Hard and Fast Rules

Well, maybe a few hard and fast rules. Use them if they they make sense to you. ~ Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella

The only requirement is a desire to stop eating compulsively.
Steps? We've got them. Traditions? Yes...a dozen of each.
Suggestions galore, and advice? You'll get it though we try
to share our story, to say what worked for us, to let you free
to decide what you'll do, how fast you'll go, what tools to use —
even whether to work the steps, to stop the compulsions,
to choose a god of your choice, no matter whether the god
is yours alone. We don't push (we hope, though remember,
we're imperfect, human, and have no hard and fast rules ourselves
because we, like you, have these rights. And we know
even as we tell you there are no hard and fast rules
that there are those that work, and we've found none better.
But if you discover we're pushing, persuading, enticing you,
causing you to work the program as it's laid out in literature,
in our lives, in the lives of those others we know in recovery,
then know you have the right to choose, to use the rules
if they make sense to you even knowing for us — not necessarily for you —
these truths we've found are hard and fast rules by which we can live.