Inspiring Words: A Powerful Collection of NA Inspirational Quotes

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up."

- Anne Lamott

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

- Benjamin Alire Sáenz

"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

"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

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

- J.K. Rowling

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

- Robert Downey Jr.

"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

"Each time we surrender, we find once more that the desperation that drives us to our knees fuels the passion that carries us forward. When hope manifests into reality, our lives change. Our experience affirms what we believe, and belief grows into faith. When our faith grows into knowledge, the program that we once struggled to practice has become part of who we are. We find here what we were looking for all along: connection to others, connection to a Higher Power, connection to the world around us—and, most surprising of all, connection to ourselves."

- Narcotics Anonymous

"When we forget the effort and the work that it took us to get a period of freedom in our lives, a lack of gratitude sinks in, and self-destruction begins again. Unless action is taken immediately, we run the risk of a relapse that threatens our very existence. Keeping our illusion of reality, rather than using the tools of the program, will return us to isolation. Loneliness will kill us inside and the drugs that almost always come next may do the job completely. The symptoms and the feelings that we experienced at the end of our using will come back even stronger than before. This impact is sure to destroy us if we don’t surrender ourselves to the NA Program."

- Narcotics Anonymous

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

- Joseph Campbell

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty."

- Winston Churchill

"Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing."

- August Wilson

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

- Napoléon Bonaparte

"Real hope combined with real action has always pulled me through difficult times. Real hope combined with doing nothing has never pulled me through."

- Jenni Schaefer

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

- Mahatma Gandhi

"There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.’ No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster."

- Dalai Lama XIV

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."

- Arthur Ashe

"Don’t be pushed by your problems, be lead by your dreams."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise."

- Victor Hugo

"You don’t get over an addiction by stopping using. You recover by creating a new life where it’s 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."

- Anonymous

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

- Zig Ziglar

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

- Robert Collier

"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

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

- Marc Maron

"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

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

- Jon Kabat-Zinn

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

- Johann Hari

"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

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

- Leslie Jamison

"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

"[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

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

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"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

"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

"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

"Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results."

- Rita Mae Brown

"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

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

- Demi Lovato

"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

"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

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

- Henry Ford

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

- Christine Caine

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

- Kahlil Gibran

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

- Peter Marshall

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

- Isabel Allende

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

- Jodi Picoult

"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

"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

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

- Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) saying

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

- Mahatma Gandhi

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

- Buddha

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

- Maya Angelou

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

- Gautama Buddha

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

- Norman B. Rice

"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

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

- Deborah Day

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

- Andrea Dykstra

"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

"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

"Pain in this life is not avoidable, but the pain we create avoiding pain is avoidable."

- R.D. Laing

"I believe in recovery, and as a role model I have the responsibility to let young people know that you can make a mistake and come back from it."

- Ann Richards

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

- Anonymous

"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

"Do we really want to be rid of our resentments, our anger, our fear? Many of us cling to our fears, doubts, self-loathing or hatred because there is a certain distorted security in familiar pain. It seems safer to embrace what we know than to let go of it for fear of the unknown."

- Narcotics Anonymous

"It’s gonna get harder before it gets easier. But it will get better, you just gotta make it through the hard stuff first."

- Anonymous

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

- Anonymous

"It’s not that some people have willpower and some don’t. It’s that some people are ready to change and others are not."

- Anonymous

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

- Anonymous

"I know you’re tired, I know you feel like giving up, but you’re not going to. You know why? Because you are strong, and when you’re survived through all the shit your addiction has but you through, you can survive recovery."

- Anonymous

"Recovery is about progression not perfection."

- Anonymous

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

- Jamie Lee Curtis

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

- Confucius

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday."

- John Wayne

"We’re all looking at the people around us, the people who have gone before us who have succeeded in recovery and have long-term sobriety and they are an illustration for us of how good it can be."

- Scott Stevens

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

- Kevin McCormick

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

- Dan Sullivan

"The search for a God of our own understanding is one of the most important efforts we will undertake in our recovery. We have complete personal choice and freedom in how we understand our Higher Power. We can each find a Higher Power that does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Because we are powerless over our addiction, we need a Power greater than ourselves to help us."

- Narcotics Anonymous Fellowship

"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

"Recovery isn’t for people who need it, it’s for people who want it."

- Anonymous

"We learn that our spirit is not apart from us; it is a part of us. We gain awareness of the exact nature of what is right about us. Our fractured personalities come back together into an integrated whole. Integrity is the state of being fully integrated: Our actions, our thinking, our feelings, our ideals, and our values all match up. It takes a long time for a lot of us to get here, and longer still for us to feel like it’s real. More and more, we are able to bring our behavior into alignment with our values and beliefs rather than our feelings and reactions."

- Narcotics Anonymous

"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

"Our negative sense of self has been replaced by a positive concern for others. Answers are provided, and problems are solved. It is a great gift to feel human again."

- Narcotics Anonymous Fellowship

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

- Anonymous

"The hopeful part about that is when you do have that help, you will feel better. It still doesn’t make this easy. Nothing makes this easy, but you can make better decisions."

- David Sheff

"There is a place in this movement for everybody, whether you just want to share your story at a school, share your story with your neighbor or you want to speak to your legislator about how important supporting addiction recovery is for our communities."

- Greg Williams

"Positive thoughts and prayer have been the best means available, since the beginning of time, to transform darkness into light."

- Kate Stevens

"Our disease involved much more than just using drugs, so our recovery must involve much more than simple abstinence."

- Narcotics Anonymous Fellowship

"The vulnerability we experience allows us a different experience of love. It is an act of generosity to let people be close to us, and we try to understand that they, too, are going through feelings about what’s happening."

- Narcotics Anonymous

"We learn that the program won’t work when we try to adapt it to our life. We must learn to adapt our life to the program."

- Narcotics Anonymous

"Pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth"

- Anonymous

"The CRAFT approach, developed by Bob Meyers at U of New Mexico, is one set of important tools that DO work, and it feels great to see families using these strategies and getting results, feeling hopeful again, feeling empowered, getting support, learning to trust themselves again, getting their lives and the lives of their children back."

- Jeff Foote, PhD

"It’s hard to spot a spiritual crisis: Usually it is disguised as a crisis in our relationships, finances, career, or family."

- Narcotics Anonymous

"By keeping an open mind, sooner or later, we find the help we need."

- Narcotics Anonymous Fellowship

"Social acceptability does not equal recovery."

- Narcotics Anonymous

"We can use this Power long before we understand it."

- Narcotics Anonymous Fellowship

"We take the time to allow ourselves the privilege of thinking."

- Narcotics Anonymous

"Lest problems of money, property or prestige divert us from our primary purpose."

- Narcotics Anonymous

"I know, despite all my best efforts and deepest desires, that I can’t guarantee a happy, healthy, and successful path for my children; still, once in a while, I feel the tide touching my toes."

- D’Anne Burwell

"When we are prepared, we must try out our newly found way of life."

- Narcotics Anonymous

"we take the time to allow ourselves the privilege of thinking"

- Narcotics Anonymous

"lest problems of money, property or prestige divert us from our primary purpose."

- Narcotics Anonymous

"us if we don’t surrender ourselves to the NA Program."

- Narcotics Anonymous

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

- Unknown

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

"Recovery didn’t open the gates of heaven and let me in. Recovery opened the gates of hell and let me out!"

- Unknown

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

"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."

"Don’t be ashamed of your story, it will inspire others."

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

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

"I can change my story."

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

"I refuse to give up on myself."