How to Recover: 29 Quotes of Experience, Strength, and Hope

Quotes can sometimes be the words that get to the point about how you are feeling. They may also give you a message that you needed to hear at this moment.

Here are 29 awe-inspiring quotes to help you move forward with hope and grace.  I hope they inspire you!

Quotes about Hope

“When the world says, ‘Give up,’ Hope whispers, ‘Try it one more time.’ “~ Author Unknown

“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.” ~ Anne Lamott

“God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us — in the dreariest and most dreaded moments — can see a possibility of hope.” ~ Maya Angelou

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

“Walk on with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone”  ~ Shah Rukh Khan

“A whole stack of memories never equals one little hope.” ~ Charles M. Schultz

“Hopeful thinking can get  you out of your fear zone and into your appreciation zone.” ~ Martha Beck

“All it takes is one bloom of hope to make a spiritual garden.” ~Terri Guillemets

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘it will be happier’…”  ~ Alfred Tennyson

“No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible.” ~ George Chakiris

Quotes About Recovery

“Every day I make the choice not to drink, the choice to be present in every moment, even the difficult ones. And every night I thank God for another day of sobriety. I do not take it for granted. Not now, when I have seen how quickly everything good about my life can dissolve in a glass of wine, never to be recovered. I am responsible for my own sobriety, and my own happiness.” ~ Elizabeth Vargas, author of Between Breaths

“At the end of the day, our recovery must be based not on shame or perfectionism or the need to impress others, but on our willingness to be kind to ourselves.” ~ Erica Spiegelman, author of Rewired.

“Internally, I have also experienced a tremendous transformation, which took many years and included some seemingly sudden shifts–from resistance and fear to openness and presence. And, the greatest paradox is, once I released the expectation that I needed my outer life to look a certain way in order to be OK. my outer life started to manifest with a greater abundance than ever before.” ~ TJ Woodward, author of Conscious Being

“When I first got sober I thought that life was over and that I was going to be restricted to the rooms of A.A. forever. I was convinced that sobriety was a prison and I was to serve a life sentence. I was wrong about that and I was wrong about A.A. Recovery has been absolutely and completely expansive, every day bigger, better, and brighter. I have been granted a life beyond my wildest expectations.”  ~ Kristina Wandzilak, author of The Lost Years

“What’s truly amazing is that I enjoy this life today, and when I was still using, I hated the idea of sobriety. I could not picture myself having fun or being content with this life that I am now living. But somehow I transformed and it did happen.”  ~ Patrick Meninga creator of Spiritual River

“I was once a hopeless addict whose life has been interrupted by a Higher Power.  My life was transformed by surrendering to the principles of The 12-Steps, which has led to a life that is devoted to the practice of meditation and service to others.”  ~ Tom Catton, author of The Mindful Addict

“Working with people who are in the throws of their disease keeps me in touch with how far I’ve gone and how much I don’t want to go back. I now know much more about the risks and about what I’d be doing to myself were I to take them. I don’t want to kill additional neurons, and I sure as hell don’t want to go through 2 more years of hell trying to put my life in order. I’ve never tried speed again since the day I quit in 2002 because I can’t say that I’m sure of what would happen next, and I don’t want to find out in case it’s bad… This is why I believe that education is one of our best weapons in the battle against addiction.”   ~ Dr. Adi Jaffe of All About Addiction

“Beliefs create reality” ~ Melody Beattie

“As crazy as this may sound, I would say to almost anyone: Consider that relapse might happen, and then plan what to do if or when it does. After a relapse, the person should call a friend who is also in recovery and get right back to doing what is needed to avoid it in the future. Learn from it.” ~ Joe Herzanek, author of Why Don’t They Just Quit?

“What is broken can be mended. What hurts can be healed. And no matter how hard it gets, the sun will rise again.” ~ Unknown

Quotes for Families

“Continue to support each other, listen to each other, care about each other. Keep fighting the fight for everyone’s children.” ~ Anita Devlin, author of S.O.B.E.R.

“Finally, I realized as long as I held on to all of that hurt pain and anger I was not going to move forward, even though he was moving forward. When I was sure I wanted to get better I told my son I was proud of him, I believed in him and I wanted the past to be in the past. That’s how I was able to let go. I had to face my fear (my son) man to man.”  ~ Ron Grover of An Addict in Our Son’s Bedroom

“Contentment happens when we feel valued, connected, and loved. This is what makes life worth living; this is what drives us to thrive as infants, children, adolescents, and as adults. we want these feelings for our children and ourselves.” ~  Brad M. Reedy, Ph.D., author of The Journey of the Heroic Parent

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly–that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” ~ Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

“After three years of sobriety, my son’s growth is evident. He laughs more easily, he watches more calmly and he protects himself better. He knows where he hurts and he pays attention to what is coming. He’s more reflective, thoughtful, less impulsive and more honest. He has good friends. Part of my son died with the addiction, but the son I know is still here. Suffice it to say that he is becoming a strong and caring man. He is finding his way back to himself. ” ~ Libby Cataldi, author of Stay Close: A Mother’s Story of Her Son’s Addiction

“Why does it help to read others’ stories? It’s not only that misery loves company, because (I learned) misery is too self-absorbed to want much company. Others’ experiences did help with my emotional struggle; reading, I felt a little less crazy. And, like the stories I heard at Al-Anon meetings, others’ writing served as guides in uncharted waters. Thomas Lynch showed me that it is possible to love a child who is lost, possibly forever. ”  ~ David Sheff, author of Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction

“Just because you can’t see it clearly now, that doesn’t mean things won’t work out for you. Keep going and trust in yourself. This may or may not pan out as you hoped it would, but it’s worth the risk. And no matter what happens, you can handle it, and you will be just fine.” ~ Lori Deschene 

“All around me, people are carrying unseen, unbearable, unimaginable burdens. So every day, I look outward, reach outward, with my heart. And I count my lucky stars, of which I still have many.” ~ Sandy Swenson, author of Tending Dandelions

It’s not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours.” ~ Joyce Maynard

Over to you. What quotes have inspired you? Let us know in the comments.

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