Quotes from Alan Kaufman

Anytime you find another alcoholic standing in front of you," he had said, "looking you in the eye and talking about sobriety, consider that God is there, speaking through him or her to you. Or anytime you're sitting in a meeting, consider that God is there. For now, think of God as an acronym for 'Group of Drunks.

It may seem strange, perhaps even socially archaic, but I strongly believe that people ought to reach out to each other in this way, neighbor to neighbor, stranger to stranger, because our failure to do so has warped the social fabric into one of conjoined loneliness and all its attached sufferings.

And when he refused to tell her he loved her after having sex, she broke all the dishes until her arms bled and the medics took her away. And he sat and blew Arabesques of smoke.

The more sober you get, the more clearly you feel

Words. Empty words. Sometimes I hate words. Sometimes they fail human experience. Sometimes words are a way to avoid the truth.

In many respects, recovery was, by nature, iconoclastic—a smashing of old and rigid ideas to allow for new life-giving perspectives.

It's not your job to decide whether people should think you're important or not, hey? Huh? What others think of us is none of our business. Maybe you're more important than you give yourself credit for. This could be God's way of showing you something you should know but don't.

A recovery old-timer had told me: "Time takes time. Don't be in any rush to get this thing. Let it filter in slow. What's the hurry?

God didn't get you sober to fuck you over.

And when he refused to tell her he loved her after sex, she broke all the dishes until her arms bled and the medics took her away. And he sat and blew Arabesques of smoke.