The truth is that we were so spiritually and morally bankrupt that we could not even see some of those lines: we stepped over them blindly. Other times we saw the lines alright, but we to cross them. Alcohol gave us the false courage to do it and num...
Yet, Step 2 and AA spirituality is about nothing if it isn’t about faith in God. Many good reasons exist why AA makes a distinction between religion and spirituality, but a denial of God is not one of them. – p. 127
Gratitude becomes spiritual, a spiritual virtue and a spiritual emotion, when we are moved in our response by a God-centered view of the three: gift, recipient, and giver. – p. 56
In AA we don’t come to God through theology but through experience, mostly of the humbling and humiliating variety, often reluctantly, and sometimes even kicking and screaming. – p. 179
Adam and Eve had first-hand empirical evidence of God’s existence. He walked in the Garden with them. Their problem was that God told them they could not eat of a certain tree. – p. 113
Saying that 'I am a grateful alcoholic' will then reflect the truth about who we have become in our person, having understood deeply and intimately that God in his grace can turn any evil, any pain we have suffered or inflicted, to good purpose. – ...
When we look back from the vantage point of sobriety, many of us realize that when drinking we often felt like a fake, a fraud, and a phony. That’s because we were. – p. 74
The essence of humility in Step 3 is acknowledging and accepting our dependence on God. The essence of faith is trusting God. – p. 167
AA is a spiritual program and Step 3 is a quintessentially spiritual Step. It is the ultimate anti-self Step. Thus, in a very real sense, we cannot practice the 12 Steps of AA merely as self-help. They are not intended to be. – p. 159
We arrive in the rooms tangled up in a web of complexity and confusion. Our lives are unmanageable because our minds are unmanageable.” – p. 134
By practicing the virtues we cultivate the soil from which healthy emotions sprout; by letting go of our character defects we drain the swamp in which diseased emotions breed. – p. 52
