Release and Joy, p. 163

Who can render an account of all the miseries that once were ours, and who can estimate the release and joy that later years have brought to us? Who can possibly tell the vast consequences of what God’s work through A.A. has already set in motion?

And who can penetrate the deeper mystery of our wholesale deliverance from slavery, a bondage to a most hopeless and fatal obsession which for centuries possessed the minds and bodies of men and women like ourselves?

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We think cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness. Outsiders are sometimes shocked when we burst into merriment over a seemingly tragic experience out of the past. But why shouldn’t we laugh? We have recovered, and have helped others to recover. What greater cause could there be for rejoicing than this?

1. A.A. Comes Of Age, pp. 44-45
2. Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 132