"I was a basket case of negative emotions...I was in a spiritual coma."
"I was a basket case of negative emotions...I was in a spiritual coma."
"... cause some are sicker than others."
"I always thought that if I could be free then I would be happy but, you know, the Al-Anon Program has taught me how to be free...it's an inside job and it doesn't matter that much what 'they' say or 'they' do, it's all inside. And when we have the ability to have some answers in this program, then we're not in bondage anymore. I found, for me, that I was dependent as long as I didn't have answers."
"Robert "Bob" "Smitty" Ripley Smith II, born June 5, 1918, the last eyewitness of the start of Alcoholics Anonymous, died of congestive heart failure at St. Francis Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. about 5 o'clock Thursday evening, April 22, 2004.
"Smitty," his nickname in youth and later at recovery gatherings worldwide, was the only son of Anne Smith and Akron, Ohio physician Dr. Bob Smith. Then teenagers, young Bob and sister Sue were there on Mother's day 1935 when his father, Dr. Bob, met one time New York stock analyst Bill Wilson for the first time."
"And I was very much at dis-ease."
"Is your soul dry from desolation, wrinkled from worry, itchy from alcoholic irritation, rough from resentments?
Try Oil of Al-Anon."
"Would I stand on the seashore and, like King Canute of the ancient legend, try to command the tides? It is just as fruitless to try to control the alcoholic. Yet this is what I would be doing in attempting to force sobriety by my will-power."
"mean Irish drunks"
"Everything that came up we just made jokes about it."
"Jesus-Others-Yourself"
"It was as though somebody gave me a set of skis and a parker with a hood and gloves and snow goggles and then dropped me in the desert."
"Whatever relationship I was in, I was always looking around. I was always looking for greener grass...What I didn't know was that the grass is greener where it's watered."
"I heard on this tape that if you are going to one meeting a week, you are keeping a seat warm for a newcomer.
If you are going to two meetings a week you can maintain.
If you are going to three or more meetings a week you can grow."
"My story is a little different from a lot of Al-Anons.
I didn't come here to get anybody sober.
I was completely and totally isolated and alone except for one sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
He did not live in my town. He had been my counselor and he was my line to sanity.
I came to you because every day I was standing in front of the mirror and saying
'I have it in me to hold it together - today.'"
"I came primed and ready when I met 'her'."
"I had this cellophane wall that I couldn't reach out and you couldn't reach in."
"I have to remember for me, that I am my own qualifier for Al-Anon.
I marry alcoholic women because I qualify for Al-Anon.
I don't qualify for Al-Anon because I marry alcoholic women."