II.A.22. It was more painful to pick up the phone than to pick up a drink.

II.A.27. I still want to go into a bar, not to have one drink, but to stay there the rest of my life.

II.A.28. The farther away I got from a drink or a drug, the closer I am because I tend to forget. I got a built in forgetter.

II.A.28. Like myself, I've seen others forget that they're alcoholics.

II.A.28. For the past couple of years, I was burdened by the "can't's".

II.A.3. I said "God, help me please, I'm a sorry mofo".

II.A.3. I was just tired of living my life, so I asked God to let me live within his will somehow.

II.A.3. Things don't happen in my time.

II.A.3. I think that being here in the program, doing what I'm doing is God's will.

II.A.3. I'm conscious of being a miracle, lying in the space of grace.

II.A.3. My God never left me, I pushed him away.

II.A.3. I believe that today, my Higher Power gets the credit for how my life has changed.

II.A.3. Never lose sight of the connection between God and AA.

II.A.3. God will give me what I need when it's time.

II.A.4. I didn't ask questions, I just did it.

II.A.4. Going to meetings helps.

II.A.4. Someone stuck a hand out to me, and I didn't know what to say. I was stuck in myself.

II.A.4. I remember shooting up in the bathroom at a meeting. There were a hundred recovering addicts out there so I tried to crawl out the window but it had bars on it.

II.A.4. Sometimes I just gotta truck on down to a meeting.

II.A.4. I know that there are other alcoholics who will help me, if I tell them the truth.

II.A.4. I will come to AA even though I've been sober a long time. I've been in this group over ten years. I learned here what happens to those who don't keep coming.

II.A.4. I was scared of what they'd do if I asked the wrong question.

II.A.6. If I don't get involved, I won't go to AA, and if I don't go to AA, I'll...

II.A.6. Today, I'm doing my footwork.

II.A.8. I know if I ask others for help, I get better.

II.A.8. Yeah, I need the help.

II.A.8. If anyone reaches out for help, I'd like to see the helping hand come from AA.

II.A.8. Jesus, what is happening to me?

II.B. For me, the Steps take time before they set in.

II.B. I thought I could read the Steps and get it all over in one day.

II.B. The whole process of me going through the Steps is for me to go step by step and admit I need help.

II.B. I was told the Steps are the meat and potatoes of the program. I stuck around and found that to be true.

II.B.1. Humility comes into play at Step One.

II.B.12. I didn't even know where the Twelfth Step was.

II.B.12. Someone had the look in his eyes that he wanted what I had, so I asked him to come along with me.

II.B.14. To get the rewards and the blessings in recovery, you have to work.

II.B.14. I've accomplished a lot in sobriety, and I want to accomplish more.

II.B.4. I've been clean for a long time but that doesn't mean that I'm clean on the inside.

II.B.4. The damage lies within me.

II.B.6. Pick any point in my sobriety before now, and I can more clearly see my character defects.

II.B.6. If I hold onto my shortcomings and my defects of character, I won't be of much help to another alcoholic.

II.B.7. To the newcomers, you don't have to start out at Step Seven.

II.B.7. Step Seven is not a casual thing.

II.B.7. I don't have much to say about Step Seven because I'm still sitting here on Step One.

II.B.7. Reading Step Seven brought me down memory lane.

II.C.1.a. I've got to stop comparing my insides with other peoples' outsides.

II.C.1.a. Unfortunately, pain is still a great motivator for me.

II.C.1.a. When my brother died of AIDS, I was so angry at God. I still am to tell you the truth.

II.C.1.d. I can deal with resentments, which I don't really need.

II.C.1.e. I have to focus on myself every day and that's so hard to do.

II.C.1.e. My name is drugs and alcohol, and my problem is Eric.

II.C.1.e. I'm aware enough to know I am not in charge. I'm humble enough to know I should not be in charge.

II.C.1.e. I kind of had to confront myself.

II.C.1.f. It takes balls to stay sober.

II.C.1.g. I'm learning it for me; faith and hope. The basic things.

II.C.1.h. I'm just brimming over with gratitude.

II.C.1.h. I'm truly grateful. Gratitude pours out of every pore of me each day.

II.C.1.l. I'm beginning to understand how I can make choices in my life. I never understood that concept before.

II.C.1.l. Today I have a choice when I wake up in the morning. I didn't wake up with choices when I was using.

II.C.1.n. The most important thing for me to realize is that I'm an alcoholic.

II.C.1.o. I don't want to be no King Baby today.

II.C.1.o. I don't want to go back out there and be greasy as a pork chop. I don't want to go back out there and again let another man abuse my body. I don't want to go back out there, wearing a size nine shoe on my size eleven and a half foot.

II.C.1.o. I refuse to trade what I have now for what I once was. I'm not that person anymore.

II.C.1.o. I can't have that bourbon and lemonade anymore.

II.C.1.q. When I was learning about humility, number one, I didn't understand it and number two, I didn't like it.

II.C.1.q. I think I became anti-humble about being humble.

II.C.1.q. AA is a good place to learn what it means to be humble.

II.C.1.q. I hear people speak about humility who don't have a Goddamned clue what it is.

II.C.1.r. I don't even know how many days of sobriety I have and that's real different for me.

II.C.1.v. I've had fearful experiences.

II.C.1.v. I thought I was so tough when I got to AA, but I was afraid to sell raffle tickets.

II.C.1.v. Once I got through the fear of selling raffle tickets, I went out and applied for a job.

II.C.1.v. I have a lot of fear in my life that I don't need.

II.C.1.v. I knew I was an alcoholic, but I was more afraid of AA than I was of drinking.

II.C.1.v. Everything is getting real positive now that used to scare the hell out of me.

II.C.1.v. The skeletons in my closet are not even dead yet.

II.C.1.v. Until I realized I was an alcoholic, I'd spent most of my life wishing I was dead.

II.C.1.w. I don't want to hate anyone because I know what it's like to hate myself.

II.C.1.w. I didn't know where the love was. I guess I was detached.

II.C.1.y. I went out the door again because I didn't take any action.

In one way, I was negligent, in another way, I didn't know how to handle it.

It felt so good not to be negative for a change.

Sometimes I can't help getting wrapped up in someone else's shit.

Sometimes I fade, I fade away a little bit.

There are plenty of things for me to do to keep my side of the street clean.

They say "Remember when." I didn't have the empathy for that.

Whether I was or not, I really thought I was becoming a gentleman.

I just haven't been in the groove for a while.

I grew up in a small town. There were only two bars, both on the same street.

I.E.1.j. PMS = Poor Me Syndrome.

I.E.1.w. Some addicts have to O.D. and die for the rest of us to stay clean.

I.E.1.f. For an addict, a pimple can become Pike's Peak.

II.A.4.

II.A.27. I still want to go into a bar, not to have one drink, but to stay there the rest of my life.

I.D.5. By the time I was seventeen, booze was calling all the shots in my life.

I grew up in a small town. There were only two bars, both on the same street.

I.D.10. Growing up, I never saw anyone smile or relax except in a bar.

I.D.10. I went to college in Kentucky, then to graduate school in New York. I wanted to be a junkie and knew that was the place to do it.

I.D.10. I decided to try heroin in New York and started to ask people where I could get it. I found a guy who had it and I married him.

I.E.6. Drinking was not my problem in life. It was my solution.

I.D.10. I spent twenty-nine years trying to stay high. I loved it.

I.E.3.a. I got evicted from a place where I didn't even pay rent.

II.A. My first couple of years of sobriety, were many, many five minute periods of confusion.

I.E.2. My best thinking didn't include not drinking.

II.A.3. I'm conscious of being a miracle, lying in the space of grace.

II.C.1.v. I knew I was an alcoholic, but I was more afraid of AA than I was of drinking.

II.A.22. It was more painful to pick up the phone than to pick up a drink.

I.B. Alcoholism ambushed me.

I.C.2. I hated my roommates. They had interests in life.

II.C.1.v. I have a lot of fear in my life that I don't need.

II.C.1.e. My name is drugs and alcohol, and my problem is Eric.

II.A.12. I can't tell you if I'm gonna be drunk tomorrow. I can't tell you if I'm gonna be sober tomorrow.

I.E.3.a. There was always a price to be paid. Today, I don't want to pay that price.

II.B. I was told the Steps are the meat and potatoes of the program. I stuck around and found that to be true.

In one way, I was negligent, in another way, I didn't know how to handle it.

They say "Remember when." I didn't have the empathy for that.

I.E.1. I came to enjoy it, and I came to appreciate it after I realized I wasn't greater than it.

I.D.1. In my drunken state, my best buddies were robbing each other.

I.E.1.c. I had a real spiritual sickness.

II.A.3. I was just tired of living my life, so I asked God to let me live within his will somehow.

II.C.1.h. I'm just brimming over with gratitude.

II.A.4. I didn't ask questions, I just did it.

I've been feeling real negative last week, and in the last week, I've been picking myself up.

II.A.6. Today, I'm doing my footwork.

II.A.1. The smell of a detox really brought me back.

II.C.1.r. I don't even know how many days of sobriety I have and that's real different for me.

II.C.1.e. I kind of had to confront myself.

II.C.1.v. Everything is getting real positive now that used to scare the hell out of me.

II.A.12. I didn't drink today, and I didn't do drugs today, and I'm happy about it.

It felt so good not to be negative for a change.

II.A.6. If I don't get involved, I won't go to AA, and if I don't go to AA, I'll...

II.B.12. Someone had the look in his eyes that he wanted what I had, so I asked him to come along with me.

II.A.2. I found a home in AA, and I don't feel empty anymore.

II.A.4. Someone stuck a hand out to me, and I didn't know what to say. I was stuck in myself.

II.C.1.w. I didn't know where the love was. I guess I was detached.

II.B.12. I didn't even know where the Twelfth Step was.

II.A.8. Jesus, what is happening to me?

I.E.5. Among other things, alcoholism was a thinking problem for me.

II.C.1.g. I'm learning it for me; faith and hope. The basic things.

I.E.2. They asked me if I felt that even my slightest problems were caused by alcohol. I didn't think so.

I.E.1.n. At least once last year, I had to call 911 for myself.

II.A.4. I was scared of what they'd do if I asked the wrong question.

II.C.1.v. I've had fearful experiences.

II.A.8. Yeah, I need the help.

I.E.1.a. Oh God! My mind is starting to fade.

II.A.2. I started going to AA meetings with a simple trip to a country physician.

II.A.8. If anyone reaches out for help, I'd like to see the helping hand come from AA.

II.A.21. It's never going to be just O.K. I must continue to grow.

II.A.21. I didn't grow with gin and heroin. If I got a worthwhile experience when using, I couldn't enjoy it. I had to get more. So I used more gin and heroin.

II.C.1.v. The skeletons in my closet are not even dead yet.

II.C.1.a. When my brother died of AIDS, I was so angry at God. I still am to tell you the truth.

II.C.1.e. I'm aware enough to know I am not in charge. I'm humble enough to know I should not be in charge.

II.C.1.l. I'm beginning to understand how I can make choices in my life. I never understood that concept before.

II.A.4. I know that there are other alcoholics who will help me, if I tell them the truth.

I.A. I really, really, really, really wanted to be cool because I didn't want to be me. That's why I drank.

I.E.3. Practically the only thing I haven't done is die and have this disease cured.

I.E.2.b. I do slack off on my program and that's why they invented restrictions.

II.C.1.f. It takes balls to stay sober.

II.C.1.a. I've got to stop comparing my insides with other peoples' outsides.

II.The only form of recovery I'll have is with a group of my peers in the program.

I.E.1.r. I walked around for many, many years, part of the time thinking I was dead.

II.A.3. I think that being here in the program, doing what I'm doing is God's will.

I.E.2.b. Self-reliance without God is insanity.

II.C.2.b. I've been told that if I'm not willing to make mistakes in sobriety, I will return to drinking.

I.E.2.a. I can't say I'm FINE anymore. You probably know what that word really means (fucked-up, insecure, neurotic & emotional).

I.B. When I drank, my personality changed and not for the better.

I.E.2.d. It is it is hard for me to have faith that I can really be a better person. It is easier for me to think that about you.

II.A.8. I know if I ask others for help, I get better.

I.E.5. My sponsor was talking about alcoholism being a disease of illusion.

I.E.5. I never knew I could have a habit with alcohol.

I.E.1.l. I was brought up putting on different masks.

Sometimes I fade, I fade away a little bit.

II.A.20. I have a habit of rushing. Things had to happen fast for me.

I.E.5. Like the earth rotating about its axis, my life rotates about its cycle.

II.D.1. I went over to my parents' house today, and I was welcomed.

I.E.1.n. All that mattered was the next one.

I.D.2. I was so enamored by my sense of self.

I.E.2.b. I struggle daily about how much of my will I should take back.

II.B.14. I've accomplished a lot in sobriety, and I want to accomplish more.

II.A.28. For the past couple of years, I was burdened by the "can't's".

II.A.12. If, at the end of the day, I didn't pick up, my mission for the day is complete.

II.A.3. My God never left me, I pushed him away.

II.C.1.l. Today I have a choice when I wake up in the morning. I didn't wake up with choices when I was using.

II.D. If someone tells you that all you need to do is stay sober, think again. You must go out and get what you need out of life.

II.C.1.j. No matter how hard your program gets, stick and stay.

II.A.3. God will give me what I need when it's time.

II.B.14. To get the rewards and the blessings in recovery, you have to work.

II.C.1.o. I refuse to trade what I have now for what I once was. I'm not that person anymore.

II.A.11. I mentally use before I physically use.

II. I think recovery is awesome.

II. Recovery? I like it and I don't like it. It has it's ups and it's downs. Friends and enemies.

II.C.1.w. I don't want to hate anyone because I know what it's like to hate myself.

II.B.7. Step Seven is not a casual thing.

II.B.6. If I hold onto my shortcomings and my defects of character, I won't be of much help to another alcoholic.

II.A.3.

II.B. I thought I could read the Steps and get it all over in one day.

I just haven't been in the groove for a while.

II.A.4. Sometimes I just gotta truck on down to a meeting.

I.E.1.h. I don't ever have to go back to being wacked out and alone.

II.B.7. To the newcomers, you don't have to start out at Step Seven.

II.B.7. Reading Step Seven brought me down memory lane.

I.E.5.b. Pretty much, I just wanted more of anything I was doing.

II.C.1.y. I went out the door again because I didn't take any action.

II.A.21. I'm not the guy I brought in here anymore.

I.E.4. I usually hit lower and lower bottoms each time I'm out there.

I.E.4. I basically shut my brain off as best I could during my first year and a half of sobriety.

I.E.2.b. I was the last word on everything.

II.B. The whole process of me going through the Steps is for me to go step by step and admit I need help.

I.E.5.c. I know I'm never ever going to be cured and that hurts.

II.C.1.e. I have to focus on myself every day and that's so hard to do.

Sometimes I can't help getting wrapped up in someone else's shit.

II.A.16. Let me tell you where I'm at in my recovery. I'm stuck in neutral.

II.C.2.b. Even though things are going great in my life, I know I still got that stinkin' thinkin'.

II.A. I'm twenty-eight years old, and I never ever thought I would fall into a life like this.

II.A. I want to stay in recovery today.

II.C.1.j. Twenty years ago I was forced by friends, family, employers and the courts to go to AA. I didn't like AA, and I didn't like anyone in AA.

I.E.3.a. I didn't have any real losses except friends.

II.C.1.h. I'm truly grateful. Gratitude pours out of every pore of me each day.

II.A.3. I said "God, help me please, I'm a sorry mofo".

II.C.1.o. I don't want to be no King Baby today.

II.C.1.a. Unfortunately, pain is still a great motivator for me.

II.B.7. I don't have much to say about Step Seven because I'm still sitting here on Step One.

I.E.1.r. As long as I don't pick up a drink today, those crazy thoughts won't come true.

I.E.6. I had this void in me and anything I tried to fill it with didn't work.

I.D.2. I was humiliated quite often when I drank, and I humiliated other people to get even.

II.C.1.n. The most important thing for me to realize is that I'm an alcoholic.

I.E.1.n. When I take any amount of alcohol into my system, I must have more.

I.D.2. I remember being force fed humble pie when I was drinking.

II.B.4. I've been clean for a long time but that doesn't mean that I'm clean on the inside.

II.A.10. If you scream and cry "I can't stay sober", it's because you're not doing something right.

I.E.1.n. Alcohol and drugs beat the livin' shit out of me my whole life, yet I sacrificed so much to get more.

II.B.4. The damage lies within me.

II.B.6. Pick any point in my sobriety before now, and I can more clearly see my character defects.

Whether I was or not, I really thought I was becoming a gentleman.

II.A.16. I didn't understand the inner change.

II.C.1.d. I can deal with resentments, which I don't really need.

II.A.21. The closer I get to becoming the person I want to be, the farther away I seem to be.

II.C.1.q. I hear people speak about humility who don't have a Goddamned clue what it is.

I.E.1.s. When I'm out there drinking and drugging, I'm a cocky, hostile arrogant individual.

II.B.1. Humility comes into play at Step One.

II.C.1.j. It took me fifteen months to graduate from a three-month therapeutic community.

I.E.2.b. The further from a drink or a drug I am, the closer I am. I can forget where I came from.

I.E.1.n. I have dyslexia when I read the directions on my pain pills: not one every eight hours but eight every one hour.

I.E.4. Half measures availed me nothing. Relapse/surrender/self will.

I.C.1.

II.C.1.o. I don't want to go back out there and be greasy as a pork chop. I don't want to go back out there and again let another man abuse my body. I don't want to go back out there, wearing a size nine shoe on my size eleven and a half foot.

PROCEDURES ARE TO FIND THE ENTRIES ABOVE THOSE IN THE LAST BATCH, DELETE THEM IF THEY ARE DUPLICATES EARLIER IN THE UNENTERED PORTION OF THE TEXT, BUT IN THE UNENTERED SECTION. THEN ENTER THE ONE HERE IN THE TEXT