Great Throughts Treasury

"What is freedom if not the possibility of change?"

"Perhaps the answer lies in the words that follow this request. The Baal Shem Tov was asked, How can one achieve ahavas Hashem? He answered, “If you develop ahavas Yisrael (love for one’s fellow), ahavas Hashem will follow.”"

"After half a century in psychiatric practice, I know without a doubt that the source of addiction is spiritual deficiency. Irrespective of whether we are religious or atheist, all human beings are spiritual by nature and spirituality is the cornerstone of our recovery."

"It is not enough to aim; you must hit."

"I too searched far and wide for the cure to addiction, but my medical and psychiatric background did not lead me to the cure because the source of addiction does not lie here,"

"Once the game is over, the King and the pawn go back in the same box."

"Back then very few people knew anything about AA... But as this woman spoke and told me about the meetings, I realized that something was happening at these meetings that had nothing to do with the medical profession or medical science. I decided to attend."

"Parents! Exercise your authority to prevent your children from harming themselves or others! Make it abundantly clear to them that you will not tolerate excessive drinking, regardless of what their misguided friends may do."

"Sedlak describes addictive thinking as a person’s inability to make consistently healthy decisions in his or her own behalf."

"The best armor is to keep out of range."

"The various problems the addict describes may sound like too much for anyone to bear. On closer analysis, though, an addict's problems are not that different from the nonaddict's problems. But the addictive thinker's perception is that they are radically different: Other people get a break once in a while, but not me. Never. Recovering addicts may bring their unrealistic expectations into sobriety. They may believe that other people in recovery have had an easier time. My problems are the worst, they think. My spouse used to complain when I drank, and now I hear about my going to meetings every night. The supervisor watches me like a hawk. My oldfriends don't call anymore.... As recovering addicts come into regular contact with others in recovery, however, they begin to see that everyone else doesn't have it better and, in fact, other people are a lot like they are. Every aspect of recovery is subject to growth. Accepting life on its own terms, accepting powerlessness, surrendering to a Higher Power, taking and sharing a moral inventory, making amends."

"To the person rooted in a rich system of values, there is no real vacuum in life; all the empty spaces can be filled with meaning."

"To be human means having unique trials and tribulations — to be a happy human entails grasping their significance."