100 Inspirational Quotes to Empower Recovering Addicts on Their Journey

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

- Confucius

"Recovery is hard. Regret is harder."

- Brittany Burgunder

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

- Marcus Aurelius

"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

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

- Winston Churchill

"The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, but human connection."

- Johann Hari

"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

"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

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

- Dalai Lama

"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

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

- Socrates

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

- Alice Walker

"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

"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

"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

"I once heard a sober alcoholic say that drinking never made him happy, but it made him feel like he was going to be happy in about fifteen minutes. That was exactly it, and I couldn’t understand why the happiness never came, couldn’t see that alcohol kept me trapped in a world of illusion, procrastination, paralysis. I lived always in the future, never in the present. Next time, next time! Next time I drank it would be different, next time it would make me feel good again. And all my efforts were doomed because already drinking hadn’t made me feel good in years."

- Heather King

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

- Benjamin Alire Sáenz

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

- Steve Maraboli

"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

"Fall seven times, stand up eight."

- Japanese Proverb

"Even in the midst of devastation, something within us always points the way to freedom."

- Sharon Salzberg

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

- Nelson Mandela

"As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world… as in being able to remake ourselves."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Addiction, at its worst, is akin to having Stockholm Syndrome. You're like a hostage who has developed an irrational affection for your captor. They can abuse you, torture you, even threaten to kill you, and you'll remain inexplicably and disturbingly loyal."

- Anne Clendening

"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

"Recovery is not simple abstinence. It's about healing the brain, remembering how to feel, learning how to make good decisions, becoming the kind of person who can engage in healthy relationships, cultivating the willingness to accept help from others, daring to be honest, and opening up to doing."

- Debra Jay

"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

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

- Stephen King

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

- Anne Fletcher

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

- Robert Downey Jr.

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

- Confucius

"I wanted a drink [because] I didn’t want to feel what I was feeling, and a voice within was telling me that I needed a drink, that I couldn’t bear it without it. But that voice is a liar. You can always bear the pain. It’ll hurt, it’ll burn like acid in an open wound, but you can stand it. And, as long as you can make yourself go on choosing the pain over the relief, you can keep going."

- Lawrence Block

"These feelings, no matter how painful, are part of living. Today, we are alive—not anesthetized, not sedated, not passed out. Take control of your feelings and through action you can change. Today, as every day of sober living, we have a choice."

- Ann D. Clark

"The best way out is always through."

- Robert Frost

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

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Asking for help is really the beginning of any sort of recovery process."

- Marc Maron

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

- Henry Ford

"Recovery is an ongoing process, for both the addict and his or her family. In recovery, there is hope. And hope is a wonderful thing."

- Dean Dauphinais

"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

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

- Jamie Lee Curtis

"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.

"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

"We have all had to learn painful lessons. We are all recovering from some mistake, loss, betrayal, abuse, injustice or misfortune. All of life is a process of recovery that never ends. We each must find ways to accept and move through the pain and to pick ourselves back up. Be patient with yourself."

- Bryant McGill

"F-E-A-R has two meanings: ‘Forget Everything And Run’ or ‘Face Everything And Rise.’ The choice is yours."

- Zig Ziglar

"When I got sober, I thought giving up was saying goodbye to all the fun and all the sparkle, and it turned out to be just the opposite. That’s when the sparkle started for me."

- Mary Karr

"Somebody once asked me how I define sobriety and my response was ‘liberation from dependence’."

- Leslie Jamison

"Above anything else—above family or job—the main thing is staying sober. That’s because without being sober, I don’t have a family or a job."

- William Regal

"One day, you’ll tell your story of how you overcame what you went through, and it will be someone else’s survival guide."

- Brene Brown

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

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

- Robert Collier

"Either you run the day, or the day runs you."

- Jim Rohn

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

- Carrie Fisher

"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."

- Robert Downey Jr.

"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

"Everyone has inside of him 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

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

- Jon Kabat-Zinn

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

- George Sheehan

"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

"I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear."

- Rosa Parks

"When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways – either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength. Thanks to the teachings of Buddha, I have been able to take this second way."

- Dalai Lama

"Nothing is impossible; the word itself says, 'I'm possible!'"

- Audrey Hepburn

"I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination."

- Jimmy Dean

"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 Niemeyer

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

- Michael Jordan

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

- Demi Lovato

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

- Marilyn Ferguson

"Life is a series of relapses and recoveries."

- George Ade

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

- Toni Sorenson

"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

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

- Robert Downey Jr.

"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

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

- Albert Einstein

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

- Hecato

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

- Alice Walker

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

- C.S. Lewis

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

- Brian Tracy

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

- Robert Louis Stevenson

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

- Mahatma Gandhi

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

- Mahatma Gandhi

"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

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

- Dr. Phil

"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

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

- Brené Brown

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

- Buddhist Proverb

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

- Jeanette LeBlanc

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

- Katharine Hepburn

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

- Elbert Hubbard

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

- ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

"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

"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

"And that's what it's like for me in recovery at times. Afraid to take on responsibility, new sponsees or something, or allowing myself to stand up and shine... I've got new tools, I've got new hope, new love, new respect for myself."

- James Hetfield

"I went to hell and back, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Then I wouldn't be in the position I'm 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 you've done."

- Robert Downey Jr.

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

- Larry Michael Dredla

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

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"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

"Rehab isn’t what finally got me sober. It was nearly losing everything and finally seeing that whatever benefit I thought alcohol gave me was outweighed by what it would cost me… ‘You’re removing the capacity to be present, not just in the bad moments.’ You’re numbing the good feelings. You’re numbing everything. It’s profoundly selfish."

- Elizabeth Vargas

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

- Frank Tallis

"Most addicts I have talked to report a similar experience. They did not start using drugs for any reason they can remember. They just drifted along until they got hooked. If you have never been addicted, you can have no clear idea what it means to need junk with the addict’s special need. You don’t decide to be an addict. One morning you wake up sick and you’re an addict."

- William S. Burroughs, writer

"People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other."

- Wendell Berry

"We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength."

- Arnold Schwarzenegger

"You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew."

- Albert Einstein

"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

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

- Zig Ziglar

"I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do."

- Georgia O’Keeffe

"Given love and opportunity, every child and adult can recover. All who know this and have the capacity to help others should assist as they can."

- Dallin H. Oaks

"Gratitude always comes into play; research shows that people are happier if they are grateful for the positive things in their lives, rather than worrying about what might be missing."

- Dan Buettner

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

- Henry Ford

"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

"A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don’t function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick."

- Brene Brown

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

- Proverbs 25:28

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

- James 4:7

"The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness."

- Dalai Lama

"The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but the thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings."

- Henry Ward Beecher

"I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb."

- Jessica Simpson

"It’s been said that alcoholics are egomaniacs with low self-esteem. It’s the perfect description. Being larger than life and yet your pride is crushed with self-loathing."

- Gary Oldman

"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’ve been the lead in movies, on television shows and nominated for Emmy. But the best thing I can say about me is that people who can't stop drinking come up to me and say, 'Can you help me? ' And I can say, 'Yes. '"

- Matthew Perry

"The healthy person finds happiness in helping others. Thus, for him, unselfishness is selfish."

- Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) saying

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

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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

- Anonymous

"Amazing how we can light tomorrow with today."

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Every noble work is at first impossible."

- Thomas Carlyle

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

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"I’ve wanted to feel pleasure to the point of insanity. They call it getting high because it's wanting to know that higher level, that godlike level. You want to touch the heavens, you want to feel glory and euphoria, but the trick is it takes work. You can't buy it, you can't get it on a street corner, you can't steal it or inject it or shove it up your ass, you have to earn it."

- Anthony Kiedis

"People always want to ask me about my drug problem—I never had a drug problem; I had a self-esteem problem!"

- Gloria Gaynor

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

- Roger Babson

"Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring forth a flower."

- Shigenori Kameoka

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

- Confucius

"It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, only that you do not stop."

- Confucius

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

- Terri Guillemets

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

- Roger Babson

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."

- Kahlil Gibran

"Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you."

- Charlotte Whitton

"I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring."

- David Bowie

"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

"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

"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."

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

"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."

"A negative mind will never give you a positive life."

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

"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."

"I refuse to give up on myself."

"I am worthy of inner peace."

"I can change my story."

"You’re not responsible for your disease, but you are responsible for your behavior."

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

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

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