Empowering Inspirational Quotes for Addicts: A Collection of Hope

"The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand as what direction you are moving."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Every worthy act is difficult. Ascent is always difficult. Descent is easy and often slippery."

- Mahatma Gandhi

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

- Theodore Roosevelt

"I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'"

- Muhammad Ali

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

- Confucius

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out."

- Robert Collier

"We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here now with the power to shape your day and your future."

- Steve Maraboli

"Addiction is a disease, but it’s the only one you can get yelled at for having."

- Mitch Hedberg

"The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are."

- J.P. Morgan

"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 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.

"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

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

- Jamie Lee Curtis

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

- Terri Guillemets

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

- Michael Jordan

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

- Anne Fletcher

"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

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

- Jeanette LeBlanc

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

- Buddhist Proverb

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

- Brené Brown

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

- Nelson Mandela

"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

"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

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

- C.S. Lewis

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

- Audre Lorde

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

- Ellen Burstyn

"Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Addictions … started out like magical pets, pocket monsters. They did extraordinary tricks, show 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

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

- Roger Babson

"The only journey is the one within."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

"Sometimes you’ve just got to give yourself what you wish someone else would give you."

- Dr. Phil

"I personally believe this: We have only today; yesterday’s gone and tomorrow is uncertain. That’s why they call it the present. And sobriety really is a gift… for those who are willing to receive it."

- Ace Frehley

"The best way out is always through."

- Robert Frost

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

- Steve Maraboli

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

- Mahatma Gandhi

"It is only in our darkest hours that we may discover the true strength of the brilliant light within ourselves that can never, ever, be dimmed."

- Doe Zantamata

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

- J.K. Rowling

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Hope is a good thing, maybe even the best of things, and good things never die."

- Stephen King

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

- Henry Ford

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."

- Harriet Beecher Stowe

"If you’re going through hell, keep going."

- Winston Churchill

"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

"My scars remind me that I did indeed survive my deepest wounds. That in itself is an accomplishment. And they bring to mind something else, too. They remind me that the damage life has inflicted on me has, in many places, left me stronger and more resilient. What hurt me in the past has actually made me better equipped to face the present."

- Steve Goodier

"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it."

- 1 Corinthians 10:13

"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."

- James 4:7

"You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."

- Marcus Aurelius

"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

"The Only Person You Are Destined To Become Is The Person You Decide To Be."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"When was the last time you woke up and wished you’d had just one more drink the night before? I have never regretted not drinking. Say this to yourself, and you’ll get through anything."

- Meredith Bell

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

- Jamie Lee Curtis

"Hard times build determination and inner strength. Through them, we can also come to appreciate the uselessness of anger."

- Dalai Lama

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

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

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

- Saint Charlotte

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

- Anonymous

"Change your behaviours and your feelings will follow."

- Susan McManhon

"Alcoholism is above all a disease of denial."

- David Stafford

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

- Lisa Renee Barnes Lampros

"Don’t Let the Past Steal Your Present."

- Terri Guillemets

"Experience Is Not What Happens To You, It Is What You Do With What Happens To You."

- Aldous Huxley

"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 Neimeyer

"People Become Attached To Their Burdens Sometimes More Than The Burdens Are Attached To Them."

- George Bernard Shaw

"Either You Run The Day, Or The Day Runs You."

- Jim Rohn

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

- Demi Lovato

"Every experience in your life is being orchestrated to teach you something you need to know to move forward."

- Brian Tracy

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance."

- James 1:2

"Keep steadily before you the fact that all true success depends at last upon yourself."

- Theodore T. Hunger

"Fall seven times, stand up eight."

- Japanese Proverb

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."

- Albert Einstein

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

- Benjamin Alire Sáenz

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

- Confucius

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

- Henry Ford

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

- Confucius

"We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

- Albert Einstein

"A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls."

- Proverbs 25:28

"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

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

- Confucius

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

- Robert Downey Jr.

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

- Marilyn Ferguson

"People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily."

- Zig Ziglar

"Everyone has inside them a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!"

- Anne Frank

"Every noble work is at first impossible."

- Thomas Carlyle

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any."

- Alice Walker

"What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself."

- Hecato

"As one goes through life, one learns that if you don’t paddle your own canoe, you don’t move."

- Katharine Hepburn

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

- Toni Sorenson

"Addiction denied is recovery delayed."

- Mokokoma Mokhonoana

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

- Toni Sorenson

"Experience is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you."

- Aldous Huxley

"Life is a series of relapses and recoveries."

- George Ade

"Amazing how we can light tomorrow with today."

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives."

- William James

"Whether you think that you can or that you can’t, you are usually right."

- Henry Ford

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

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The most common way people give up power is by thinking they don’t have any."

- Alice Walker

"What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

- Albert Einstein

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new."

- Socrates

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

- Anonymous

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

- 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

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

- Anonymous

"Addiction makes you blind to your reality."

- Anonymous

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

- Anonymous

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out."

"Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it."

"Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us."

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

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

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

"If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody."

"First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes a man."

"It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward."

"Patience and the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown."

"Addiction: the disease that makes you too selfish to see the havoc that you created or care about the people whose lives you shattered."

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

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

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

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

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

"Recovery is hard, but not recovering is harder."

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

"Recovery is about progression, not perfection."

"If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging."

"Adapt the remedy to the disease."

"Control your emotions or they will control you."

"A wise man adapts himself to circumstances, as water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it."

"With true friends…even water drunk together is sweet enough."

"Either do not begin or, having begun, do not give up."

"It is easy to get a thousand prescriptions but hard to get one single remedy."

"There Is No Shame In Beginning Again, For You Get A Chance To Build Bigger And Better Than Before."

"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."

"When everything seems like an uphill struggle, just think of the view from the top."

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

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

"When Your Past Calls, Don’t Answer. It Has Nothing New To Say."

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

"The Goal Isn’t To Be Sober. The Goal Is To Love Yourself So Much That You Don’t Need To Drink."