Quotes & Sayings About Recovery From Alcoholism

Freedom doesn't come through banning; freedom lies in mastering self-control. — Beem Weeks

What was so painful about Amy'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

Alcoholism or addiction is a disease because it fits the definition of disease. It is progressive and chronic, and left untreated, it will kill. — Irene Tomkinson

I cannot trust my other side, my drunken side, to act in my best interests anymore. — Robert Black

Spurred by Amy's death I've tried to salvage unwilling victims from the mayhem of the internal storm and am always, always just pulled inside myself. — Russell Brand

I couldn't stop so I quit. — Brian Spellman

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

The Big Book's chapter We Agnostics draws a line in the sand: God either is or He isn't. What was our choice to be (Alcoholics Anonymous, 53)? Nature abhors a vacuum and a state of nothing can't exist in either the material or spiritual world. This kind of binary thinking made sense in the autocratic world of 1939. But in a democratic, pluralist society, all-or-nothing thinking is a cognitive distortion - a philosophical assumption that everything is right or wrong, good or evil, superior or inferior. In this millennium, people can hold opposing views and be equals in the same community. Our Traditions, lovingly and tolerantly, make room for more than one truth. That's a good thing, because the only problem with the truth is that there are so many versions of it. — Joe C.

Alcohol is the fuel to your pains. Share you pains and you will see how easy it is to quit alcohol. — Srinivas Shenoy

Looking For Love and Looking In All The Wrong Places — Gordon Rouston

Those unexpected morality lessons provided by the trip had jolted me into some kind of action. It was time to jettison the past before the present jettisoned me. This was my first veiled attempt at recovery. Although perhaps I was just running away again. I returned to Glasgow, planning to say a final goodbye to Anne and get out of her life, but ended up drinking with buddies in the Chip Bar and never seeing her. I called her instead to say I was moving to London and told her she could have the house and everything else we owned, which wasn't much. I think she was as relieved as I was that I was leaving town for good. — Craig Ferguson

Karl Marx: "Religion is the opiate of the masses."
Carrie Fisher: "I did masses of opiates religiously. — Carrie Fisher

Drinking is something people do; it's not what you are. But when it becomes what you are, you need to think about becoming something else. — Tim Cowlishaw

I personally know of scores of cases (of alcohoics) who were of the type with whom other methods had failed completely ... because of the extraordinary possibilities of rapid growth inherent in this froup they may mark a new epoch in the annals of alcoholism. These men may well have a remedy for thousands of such situations. — William Duncan Silkworth

Being loud after drinking wine doesn't help. Being silent after drinking wine doesn't help. Nothing really ever gets solved either way. — Mariel Hemingway

Getting sober is a radically creative act. — Meredith Bell

It is ethanol that everyone is after when they drink alcoholic beverages. That is what gives us the euphoric feeling, and that is what all vendors of alcoholic drinks are selling. — Chris Prentiss

I want to feel calm and at ease. Like someone who lives in Half Moon Bay, California, and makes hummus from scratch. Instead, I feel like I'm a contestant on some awful supermarket game show where I've got sixty seconds to hurl my shopping cart down the aisles, piling it with as much as possible before the buzzer goes off. — Augusten Burroughs

If I were to create a word that more accurately describes alcoholism and addiction, I would say it was dependencyism. Sounds silly, doesn't it? Yet it's no sillier than the word alcoholism. The reason alcoholism no longer sounds silly to you is because you're used to hearing it, reading it, and thinking about it. — Chris Prentiss

I felt empty and sad for years, and for a long, long time, alcohol worked. I'd drink, and all the sadness would go away. Not only did the sadness go away, but I was fantastic. I was beautiful, funny, I had a great figure, and I could do math. But at some point, the booze stopped working. That's when drinking started sucking. Every time I drank, I could feel pieces of me leaving. I continued to drink until there was nothing left. Just emptiness. — Dina Kucera

I found the prospect daunting, but somehow comforting, too, because the counselors insisted it could be done, and, after all, many of them were recovering alcoholics themselves. — Craig Ferguson

Most memoirs about alcoholism, promiscuity, and addiction are deep, sobering tales full of scars that will never heal and include alarming statistics and reflection about recovery.
This is not one of those memoirs. — Kate Madison

Whether I or anyone else accepted the concept of alcoholism as a disease didn't matter; what mattered was that when treated as a disease, those who suffered from it were most likely to recover. — Craig Ferguson

Isms' are described as transference of addictive patterns of dysfunctional behaviour, passed down from generation to generation. For instance, if a mother was an alcoholic who never made it into recovery, her behaviour would leave a mark on her children, husband, etc. Unless her adult children join some sort of recovery programme and adopt the mindfulness practice, they will have very similar behaviour traits to their mother but minus the alcohol abuse. There is a strong possibility that they will become codependent and form relationships with other codependents or alcoholics. — Christopher Dines

I pawned the remote to my misery,
trading it in for liquor that was cheap;
screwdrivers for my vitamin c,
and a little bloodstream to my IV,
helping to soothe my lunacy — Phil Volatile

Is a few hours of hell-raising, or respite from life's toil worth this every morning? — Catherine Lockwood

The horrible thing about being sober is you lose your excuse for being so fucked up. — Augusten Burroughs

There's no recovery from alcoholism, it is an incurable disease. And it also is a disease that tells you, you don't have a disease. — Malachy McCourt

People who are dependent are merely using alcohol as a crutch to get through the day. Yet doctors and scientists are still treating "alcoholism" as if it is the problem, when it has nothing to do with the problem. They might as well be studying "scratchism" for people who have a chronic itch. — Chris Prentiss

One day at a time, sweet Jesus. Whoever wrote that one hadn't a clue. A day is a fuckin' eternity — Roddy Doyle

I grew up in traditional black patriarchal culture and there is no doubt that I'm going to take a great many unconscious, but present, patriarchal complicities to the grave because it so deeply ensconced in how I look at the world. Therefore, very much like alcoholism, drug addiction, or racism patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it. — Cornel West

It will all be over in 2 weeks — Ken Novak

Alcoholism is above all a disease of denial. — David Stafford