50 Inspirational Quotes About Drug Addiction to Empower Your Recovery Journey

"Believe you can, and you’re halfway there."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising up every time we fail."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

- J.K. Rowling

"Your best days are ahead of you. The movie starts when the guy gets sober and puts his life back together; it doesn’t end there."

- Bucky Sinister

"Fall six times, stand up seven."

- Japanese Proverb

"If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime."

- Benjamin Alire Sáenz

"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop."

- Confucius

"Getting sober was one of the three pivotal events in my life, along with becoming an actor and having a child. Of the three, finding my sobriety was the hardest thing."

- Gary Oldman

"Anyone can give up; it is the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone would expect you to fall apart, now that is true strength."

- Chris Bradford

"Remember that just because you hit bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there."

- Robert Downey Jr.

"Addictions… started out like magical pets, pocket monsters. They did extraordinary tricks, showed you things you hadn’t seen, and were fun. But came, through some gradual dire alchemy, to make decisions for you. Eventually, they were making your most crucial life decisions. And they were… less intelligent than goldfish."

- William Gibson

"Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles and you have to change."

- Jamie Lee Curtis

"Addiction is just a way of trying to get at something else. Something bigger. Call it transcendence if you want, but it’s like a rat in a maze. We all want the same thing. We all have this hole. The thing you want offers relief, but it’s a trap."

- Tess Callahan

"Though no one can go back and make a brand-new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand-new ending."

- Carl Bard

"I got sober. I stopped killing myself with alcohol. I began to think: ‘Wait a minute. If I can stop doing this, what are the possibilities?’ And slowly it dawned on me that it was maybe worth the risk."

- Craig Ferguson

"I think that the power is in the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you’ve done."

- Robert Downey Jr.

"We may think there is willpower involved, but more likely change is due to wanting power. Wanting the new addiction more than the old one. Wanting the new me in preference to the person I am now."

- George Sheehan

"Don’t let the past steal your present."

- Terri Guillemets

"Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles, and you have to change it."

- Jamie Lee Curtis

"Sometimes, we motivate ourselves by thinking of what we want to become. Sometimes we motivate ourselves by thinking about who we don’t ever want to be again."

- Shane Niemeyer

"In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger — something better, pushing right back."

- Albert Camus

"Every day is a new day. No need to dwell on the past. Look straight ahead."

- Saint Charlotte

"Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends of being the biggest step of your life. Tiptoe if you must, but take the step."

- Naeem Callaway

"Change your behaviours and your feelings will follow."

- Susan McManhon

"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"My addiction does not define who I am or who I will be!"

- Lisa Renee Barnes Lampros

"I really mean when I say my biggest fear in early recovery was that I would never have fun again. The beautiful truth is that recovery has given me freedom and the confidence to go out in the world and leave my own mark."

- Tom Stoddart

"This stuff, this Mexican sludge, just grabbed you by the f–king heartstrings and tore me apart. All those years of snorting coke, and then I accidentally get involved in heroin after smoking crack for the first time. It finally tied my shoelaces together."

- Robert Downey Jr.

"Drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with your self-esteem."

- Kurt Cobain

"Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit."

- Vince Lombardi

"The priority of any addict is to anaesthetize the pain of living to ease the passage of day with some purchased relief."

- Russell Brand

"Addiction is an adaptation. It’s not you–it’s the cage you live in."

- Johann Hari

"Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street."

- Zig Ziglar

"At first, addiction is maintained by pleasure, but the intensity of the pleasure gradually diminishes and the addiction is then maintained by the avoidance of pain."

- Frank Tallis

"Remember just because you hit bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there."

- Robert Downey Jr.

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear."

- Mark Twain

"One of the hardest things was learning that I was worth recovery."

- Demi Lovato

"You can’t defeat the darkness by keeping it caged inside of you."

- Seth Adam Smith

"Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving; we get stronger and more resilient."

- Steve Maraboli

"Rising from the ashes, I am born again, powerful, exultant, majestic through all the pain."

- Shannon Perry

"No matter how dark the night may get, your light will never burn out."

- Jeanette LeBlanc

"In the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths."

- Drew Barrymore

"Sometimes, you can only find Heaven by slowly backing away from Hell."

- Carrie Fisher

"Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right."

- Henry Ford

"Addiction begins with the hope that something ‘out there’ can instantly fill up the emptiness inside."

- Jean Kilbourne

"At first, addiction is maintained by pleasure, but the intensity of this pleasure gradually diminishes and the addiction is then maintained by the avoidance of pain."

- Frank Tallis

"The initial journey towards sobriety is a delicate balance between insight into one’s desire for escape and abstinence from one’s addiction."

- Debra L. Kaplan

"Nobody stays recovered unless the life they have created is more rewarding and satisfying than the one they left behind."

- Anne Fletcher

"All the suffering, stress and addiction comes from not realizing you already are what you are looking for."

- Jon Kabat-Zinn

"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome."

- Michael Jordan

"You have to break down before you can breakthrough."

- Marilyn Ferguson

"Recovery is taking all twelve steps…over and over and over and over…"

- Toni Sorenson

"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."

- Confucius

"Addiction denied is recovery delayed."

- Mokokoma Mokhonoana

"Your addiction is not you, but it feels like you because you’ve spent so much intimate time together."

- Toni Sorenson

"You just have to take it one day at a time. Some days are easier than others and some days you forget about drinking and using, but for me, I work on my physical health, which is important, but my mental health as well."

- Demi Lovato

"I understood, through rehab, things about creating characters. I understood that creating whole people means knowing where we come from, how we can make a mistake and how we overcome things to make ourselves stronger."

- Samuel L. Jackson

"What is addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood."

- Alice Miller

"You can come out of the furnace of trouble two ways: if you let it consume you, you come out a cinder; but there is a kind of metal which refuses to be consumed, and comes out a star."

- Jean Church

"The best way out is always through."

- Robert Frost

"And thats what its like for me in recovery at times. Afraid to take on responsibility, new sponsees or something, or allowing myself to stand up and shine Ive got new tools, Ive got new hope, new love, new respect for myself."

- James Hetfield

"I went to hell and back, but I wouldnt have it any other way. Then I wouldnt be in the position Im in, happy about life and comfortable in my skin."

- Drew Barrymore

"I think that the power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what youve done."

- Robert Downey Jr.

"You must do the things you think you cannot do."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

- Helen Keller

"I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward."

- Charlotte Brontë

"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending."

- Carl Bard

"Not feeling is no replacement for reality. Your problems today are still your problems tomorrow."

- Larry Michael Dredla

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to continually be afraid you will make one."

- Elbert Hubbard

"No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible."

- George Chakiris

"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny."

- C.S. Lewis

"Life is a series of relapses and recoveries."

- George Ade

"She goes from one addiction to another. All are ways for her to not feel her feelings."

- Ellen Burstyn

"If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced."

- Vincent van Gogh

"Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism."

- Carl Jung

"First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"I understood, through rehab, things about creating characters. I understood that creating whole people means knowing where we come from, how we can make a mistake, and how we overcome things to make ourselves stronger."

- Samuel L. Jackson

"If things go wrong, don’t go with them."

- Roger Babson

"If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep walking."

- Buddhist Proverb

"It always seems impossible until it’s done."

- Nelson Mandela

"Quitting smoking is easy. I’ve done it a hundred times."

- Mark Twain

"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it."

- Henry Ford

"It was the hardest boyfriend I ever had to break up with."

- Fergie

"Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life."

- Brené Brown

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"If you know someone who tries to drown their sorrows, you might tell them sorrows know how to swim."

- Ann Landers

"An over-indulgence of anything, even something as pure as water, can intoxicate."

- Criss Jami

"If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced."

- Vincent van Gogh

"I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival."

- Audre Lorde

"You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town."

- Anne Lamott

"Fall seven times, stand up eight."

- Japanese Proverb

"Recovery is something that you have to work on every single day and it’s something that doesn’t get a day off."

- Anonymous

"You don’t get over an addiction by stopping using. You recover by creating a new life where it is easier to not use. If you don’t create a new life, then all the factors that brought you to your addiction will catch up with you again."

"I am not defined by my relapses but by my decision to remain in recovery despite them."

"Recovery isn’t always easy, but it certainly beats the alternative."

- Anonymous

"I used drugs to feel better. I quit drugs to be better."

- Anonymous

"People are not addicted to alcohol or drugs, they are addicted to escaping reality."

- Anonymous

"My recovery must come first so that everything I love in life doesn’t have to come last."

"You were never created to live depressed, defeated, guilty, condemned, ashamed or unworthy. You were created to be victorious."

"You are not weak for struggling. You are strong for continuing to fight."

- Anonymous

"Recovery is not a race. You don’t have to feel guilty if it takes you longer than you thought it would."

"When you can stop, you don’t want to. And when you want to stop, you can’t. That’s addiction."

"Before you can break out of prison, you must realise you are locked up."

- Anonymous

"Someone once told me, ‘I heard you finally got rid of your addiction.’ I smiled and said, ‘No, addiction doesn’t work like that. Once you have it, you will always have it. I just choose not to feed it."

- Anonymous

"The goal isn’t to be sober. The goal is to love yourself so much that you don’t need to drink."

"I’m not telling you it is going to be easy. I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it!"

"Addiction is the only prison where the locks are on the inside."

"Loving an addicted child is like grieving his death and fighting for his life at the same time. All while hated, helpless, and alone."

- Anonymous

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

"Recovery is a process. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes everything you’ve got."

"It is often in the darkest skies that we see the brightest stars."

"I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was."

- Unknown

"If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking."

"I am not defined by my relapses, but in my decision to remain in recovery despite them."

"Recovery is about progression, not perfection."

"There’s not a drug on earth that can make life meaningful."

"Never underestimate a recovering addict. We fight for our lives every day in ways most people will never understand."

- Anonymous

"One step at a time. One day at a time. One hour at a time."

"It’s a beautiful day to be sober."

"If you chased your recovery like you chased your high, you would never relapse again."

"Recovery is not for people who need it. It’s for people who want it."

"Be stronger than your strongest excuse."

"I am not defined by my relapses, but by my decision to remain in recovery despite them."

"We don’t choose to be addicted; what we choose to do is deny our pain."