150 Quotes on Addiction Recovery (Motivational & Inspirational)

Best Quotes On Addiction Recovery

  • “Recovery is about progression, not perfection.” —Unknown
  • “Recovery is hard. Regret is harder.” —Brittany Burgunder
  • “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” —Confucius
  • “If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.” —Benjamin Alire Sáenz
  • “Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles, and you have to change.” —Jamie Lee Curtis
  • “If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.” —Zen proverb
  • “I’m not telling you it is going to be easy; I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.” —Art Williams
  • “Recovery didn’t open the gates of heaven and let me in. Recovery opened the gates of hell and let me out!” – Anonymous
  • “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
  • “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
  • “I think that 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.

Motivational Quotes On Addiction Recovery

  • “He conquers who endures.” —Persius
  • “Recovery is hard. Regret is harder.” —Brittany Burgunder
  • “Don’t let the past steal your present.” —Terri Guillemets
  • “Believe you can and you are halfway there.” —Theodore Roosevelt
  • “Great acts are made up of small deeds.” —Lao Tzu
  • “One small step is worth more than a thousand steps planned.” —Unknown
  • “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.” —Michel de Montaigne
  • “Even in the midst of devastation, something within us always points the way to freedom.” —Sharon Salzberg
  • “Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.” —Napoleon Bonaparte
  • “People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.” —George Bernard Shaw
  • “The best idea and the best expression of it amount to nothing without action to back them up.” —Unknown
  • “Experience is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you.” —Aldous Huxley
  • “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • “Courage isn’t having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don’t have strength.” —Napoléon Bonaparte
  • “A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault.” —John Henry Newman

Inspirational Quotes On Addiction Recovery

  • “Be stronger than your strongest excuse.” —Unknown
  • “Recovery is about progression, not perfection.” —Unknown
  • “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” —Japanese proverb
  • “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” —Nelson Mandela
  • “The best way out is always through.” —Robert Frost
  • “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” —C.S. Lewis
  • “Addiction is an adaptation. It’s not you–it’s the cage you live in.” —Johann Hari
  • “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” —Henry Ford
  • “Remember just because you hit bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there.” —Robert Downey
  • “It is often in the darkest skies that we see the brightest stars.” —Richard Evans
  • “You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town.” —Anne Lamott
  • “Recovery is a process. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes everything you’ve got.” —Unknown
  • “One step at a time. One day at a time. One hour at a time.” —Unknown
  • “Be stronger than your strongest excuse.” —Unknown
  • “It’s a beautiful day to be sober.” —Unknown
  • “Quitting smoking is easy. I’ve done it a hundred times.” —Mark Twain
  • “Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.” —Vince Lombardi
  • “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” —Chinese Proverb
  • “If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.” —Zen Proverb
  • “It was the hardest boyfriend I ever had to break up with.” —Fergie
  • “Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.” —Zig Ziglar
  • “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” —Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
  • “Never underestimate a recovering addict. We fight for our lives every day in ways most people will never understand.” —Unknown
  • “One of the hardest things was learning that I was worth recovery.” —Another Diamond
  • “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” —Mahatma Gandhi.

Addiction Recovery Quotes for Letting Go

  • “Don’t let the past steal your present.” —Terri Guillemets
  • “You have to break down before you can breakthrough.” —Marilyn Ferguson
  • “People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.” —George Bernard Shaw
  • “Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you.” —Aldous Huxley
  • “I guess the worst day I have had was when I had to stand up in rehab in front of my wife and daughter and say, ‘Hi, my name is Sam, and I am an addict.” —Samuel J. Jackson

Inspirational Quotes For Recovering Addicts

  • “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” —Friedrich Nietzsche
  • “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” —Henry Ford
  • “Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles, and you have to change it.” —James Lee Curtis on addiction recovery.
  • “If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.” —Benjamin Alire Sáenz
  • “There’s not a drug on earth that can make life meaningful.” —Unknown
  • “I am not defined by my relapses, but in my decision to remain in recovery despite them.” —Unknown
  • “I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was.” —Unknown
  • “No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible.” —George Chakiris
  • “We don’t choose to be addicted; what we choose to do is deny our pain.” —Unknown
  • “If you chased your recovery like you chased your high, you would never relapse again.” —Unknown
  • “The priority of any addict is to anaesthetize the pain of living to ease the passage of day with some purchased relief.” —Russell Brand
  • “At first, addiction is maintained by pleasure, but the intensity of the pleasure gradually diminishes and the addiction is then maintained by the avoidance of pain.” —Frank Tallis
  • “Recovery is not for people who need it. It’s for people who want it.” —Unknown
  • “Drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with your self-esteem.” —Kurt Cobain
  • “The initial journey towards sobriety is a delicate balance between insight into one’s desire for escape and abstinence from one’s addiction.” —Debra L. Kaplan
  • “Nobody stays recovered unless the life they have created is more rewarding and satisfying than the one they left behind.” —Anne Fletcher
  • “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • “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
  • “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
  • “What is addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood.” —Alice Miller
  • “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’s inspiring words to live by when struggling through addiction recovery.
  • “You just have to take it one day at a time. Some days are easier than others and some days you forget about drinking and using, but for me, I work on my physical health, which is important, but my mental health as well.” —Demi Lovato
  • “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
  • “Addiction is just a way of trying to get at something else. Something bigger. Call it transcendence if you want, but it’s 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
  • “This stuff, this Mexican sludge, just grabbed you by the f–king heartstrings and tore me apart,” he told Rolling Stone. “All those years of snorting coke, and then I accidentally get involved in heroin after smoking crack for the first time. It finally tied my shoelaces together.” —Robert Downey Jr.

Addiction Recovery Quotes for a Better Life

  • “I used drugs to feel better. I quit drugs to be better.” —Unknown
  • “Recovery is not for people who need it. It’s for people who want it.” —Unknown
  • “The goal isn’t to be sober. The goal is to love yourself so much that you don’t need to drink.” —Anonymous
  • “Nobody stays recovered unless the life they have created is more rewarding and satisfying than the one they left behind.” —Anne Fletcher
  • “I really mean it 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

Addiction Recovery Quotes for What You Want to Be

  • “One of the hardest things was learning that I was worth recovery.” —Demi Lovato
  • “Sometimes, you’ve just got to give yourself what you wish someone else would give you.” —Dr. Phil
  • “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • “All the suffering, stress, and addiction comes from not realizing you already are what you are looking for.” —Jon Kabat-Zinn
  • “I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was.” —Sade Andria Zabala
  • “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 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

Addiction Quotes and Sayings

  • “Addiction is a symptom of not growing up.” —C. C. DeVille
  • “Quitting smoking is easy, I’ve done it hundreds of times.” —Mark Twain
  • “Reality is just a crutch for people who can’t handle drugs.” —Robin Williams
  • “Drugs have taught an entire generation of American kids the metric system.” —P.J. O’Rourke
  • “The first thing in the human personality that dissolves in alcohol is dignity.” —Anonymous
  • “You know you’re an alcoholic when you misplace things for like a decade.” —Paul Williams
  • “You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town.” —Anne Lamott
  • “The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.” —Jean Cocteau
  • “Addiction- When you can give up something any time, as long as it’s next Tuesday.” —Nikki Sixx
  • “Addiction doesn’t kill the addict. It kills the family, kids and people who tried to help! —Anonymous
  • “Addiction begins with the hope that something “out there” can instantly fill up the emptiness inside.” —Jean Kilbourne
  • “Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.” —Carl Jung
  • “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” —Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
  • “All the suffering, stress and addiction comes from not realizing you already are what you are looking for.” —Jon Kabat-Zinn
  • “If you know someone who tries to drown their sorrows, you might tell them sorrows know how to swim.” —Ann Landers
  • “The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones.” —Somerset Maugham
  • “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
  • “In the 1960s, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird, and people take Prozac to make it normal.” —Anonymous
  • “Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.” —Mark Twain
  • “At first, addiction is maintained by pleasure, but the intensity of this pleasure gradually diminishes and the addiction is then maintained by the avoidance of pain.” —Frank Tallis
  • “What is addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood.” —Alice Miller
  • “The mentality and behavior 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.” —Russell Brand
  • “What fascinates me about addiction and obsessive behavior is that people would choose an altered state of consciousness that’s toxic and ostensibly destroys most aspects of your normal life, because for a brief moment you feel okay.” —Moby
  • “At every stage, addiction is driven by one of the most powerful, mysterious, and vital forces of human existence. What drives addiction is longing–a longing not just of brain, belly, or loins but finally of the heart.” —Cornelius Platinga
  • “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
  • “Recovery from addiction requires hard work, a proper attitude and learning skills to stay sober, not drinking alcohol or using other drugs. Successful drug recovery or alcohol recovery involves changing attitudes, acquiring knowledge, and developing skills to meet the many challenges of sobriety.” —Dennis Daley
  • “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
  • “Addictions … started out like magical pets, pocket monsters. They did extraordinary tricks, showed you things you hadn’t seen, 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
  • “I admire addicts. In a world where everybody is waiting for some blind, random disaster, or some sudden disease, the addict has the comfort of knowing what will most likely wait for him down the road. He’s taken some control over his ultimate fate, and his addiction keeps the cause of death from being a total surprise.” —Chuck Palahniuk
  • “I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.” —Edgar Allan Poe