50 Best Drug Addiction Quotes and Sayings of All Time

50 Best Drug Addiction Quotes and Sayings of All Time

Drug addiction recovery is a challenging experience. Fortunately, a tremendous amount of resources is available to help you along the way. Some of these can inspire, and others, well let’s just say they let you look at your situation with humor. 

In this post, we’ll list 50 of our favorite drug addiction quotes and sayings of all time. Reading addiction recovery quotes from formerly addicted individuals can give you solace and inspiration for your recovery journey. Use this list to gain motivation to keep going along your recovery journey and stay drug-free.  

1) “The priority of any addict is to anaesthetize the pain of living to ease the passage of day with some purchased relief.”

– Russell Brand on drug abuse 

2) “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. on facing the point when he faced the need for drug addiction recovery 

3) “Quitting smoking is easy. I’ve done it a hundred times.”

– Mark Twain with a hard truth on addiction recovery. 

4) “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 with one of our favorite drug addiction recovery quotes. 

5) “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 on mental illness

6) “One of the hardest things was learning that I was worth recovery.”

– Another diamond from Demi speaking truth about addiction recovery 

7) “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”

– Mahatma Gandhi with philosophical insights for recovery quotes. 

8) “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche with a good philosophy to guide one’s drug addiction recovery.

9) “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 with another favorite from our drug addiction recovery quotes. 

10) “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, a true model for overcoming strife. 

11) “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. 

12) “If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.”

– Benjamin Alire Sáenz on the possibilities of drug addiction recovery. 

13) “Fall seven times, stand up eight.”

– Japanese proverb 

14) “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 on the balancing act of addiction recovery. 

15) “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 on the true meaning of drug addiction recovery. 

16) “Nobody stays recovered unless the life they have created is more rewarding and satisfying than the one they left behind.”

– Anne Fletcher on what addicted individuals need to achieve true sobriety.

17) “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 on how treatment options can help you shine. 

18) “You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town.”

– Anne Lamott 

19) “Addiction is an adaptation. It’s not you–it’s the cage you live in.”

– Johann Hari 

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

– Henry Ford 

21) “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 on the futility of substance abuse.

22) “Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.”

– Vince Lombardi on making drug addiction recovery a new habit. 

23) “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

– Chinese Proverb 

24) “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

– Nelson Mandela 

25) “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

– Henry Ford 

26) “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson with insights that people in addiction recovery can use to transcend their current plight. 

27) “If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.”

– Zen Proverb 

28) “Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.”

– Zig Ziglar proving that drug addiction recovery can be ongoing but worthwhile. 

29) “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 

30) “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.”

– Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald 

31) “We don’t choose to be addicted; what we choose to do is deny our pain.”

– Unknown with real insights for the person in drug addiction recovery. 

32) “Remember just because you hit bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there.”

– Robert Downey 

33) “It was the hardest boyfriend I ever had to break up with.”

– Fergie on struggling with drug addiction recovery. 

34) “Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles, and you have to change it.”

— James Lee Curtis on addiction recovery. 

35) “Recovery is not for people who need it. It’s for people who want it.”

– Unknown on who will find the greatest success in a drug addiction recovery program. 

36) “Recovery is a process. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes everything you’ve got.”

– Unknown 

37) “Be stronger than your strongest excuse.”

– Unknown 

38) “It’s a beautiful day to be sober.”

– Unknown on the best time to pursue drug addiction recovery. 

39) “If you chased your recovery like you chased your high, you would never relapse again.”

– Unknown with words of encouragement for those in drug addiction recovery. 

40) “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.”

– C.S. Lewis 

41) “It is often in the darkest skies that we see the brightest stars.”

– Richard Evans 

42) “No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible.”

– George Chakiris with an important message for anyone in drug addiction recovery treatment. 

43) “The best way out is always through.”

– Robert Frost 

44) “One step at a time. One day at a time. One hour at a time.”

– Unknown 

45) “There’s not a drug on earth that can make life meaningful.”

– Unknown source on the real reason to fight for drug addiction recovery. 

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

– Unknown 

47) “Be stronger than your strongest excuse.”

– Unknown on facing the hard truths of drug addiction recovery. 

48) “Recovery is about progression, not perfection.”

– Unknown 

49) “I am not defined by my relapses, but in my decision to remain in recovery despite them.”

– Unknown person speaking truth about addiction recovery.

50) “I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was.”

– Unknown 

Conclusion 

No matter what stage you are at with your drug addiction recovery, there is always hope. Hopefully, one or more of these quotes has inspired you to maintain your dedication to sobriety. 

Click here to contact an addiction expert that can help. 

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