Inspirational Sobriety Quotes: A Powerful Collection to Motivate Your Journey

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

- J.K. Rowling

"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

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

- Demi Lovato

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

- Confucius

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

- Brene Brown

"When I focus on whats good today, I have a good day. When I focus on whats bad, I have a bad day. If I focus on the problem, the problem increases. If I focus on the answer, the answer increases."

- Big book of Alcoholics Anonymous

"Sobriety was the best gift I ever gave myself."

- Rob Lowe

"When I focus on what’s good today, I have a good day. When I focus on what’s bad, I have a bad day. If I focus on the problem, the problem increases. If I focus on the answer, the answer increases."

- Alcoholics Anonymous

"Getting sober was the single bravest thing I’ve ever done, and will ever do, in my life. Being courageous enough to acknowledge it privately with my family and friends. Working really hard at solidifying it, getting support around it, and being healthy. And then talking about it publicly. That is the single greatest accomplishment of my life."

- Jamie Lee Curtis

"The thing is, if I don’t have sobriety, I don’t have anything."

- Matthew Perry

"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

"Getting sober was the single bravest thing I’ve ever done and will ever do in my life."

- Jamie Lee Curtis

"My recovery from drug addiction is the single greatest accomplishment of my life… but it takes work — hard, painful work — but the help is there, in every town and career, drug/drink freed members of society, from every single walk and talk of life to help and guide."

- Jamie Lee Curtis

"I got sober, and I got happy again."

- Macklemore

"Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light."

- Norman B. Rice

"If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path."

- Gautama Buddha

"If you get, give. If you learn, teach."

- Maya Angelou

"Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again, and you will be filled with joy."

- Buddha

"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"What was so painful about Amy [Winehouse]’s death is that I know that there is something I could have done. I could have passed on to her the solution that was freely given to me. Don’t pick up a drink or drug, one day at a time. It sounds so simple; it actually is simple but it isn’t easy; it requires incredible support and fastidious structuring."

- Russell Brand

"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

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

- Jimmy Dean

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

- Theodore 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

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

- Aldous Huxley

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

- Roger Babson

"Recovery is hard. Regret is harder."

- Brittany Burgunder

"We don’t even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward."

- Isabel Allende

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

- Sharon Salzberg

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

- ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

"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

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

- Henry Ford

"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

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

- Kahlil Gibran

"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

"When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure."

- Peter Marshall

"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

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

- Katharine Hepburn

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

- Henry Ford

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

- Albert Einstein

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

- Shannon Perry

"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.

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

- Brian Tracy

"Recovery is all about using our power to change our beliefs that are based on faulty data."

- Kevin McCormick

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

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"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

"Being a drug addict in recovery is actually a great place to be because you’re forced to be looking at the rancid layers of the onion that you’ve been carrying around for a lifetime. Whatever degree of struggle it offers me, I’m actually grateful for. It keeps me working towards change, it gives me the desire for change"

- Anthony Kiedis

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

- Buddhist Proverb

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

- Jon Kabat-Zinn

"Thinking about not drinking forever was very scary, but once I did it wasn’t hard anymore because I had all of these miracles happen that let me know I was on exactly the right path."

- Lana Del Rey

"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 is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure."

- Joseph Campbell

"Don't pick up a drink or drug, one day at a time. It actually is simple, but it isn't easy: it requires incredible support and fastidious structuring."

- Russell Brand

"That inner dialogue proves to us, 'You're not capable of change. You are weak. You're staying stuck.' And when you break that cycle, the empowerment that comes out of it, that says, 'I'm not weak, I'm actually strong, I've proven to myself that I am capable of change,' and I believe people are capable of big changes."

- Drew Barrymore

"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

"As I’ve had to remind myself, if you have a problem, getting help is a sign of courage, not weakness or failure. With acceptance and humility, I continue to avail myself with the help of so many people and I am grateful to all those who are there for me. I hope down the road I can offer an example to others who are struggling."

- Ben Affleck

"We honor ourselves when we speak out for recovery. We show the world that recovery matters because it brings hope and peace into the lives of individuals and their loved ones."

- Beth Wilson

"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 realized that I only had two choices: I was either going to die, or I was going to live, and which one did I want to do? And then I said those words, ‘I’ll get help,’ or, ‘I need help. I’ll get help.’ And my life turned around. Ridiculous for a human being to take 16 years to say, ‘I need help.’"

- Elton John

"I couldn’t believe that anybody could be naturally happy without being on something. So I would say to anybody, ‘It does get better.’"

- Eminem

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

- Carrie Fisher

"I don't drink or do drugs anymore. I realized I wasn't going to live up to my potential, and that scared the hell out of me. I thought, 'Wow, I'm actually gonna ruin my life. I'm really gonna ruin it.’"

- Bradley Cooper

"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 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

"Being in recovery has given me everything of value that I have in my life. Integrity, honesty, fearlessness, faith, a relationship with God, and most of all gratitude. It's given me a beautiful family and an amazing career. I'm under no illusions where I would be without the gift of alcoholism and the chance to recover from it."

- Rob Lowe

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

- Terri Guillemets

"[Without sobriety] I would never be sitting here with you, no way, no chance. I never would have been able to have the relationships that I do. I never would have been able to take care of my father the way I did when he was sick. So many things."

- Bradley Cooper, actor and filmmaker

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

- Robert Collier

"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 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

"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

"It is 10 years since I used drugs or alcohol, and my life has improved immeasurably. I have a job, a house, a cat, good friendships and, generally, a bright outlook… The price of this is constant vigilance because the disease of addiction is not rational."

- Russell Brand

"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

"I realized that I only had two choices: I was either going to die or I was going to live, and which one did I want to do? And then I said those words, ‘I’ll get help,’ or, ‘I need help. I’ll get help.’ And my life turned around. Ridiculous for a human being to take 16 years to say, ‘I need help.’"

- Sir Elton John

"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.

"For people who drink too much, the problem isn't really about booze. It's about an inability to deal with life ... What giving up booze does is allow you to look at yourself through an untainted mirror for the first time."

- Collin Farrel

"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

"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

"Sobriety was the best gift I ever gave myself"

- Rob Lowe

"If you need booze or drugs to enjoy your life to the fullest, then you’re doing it wrong."

- Robin Williams

"If it wasn’t for that rehab center, I probably wouldn’t have been here. In terms of recovery, it has been very important for me to be a part of a recovery community, to actively be around my people because they understand me. They get it."

- Macklemore

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

- Nelson Mandela

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

- Kurt Cobain

"Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit."

- Bernard Williams

"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

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

- Rosa Parks

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

- Audrey Hepburn

"Tough times never last, but tough people do."

- Robert Schuller

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Failure is a part of life. If you don’t fail, you don’t learn. If you don’t learn, you’ll never change."

- Morgan Freeman

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

- Jeanette LeBlanc

"Being in recovery has given me everything of value that I have in my life. Integrity, honesty, fearlessness, faith, a relationship with God, and most of all gratitude. Sobriety was the best gift I ever gave myself."

- Rob Lowe

"If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten."

- Tony Robbins

"I approach sobriety with the same mentality I approached sports with. You’re going to put in the time. You’ve got to suit up, show up, and keep your eyes on the win."

- Molly Bloom

"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

"Breakthroughs don’t get planned, they are prepared for."

- Goitsemang Mvula

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

- Confucius

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

- Zig Ziglar

"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

"There is no shame in beginning again, for you get a chance to build bigger and better than before."

- Anonymous

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

- Zig Ziglar

"Sometimes when in a dark place you think you’ve been buried, when actually you’ve been planted."

- Christine Caine

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

- Marilyn Ferguson

"Fall seven times, stand up eight."

- Japanese Proverb

"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

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

- Robert Downey Jr.

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

- Benjamin Alire Sáenz

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

- Albert Einstein

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

- Alice Walker

"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

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

- Stephen King

"The mentality and behaviour of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help, they have no hope."

- Russel Brand

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

- Michael Jordan

"Addiction denied is recovery delayed."

- Mokokoma Mokhonoana

"Life is a series of relapses and recoveries."

- George Ade

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

- Leslie Jamison

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

- Toni Sorenson

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

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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

- Hecato

"Believe in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself."

- Roy T. Bennett

"Amazing how we can light tomorrow with today."

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

- Zig Ziglar

"I dwell in possibility."

- Emily Dickinson

"Every noble work is at first impossible."

- Thomas Carlyle

"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

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

- Johann Hari

"Job one is get out of that cave. A lot of people do get out but don't change. So the thing is to get out and recognize the significance of that aggressive denial of your fate, come through the crucible forged into a stronger metal."

- Robert Downey Jr

"People who go through rehab or a halfway house walk a tough road together and not all of them make it. We knew we faced a powerful adversary that demanded respect. Unlike combat, the adversary was inside us."

- Rob Delaney

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

- Leslie Jamison

"Getting sober is a radically creative act."

- Meredith Bell

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

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The problem of alcohol is, it’s just too easy. It’s everywhere. At least hard drugs, you have to have a dealer. All I know is, I could feel its presence in an ominous, daunting way that was preventing me from being my higher self."

- Ben Harper

"When I was growing up, when I thought of an alcoholic, I thought of some toothless old guy in a trench coat in a basement somewhere. I just never thought that would apply to me. That type of stigma kept me from getting the help that I needed when I knew I needed it."

- Joe Manganiello

"Alcoholism is a devastating, potentially fatal disease. The primary symptom of having it is telling everyone--including yourself—that you are not an alcoholic."

- Herbert L. Gravitz & Julie D. Bowden

"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

"Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the center of all addictive behaviors."

- Gabor Mate

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

- Sarah Kane

"That’s at least in part why I ingested chemical waste—it was a kind of desire to abbreviate myself. To present the CliffNotes of the emotional me, as opposed to the twelve-column read. I used to refer to my drug use as putting the monster in the box. I wanted to be less, so I took more—simple as that."

- Carrie Fisher

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

- Audre Lorde

"The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself."

- Maya Angelou

"Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives."

- Louise Hay

"Self-love is an ocean, and your heart is a vessel. Make it full, and any excess will spill over into the lives of the people you hold dear. But you must come first."

- Beau Taplin

"It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I'd been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on this earth as though I had a right to be here."

- James Baldwin

"Forgiving yourself, believing in yourself, and choosing to love yourself are the best gifts one could receive."

- Brittany Burgunder

"Self-care is never a selfish act—it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others."

- Parker Palmer

"The way to measure your progress is backward against where you started, not against your ideal."

- Dan Sullivan

"The human capacity for burden is like bamboo—far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance."

- Jodi Picoult

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

- Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) saying

"An effort made for the happiness of others lifts us above ourselves."

- Lydia M. Child

"In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us."

- Flora Edwards

"Courage isn’t having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don’t have strength."

- Napoleon Bonaparte

"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

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

- Dr. Phil

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

- Charlotte Whitton

"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

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

- Jessica Simpson

"In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you."

- Andrea Dykstra

"Lighten up on yourself. No one is perfect. Gently accept your humanness."

- Deborah Day

"I change when I’m drunk. I’m one of those people who changes…There is something in any person who drinks in a way that’s clearly not good for them, something that is attracted to that chaos."

- Daniel Radcliffe

"I think once I made up my mind that I was allergic to alcohol, and that’s what I learned, it made sense to me. And I think it was kind of pointed out that you know if you were allergic to strawberries, you wouldn’t eat strawberries. And that made sense to me."

- Betty Ford

"Like, at first it’s fine and you think you have a dark side – it’s exciting – and then you realize the dark side wins every time if you decide to indulge in it."

- Lana Del Rey

"I think it’s important for me to show the world that sobriety hasn’t made me soft. I’m on a mission to prove I’m still a nutcase."

- Steve-O

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

- Gloria Gaynor

"I used to think a drug addict was someone who lived on the far edges of society. Wild-eyed, shaven-headed and living in a filthy squat. That was until I became one."

- Cathryn Kemp

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

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

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

- Anonymous

"The idea that the creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time… Substance abusing writers are just substance abusers —common garden variety drunks and druggies, in other words."

- Stephen King

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

- George Eliot

"No is a complete sentence."

- Anne Lamott

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

- Reinhold Niebuhr

"You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending."

- C.S. Lewis

"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

"You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step."

"I chose sober because I wanted a better life. I stay sober because I got one."

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

"You’re not going to master the rest of your life in one day. Just relax. Master the day. Then just keep doing that every day."

"Addiction isn’t about alcohol and drugs. Its the absence of self. This absence is described as a hole in your soul. You cant love others when you’re empty inside. Recovery peels back the painful layers and heals that hole through connect, honest and hard work. To love one self is the beginning of a lifetime of recovery."

"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!"

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

"The minute you think of giving up, think of the reason why you held on so long."

"My recovery must come first so that everything I love in life does not have to come last."

"Addiction vs. Recovery… Its all about me and what I want vs ‘How can I be of help to others’. Lying, Cheating and manipulating to get what I want vs Willingness, honesty and open-mindedness allow me to get what I need. “I can take care of myself!” vs “ There is something bigger than me.” Rationalise, justify and minimise when I’m wrong vs Owning my part, admitting my faults and trying to grown from them Projecting a false image of myself vs I am no better and no less than anyone else Hide and deny my fears so as not to appear weak vs Acknowledging my fears and limitations and asking for help."

"Live less out of habit and more out of intent."

"Everyone wants happiness. No one wants pain. But you cant have a rainbow without a little rain."

"Your relationships with other people and the connections you make are very powerful in your recovery."

"Don’t stay too long in the shame-filled grounds of relapse. Fertile soil awaits you in your recovery."

"'Feelings aren’t facts' tells me that my feelings are real, but they aren’t reality."

"I have no power at all over people, places, and things, and if I ever for a moment mistakenly believe that I do, pain is on its way."

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

"Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others."

"To call yourself an alcoholic or a drug addict is a badge of honour, because the secret – the shameful secret – is the reason that it is such a pervasive illness."

"Boundaries are a part of self-care. They are healthy, normal, and necessary."

"You are selfish in your addiction, so you have to be even more selfish in your recovery."

"Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen. We must avoid quick-tempered criticism and furious, power-driven argument."

"I chose sober because I wanted a better life. I stay sober because I got one’"

- Unknown

"At first, a sober life seemed unnatural. We wondered what life could possibly be without ever taking a drink. But the longer we were in it, the more natural this way of life seemed."

"Alcoholism is to give up everything for one thing. Sobriety is to give up one thing for everything."

"I would rather go through life sober, believing I am an alcoholic, than to go through life drunk, trying to convince myself that I am not."

"The feeling of having shared a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us."

"Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics."

"Want to find out who your true friends are? Get sober."

"Friendship is a widely underrated medication."

"Don’t forgive them because they deserve forgiveness, forgive them because you deserve peace."

"We can never make peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves."

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

"When you think there is no hope and you feel broken, that is where the window to get better is. When there is nothing left to give, it’s time to hand it over."

"Rather than viewing a brief relapse back to inactivity as a failure, treat is as a challenge and try to get back on track as soon as possible."

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

"Recovery is about progression, not perfection."

"I can hold two opposing feelings at once; it means I am processing."

"I nourish myself with kind words and joyful foods."

"I am proof enough of who I am and what I deserve."

"I grow towards my interests, like a plant reaching for the sun."

"I invite art and music into my life."

"I celebrate the good qualities in others and myself."

"I release the fears that do not serve me."

"I am growing, and I am going at my own pace."

"I am open. I am healing. I am happy."

"I do not have to linger in dark places; there is help for me here."

"I affirm and encourage others, as I do myself."

"Asking for help is a sign of self-respect and self-awareness."

"I am capable of balancing ease and effort in my life."

"I am worthy of investing in myself."

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

"I am worthy of inner peace."

"Sobriety is a journey, not a destination."

"I can change my story."

"What I do today creates a better tomorrow."

"I deserve to be sober."

"I refuse to give up on myself."

"Failure is a stepping stone."

"I am becoming who I want to be."

"I accept myself completely."