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title: "September 2026 - Vol. #24, No. 6. My favorite AA slogans and implications for recovery; highlights from South Africa"
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September 2026 - Vol. #24, No. 6. My favorite AA slogans and implications for recovery; highlights from South Africa

Welcome to the September edition of Tips and Topics.

In **SAVVY,** I share a few of my favorite 12-Step recovery slogans and sayings from Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and why they are so meaningful to me: Attraction, not Promotion; Progress, not Perfection; and There but for the grace of God, go I.

In **SKILLS,** some of the slogans and sayings focus on SKILLS to support the recovery process. I explain the implications for recovery of HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired); One Day at a Time; and Keep Coming Back.

In **SOUL**, South Africa is a fascinating country. Seeing African wildlife at such close range from the safari truck was breathtaking. Equally impressive, but from a different angle, was tracing the history of Nelson Mandela and seeing the cell where he was imprisoned for 18 years. With an overall 27 years in political imprisonment, how did he keep his sanity to stay hopeful and effective in leading his people out of Apartheid?

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David Mee-Lee, M.D.

DML Training and Consulting

## SAVVY

September is National Recovery Month, an annual observance to educate the public, celebrate individuals in long-term recovery, and support evidence-based treatment for mental health and substance use disorders.

I had good medical school and psychiatric specialty training. But besides the biomedical consequences of alcohol and other drug conditions, I was taught very little about addiction treatment and recovery. It took on-the-job training from addiction treatment counselors in long-term recovery for me to really understand how to engage patients and clients into treatment to initiate recovery.

So for this special Recovery Month edition, I am sharing a few of my favorite 12-Step recovery slogans and sayings from Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and why they are so meaningful to me. Others have written on this too, like Blake Roberts’ “[AA Slogans: 10 Sayings That Support Your Recovery Journey](https://recovery.com/resources/aa-slogans/).”

 

**Tip 1**

**Attraction, not Promotion.**

To those looking on, it is so easy to see the destruction that addiction causes to people’s physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being. The impulse to jump in and nag, argue and push the friend or loved one into treatment is understandably strong.

But that kind of active promotion of treatment usually is met with pushback, arguments, alienation and separation. The identified person with addiction is often deep in the self-protective defense mechanism of denial. The more you push, the more they recoil. That’s where the wisdom of “Attraction, not Promotion” comes in:

- I have seen over and over patients who are reluctant to accept that they suffer from addiction but agree to attend an AA meeting.
- They happen to hear a speaker who tells “their” story; they relate and identify so much that it brings awareness that they are not alone and that someone really understands them.
- In that moment, even if temporarily, they experience relief and hope… the beginning of attraction to accept the need for treatment and recovery.
- All the cajoling, shaming, nagging and threats do not promote recovery.
- Seeing changed lives and inspiring stories of hope attracts people into recovery.

**Tip 2**

**Progress, not Perfection.**

Once a person has been attracted into considering treatment, there is relief for the loved ones accompanied by impatience to see some progress after such a long time of pain and suffering. While that is understandable, you can’t “push the river” – recovery is a process, not an event.

The process of recovery is where “Progress, not Perfection” comes in:

- Many people with addiction are not ready to commit to abstinence, let alone change their drinking/drugging friends, avoid parties and drinking places, and change their lifestyle.
- But “being willing to be willing” is Progress. Agreeing to go to one AA meeting, to cut back from five drinks a day to four, or to stay away from one particularly heavy drugging friend is Progress.
- Expecting someone to give up all their drinking friends is Perfection thinking. Demanding abstinence for someone in the Contemplation (ambivalence) stage of change; or discharging or sanctioning someone for a slip or lapse is Perfection thinking.
- We would never sanction someone with bipolar disorder for having a manic attack, or a person with diabetes for a high blood sugar. We never expect Perfection for people with other ongoing illnesses, yet we often demand and expect Perfection in addiction treatment.

 

**Tip 3**

**There but for the grace of God, go I**.

Recovery can be a tricky thing. The longer a person achieves some abstinence and even sobriety, the more sneaky “stinking thinking” that AA talks about can rear its ugly head. People affected by addiction can start to think:

- “If I have been able to not drink or drug for six months now, maybe I don’t really have an addiction.”
- “Maybe I was just under a lot of stress and that’s why I was using too much.”
- “I think I could go back to social drinking and occasional marijuana, coke or meth at parties without a problem.”

That’s where the wisdom of “There but for the grace of God, go I” comes in:

- I have seen patients who have established some length of abstinence or sobriety cut short their progress by “stinking thinking” and slide back into the Contemplation stage of change (ambivalence).
- By going to a recovery meeting, whether 12-Step, SMART Recovery or some other mutual help meeting, they hear the story of a peer who acted on their ambivalence and fell back into the depths of despair again.
- That person’s tragic story hits the mark to jolt them back into recommitting to their own recovery, “There but for the grace of God, go I.”

## SKILLS

Some of the slogans and sayings focus on SKILLS to support the recovery process.

**Tip 1**

**HALT – Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired.**

Recovery is not always a straight upward line of inevitable improvement and well-being. It can be two steps forward, one step back; five steps forward and two steps back; three steps backwards and one step forward.

Slips, lapses and relapses are not inevitable but are normal and to be expected. Just like with chronic diseases like bipolar disorder, depression, diabetes and hypertension, no recovery path looks like zero episodes of mania or depression, or perfect blood sugar levels and blood pressure.

That’s where the wisdom of “HALT” comes in:

- Getting too Hungry, Angry, Lonely and/or Tired are high-risk triggers for slips, lapses and relapses. This is not only in early treatment and recovery, but at any time during the treatment and recovery process.
- Hungry isn’t just about food, but can be money-hungry and overworking; sex-hungry and getting preoccupied and neglecting recovery skills.
- Slips can be a one-time drink or drug. A lapse can be a short series of slips. A relapse can be a slip, lapse or extended use after an established period of quality sobriety.
- HALT is a useful checklist of high-risk behaviors for both the person in recovery and for those helping people in recovery.

 

**Tip 2**

**One Day at a Time.**

When people first enter treatment, especially young people, the idea that they can never again use alcohol or other drugs can be a barrier to accepting a diagnosis of addiction and embracing treatment. In addition, even if a person accepts the need for treatment, the day-to-day process of recovery can be challenged by intense cravings to use, self-doubts about success, and impatience to get out of treatment or to be “cured.”

That’s where the wisdom of “One Day at a Time” comes in:

- To the person who struggles with the idea of abstinence, you can say: “Let’s not worry right now about whether you have to do this for the rest of your life. Let’s just see what one day of not using is like and see what you can learn from that – good or bad.”
- To the person who is craving intensely, you can say: “See if you can abstain just for today. Or if that feels like too much, let’s try not using for half a day; or a quarter of a day; or two hours or one hour. If that works, then let’s try for the next hour and see what happens.” Nothing succeeds like success.
- Recovery is a process of one day at a time, not an event of one perfect treatment experience or one successful period of sobriety.

 

**Tip 3**

**Keep Coming Back**.

Most people with diabetes, hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis, anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder etc. don’t stop treatment thinking they are cured. Effective addiction treatment and recovery can result in a level of function that is not just back to baseline, but actually reaches levels even better than before.

Or before a person achieves good recovery, the treatment and daily work to achieve abstinence can feel overwhelming and awaken ambivalence to drop out of treatment.

That’s where the wisdom of “Keep Coming Back” comes in:

- If people with any ongoing illness stopped seeing their health care provider and stopped coming back to their medication, well-being practices and care, recovery wouldn’t happen.
- Addiction recovery promises an outcome of “Better than well” if people Keep Coming Back to AA or other mutual help meetings, or Keep Coming Back to whatever reminds them to stay focused on addiction treatment and recovery.
- For people with addiction it may require ongoing medication just like other ongoing illnesses. Or Keep Coming Back may refer to meetings, support groups, recovery friends, prosocial community activities, or whatever reminds them to “remember when” addiction hijacked their well-being.

## SOUL

This month, I traveled to South Africa. I love close-up animal encounters and in Kruger National Park, I sure did get that. Watching from just 10 or 15 feet away sitting in the safari truck, it was totally fascinating to look in the eyes of the lion king and queen of the jungle. Or to wonder whether the huge African elephant heading towards our vehicle would veer away (he did!). To see a leopard bite down on the antelope kill that he had dragged up the tree was such a rare wonder to witness.

Just as impactful in a different sense, however, was to follow the history of Nelson Mandela:

- I peered inside the small prison cell on Robben Island outside of Cape Town, where he spent 18 years of his 27 years of a political prison sentence.
- It was unfathomable to me to imagine how he kept his spirits high, focused on nonviolent protest of Apartheid.
- I walked the dusty streets of Soweto near Johannesburg where he lived from 1946 to 1962. The tiny makeshift shanty homes have electricity but no running water or inside toilets.
- I saw where he worked and lived before he was imprisoned for so long. I saw where he lived in the post-Apartheid years.

What has become of Nelson Mandela’s astounding and brave leadership of South Africa out of the inhumanity of Apartheid? As I traveled both Cape Town and Johannesburg, the sad reality is that while the law no longer discriminates with separate establishments, entrances, restrooms, etc. for Blacks and Non-Black, there is still wide economic and community separation to this day.

I was told over and over that there is no leadership in South Africa that truly invests in the needs and care of its people. They only invest in lining their own pockets with rampant corruption. Of course, in our own USA, we have our version of economic and community separation between Whites, Blacks and other people of color.

I have few ideas on how to solve our racial discrimination and no clue on the path forward is for South Africa. What an amazing country it is, though.

 

## UNTIL NEXT TIME:

Thank you for joining us this month. See you in October.

David

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##### About Tips and Topics

David Mee-Lee, M.D., is a psychiatrist certified by the American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM). Based in Woodland, California, he trains and consults internationally. Mee-Lee was editor in chief of the American Society of Addiction Medicine's (ASAM) Criteria for all editions from 1991-2013. Now retired, he was president of DML Training and Consulting and had over 40 years’ experience in person-centered treatment and program development for people with co-occurring mental health and substance use conditions.

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