"...Christ said 'Of myself, I am nothing -- My strength cometh from My Father in heaven.' If He had to say that," Dr Bob asked, "how about you and me? Did you say it? Did I say it? No -- that's exactly what we didn't say. We were inclined to say instead, 'Look me over boys. Pretty good, huh?' We had no humility, no sense of having received anything through the grace of our Heavenly Father.

"I don't believe I have any right to get cocky about getting sober," he said. "It's only through God's grace that I did it. I can feel very thankful that I was privileged to do it. ...If my strength does come from Him, who am I to get cocky about it?"

On his desk, Dr. Bob had a plaque defining humility: “Perpetual quietness of heart. It is to have no trouble. It is never to be fretted or vexed, irritable or sore; to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised, it is to have a blessed home in myself where I can go in and shut the door and kneel to my Father in secret and be at peace, as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and about is seeming trouble.”