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105 Inspirational Drug Addiction Quotes

  • By John Burke

  • November 17, 2023

Recovering from a drug addiction is sometimes a tough journey. Sometimes, you might not get the support and the love you want from family and friends, which might prevent you from moving forward. If you or your loved ones are struggling with addiction and need drug addiction help or support, contact our expert team for a quick call.

These 105 quotes will keep you going even when things get tough.

1. “Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt

2. “I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.” – Charlotte Brontë

3. “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

4. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. “It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” – Joseph Campbell

6. “The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand as what direction you are moving.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

7. “I’ve been 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

Every worthy act is difficult. Ascent is always difficult. Descent is easy and often slippery. - Mahatma Gandhi
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. - Confucius

10. “If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.” – Michael Jordan

11. “Recovery is about progression, not perfection.” – Unknown

12. “You have to break down before you can break through.” – Marilyn Ferguson

13. “The goal isn’t to be sober. The goal is to love yourself so much that you don’t need to drink.” – Anonymous

14. “Life is a series of relapses and recoveries.” – George Ade

15. “Recovery is taking all twelve steps…over and over and over and over…” – Toni Sorenson

16. “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” – Confucius

Fall seven times, stand up eight. - Japanese Proverbs
Your addiction is not you, but it feels like you because you've spent to much intimate time together. - Toni Sorenson

19. “Addiction denied is recovery delayed.”- Mokokoma Mokhonoana

20. “First, you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

21. “I’m not telling you it is going to be easy. I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it!” – Anonymous

22. “I am not defined by my relapses, but by my decision to remain in recovery despite them.” – Anonymous

23. “Remember that just because you hit bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there.” – Robert Downey Jr.

24. “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” – J.K. Rowling

25. “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein

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

28. “What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.” – Hecato

29. “What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

30. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker

31. “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.”– C.S. Lewis

32. “Drug addiction is a self-punishing disease that ruins mental, psychological and physical health.” – Dr. T.P.Chia

33. “Every experience in your life is being orchestrated to teach you something you need to know to move forward.” – Brian Tracy

34. “Every noble work is at first impossible.” – Thomas Carlyle

35. “The priority of any addict is to anesthetize the pain of living to ease the passage of day with some purchased relief.”– Russell Brand on drug abuse

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. – Robert Louis Stevenson
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

38. “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 got 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

39. “Quitting smoking is easy. I’ve done it a hundred times.”– Mark Twain with a hard truth on addiction recovery.

40. “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.

41. “One of the hardest things was learning that I was worth recovery.”– A  diamond quote from Demi speaking the truth about addiction recovery

42. “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”– Mahatma Gandhi with philosophical insights for recovery quotes.

43. “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”– Friedrich Nietzsche with a good philosophy to guide one’s drug addiction recovery.

44. “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.

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
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

47. “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.

48. “If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.”– Benjamin Alire Sáenz on the possibilities of drug addiction recovery.

49. “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.

50. “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.

51. “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.

52. “You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town.”– Anne Lamott

53. “Addiction is an adaptation. It’s not you–it’s the cage you live in.”– Johann Hari

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
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

56. “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”– Henry Ford

57. “Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.”– Vince Lombardi on making drug addiction recovery a new habit.

58. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”– Chinese Proverb

59. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”– Nelson Mandela

60. “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”– Henry Ford

61. “If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.”– Zen Proverb

62. “Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.”– Zig Ziglar proving that drug addiction recovery can be ongoing but worthwhile.

63. “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

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
Recovery is a process. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes everything you’ve got.– Unknown

66. “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.”– Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

67. “Remember just because you hit bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there.”– Robert Downey

68. “It was the hardest boyfriend I ever had to break up with.”– Fergie on struggling with drug addiction recovery.

69. “Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles, and you have to change it.”— James Lee Curtis on addiction recovery.

70. “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.

71. “Be stronger than your strongest excuse.”– Unknown on facing the hard truths of drug addiction recovery.

72. “It’s a beautiful day to be sober.”– Unknown on the best time to pursue drug addiction recovery.

73. “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.

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. – Robert Collier
There’s not a drug on earth that can make life meaningful.– Unknown source on the real reason to fight for drug addiction recovery

76. “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar

77. “It is often in the darkest skies that we see the brightest stars.”– Richard Evans

78. “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.

79.  “The best way out is always through.”– Robert Frost

80. “One step at a time. One day at a time. One hour at a time.”– Unknown

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

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

83. “Either you run the day, or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn

When you rise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ―Marcus Aurelius
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

86. “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” – Babe Ruth

87. “Sometimes you can only find Heaven by slowly backing away from Hell.” – Carrie Fisher

88. “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

89. “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.

90. “Once I was clear-headed, and I hadn’t been clear-headed in so long, I was like, I can never go back. And I’m still thankful.” – Travis Barker

91. “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

92. “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

93. “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

Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit. – Bernard Williams
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. – Marie Curie

96. “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

97. “I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear.” – Rosa Parks

98. “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

99. “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

100. “Cause sometimes you just feel tired. Feel weak, and when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up. But you gotta search within you. You gotta find that inner strength. And just pull it out of you, and get that motivation to not give up, and not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face.” – Eminem

101. “Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.” – Paulo Coelho

102. “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” – Dr. Seuss

103. “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” – Jimmy Dean

It won’t be like this forever. – Unknown
Hope is a good thing, maybe even the best of things, and good things never die.’ – Stephen King

Conclusion

Drug addiction is a devastating disease that can ruin lives. It can destroy relationships, careers, and health. Fortunately, it’s treatable. With the right support, people can recover and live happy, fulfilling lives. If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, contact us to learn more about our drug addiction rehab in Hawaii.

FAQs

Why Are Drug Addiction Quotes Important?

Drug addiction quotes are important because they can provide insight, inspiration, and understanding about the struggles of addiction. They can resonate with individuals going through addiction, in recovery, or those trying to support loved ones dealing with addiction. Quotes often encapsulate complex emotions and experiences in a few words, making them powerful tools for raising awareness and fostering empathy.

What Are Some Famous Drug Addiction Quotes?

There are many famous quotes about drug addiction from various perspectives. Here are a few examples: “The greatest glory in living lies in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Nelson Mandela. “The chains of addiction are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” – Warren Buffett.

How Can Drug Addiction Quotes Be Used in Addiction Recovery?

Drug addiction quotes can be a source of motivation and reflection for individuals in recovery. They can remind people of the challenges they’ve overcome and inspire them to continue their journey to sobriety. Many addiction recovery programs incorporate quotes into counseling and therapy sessions to encourage self-reflection and personal growth.

Can Quotes Help the Loved Ones of Individuals Struggling with Addiction?

Yes, some quotes can provide support and understanding for loved ones dealing with addiction. These quotes often emphasize the importance of compassion, patience, and not giving up on someone in their journey to recovery.

Can Quotes Alone Help in Overcoming Drug Addiction?

While quotes can inspire and motivate, overcoming drug addiction requires comprehensive treatment and support. Quotes alone do not substitute professional help, therapy, or a strong support network. However, they can play a valuable role in recovery’s mental and emotional aspects by providing encouragement and fostering a positive mindset.