How you conduct yourself along the path that is your life determines how your life unfolds.

To give up power to change for the better is inherently distasteful to everyone, and to force people to affirm that they are addicts or alcoholics so they can speak in a meeting is shameful and demoralizing.

I wrote this book to show you that a cure is entirely possible because I've seen it happen over and over again.

Stress comes from the way you relate to events or situations.

Each river is different, but they all eventually lead to the ocean. No matter what we’re doing or when, or whether it brings us happiness or remorse, gain or loss, we’re all on our individual paths to enlightenment. Even when we’ve done something we consider wrong, we’re still on our path to enlightenment.

How do you change what you believe when your experience has convinced you otherwise? By creating a new experience. The best way for you to get that new experience is to change your response to what happens. By the natural law of cause and effect, that new response will create new results, which you will then experience as a new reality. To reach the goal of happiness, act as though the following statement is already true: Everything that happens to me is the best thing that can happen to me.

The Universe doesn’t make mistakes. Everything is happening just as it should. It’s only our perception of difficulties that causes us the distress and the difficulty we experience. Not only that, but when we label events as ‘bad,' we fail to perceive the benefit that is waiting for us.