Recovery Inspirational Quotes & Sayings

Try never to abandon hope for if you do, hope will surely try to abandon you. — Sally Brampton

Self-discovery is life recovery. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

Every pain, addiction, anguish, longing, depression, anger or fear
is an orphaned part of us
seeking joy,
some disowned shadow
wanting to return
to the light
and home
of ourselves. — Jacob Nordby

My hand-stitched wings itch
to take flight
to test the winds of change
that inevitably blow
at the end
of a cycle. — B.G. Bowers

One day, you will stand at the summit of a figurative mountain and look back on your life's journey. And, to your utter amazement, you will see how your experiences with depression, dark and painful as they were, only added to the overall beauty of your life. — Seth Adam Smith

Ironically, the road to the dark side
most often remains brightly lit,
fancy-colored and all, while the road to the light remains dark until you reach a destination, at which point it becomes a feast for the eyes--provided you haven't gotten mugged during your travels. — Birgit Waldschmidt

Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is a healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole. — China Mieville

When I came out of anesthesia, I wanted two things: my husband and my dog. They wouldn't let the dog in the recovery room. — Sandy Nathan

It is a beautiful and scary thing to sit open-handed and let all your plans float away like dust. — Anna White

What hell condemned, let heaven now heal. — Aberjhani

Recovery challenges everything we 'knew to be true'. — Laurie Davidson

Nature paces its change in gradual steps, and in this time of renewal, I danced in sync to the rhythm of life. — Lynn C. Tolson

Buy this book , buy this book , you need this book, buy book now.'

Subliminal messaging works! — Nick Jimbanis

Day by day, what you do is who you become. — Heraclitus

By choosing recovery and risking to be real, we set the healthy boundaries that say, I am in charge of my recovery and my life, and no one else on this Earth is. — Charles L. Whitfield

When you fail, you can resist correction or cooperate in your recovery and future success. — David P. Ingerson

Our wounds are not a measure of one individual's sad fate, but an indication of our unity with others. — Lynn C. Tolson

Food is something I am going to have to face at least three times a day for the rest of my life. And I am not perfect. But one really bad day does not mean that I am hopeless and back at square one with my eating disorder. Olympic ice skaters fall in their quest for the gold. Heisman Trophy winners throw interceptions. Professional singers forget the words. And people with eating disorders sometimes slip back into an old pattern. But all of these individuals just pick themselves back up and do the next right thing. The ice skater makes the next jump. The football player throws the next pass. The singer finishes the song. And I am going to eat breakfast. — Jenni Schaefer

I want to share my story, and I want to know yours. I believe with all my heart that sharing our stories, the real, ugly, broken ones, is one of the most powerful things in the world, because to share our story we must first accept it. We must own it. We must stop running from it or shoving it into the corner when company comes over. To share our story is to admit that we've been changed. — Anna White

In this week I see such a picture of life, hard and joyful pressed up together and sleeping in the same bed. They come knit together. The lines of pain run through the joy and remind us to go all in, because life is short. The joy edges the pain and gives us a reason to rise. — Anna White

I don't know what happened, but I do know this. It's not going anywhere. When you light up it waits for you to come down. You have to confront whatever's bothering you and look it straight in the eye. It's alright to forgive yourself, and it's okay to fight back, because if you don't kick the shit out of it, then it kicks you. It's a dog world, but you can control it, if you want to. A lot of people are going to try to make you feel like shit, but that doesn't mean you are. You are who you decide to be. I hope you're the kind of person that fights, because that's the only way to win. — E.M. Youman

Depression feels a bit like that, it creeps in on you and settles, until you think it'll never lift, but in time it always does. That's why it's so tragic if people don't reach out to anyone when they feel low, because if they do, the mist will usually lift in the end. — Sita Brahmachari

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

Adversity is neither friend nor foe. It is a common acquaintance that is desired less and rewarded most when embraced. — Carolyn Wells

At its heart, Codependency is a set of behaviors developed to manage the anxiety that comes when our primary attachments are formed with people who are inconsistent or unavailable in their response to us. Our anxiety-based responses to life can include over-reactivity, image management, unrealistic beliefs about our limits, and attempts to control the reality of others to the point where we lose our boundaries, self-esteem, and even our own reality. Ultimately, Codependency is a chronic stress disease, which can devastate our immune system and lead to systemic and even life-threatening illness. — Mary Crocker Cook

The goal of recovery is not to become normal. The goal is to embrace the human vocation of becoming more deeply, more fully human. — Patricia Deegan

So many stories lived behind my eyes. I carried the people I hurt, the lies I told, my sick relationship with food, wherever I went. My mind was rarely grounded in the moment. My past was heavy and constant; my thoughts wouldn't leave me alone. But when I was with the shelter dogs, I didn't have anything to hide. Sometimes what existed behind my eyes fell away. I wasn't bulimic or unlovable or fat or a liar. I was a part of life again. I was an observer, and to more than just the dark cyclical patterns of the mind - here was the strong, sturdy presence of another - the breath moving in and out of Angel's chest, the beating of her heart, the force of life moving through her and through me. — Shannon Kopp

'Recovery' is an idea whose time has come. At its heart is a set of values about a person's right to build a meaningful life for themselves, with or without the continuing presence of mental health symptoms. — Geoff Shepherd

Compulsive behavior occurs when the urge to act out is greater than our will to say no. Recovery then, is the process of reversing that equation. — Roger Stark

You were born a child of light's wonderful secret - you return to the beauty you have always been. — Aberjhani

Without struggle there is no progress. — Allison Woyiwada

Being broken isn't the worst thing. We can be mended and put together again. We don't have to be ashamed of our past. We can embrace the history that gives us value, and see our cracks as beautiful. — Anna White

You have survived so much
that no one remembers.
And you still spread warm
rain on all your overgrown
lots. And you still get dressed
in the morning. You still
open wide for the sun. — Jacqui Germain

Sometimes things do not go the way one wanted them to go ... At times like this, one would wish that one had not dreamt so much. Just hang in there ... destination is just a mile away. — Hari Kumar K

There may not be any romance to mental illness but who needs romance when the preferable route is agency? The prevailing conversation around mental health issues is agency and the lack thereof on the part of the mentally ill. But what do you do if you're a paid-up member of the mentally ill populace in question? Do you curl up into a ball and give up? No, you look for solutions. Ultimately, it's about keeping despair at bay and sometimes simple things like running, taking up a hobby, doing charity work, painting or, in my case, writing can be a galvanizing part of the recovery process. Keeping the brain and the body active can give life a semblance of pleasure and hope. This is what writing has done for me. I took every traumatic element of my condition and channelled it into something useful. — Diriye Osman

The concept of recovery is rooted in the simple yet profound realization that people who have been diagnosed with mental illness are human beings. — Patricia Deegan

Resentment is like a drug. Once you pick it up, it will only get worse and worse until you surrender and do the work to let it go. — Samantha Leahy

Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery. — J.K. Rowling

Waiting to be 'better' is the wrong approach. It's learning to live with it. — Marian Keyes

Recovery challenges the established order and as such, is a 'great idea' along with the ideas of evolution or a 'round earth'; turning all our thinking upside down. — Laurie Davidson

To change one's field of influence is to change the course of one's life. — Jenny Reese Clark

Always love, always encourage, and never let despair get in the way. — Super Star

The only way to move forward is to focus on the good in your life and the good that you are doing for others and yourself. My past has shown me things in life, others and myself that I wouldn't wish upon anyone, but I can choose to pick up the pieces and build a beautiful life for myself and help others to do the same. — Brittany Burgunder

It was surreal to see such normalcy in the midst of my personal crisis. The horses still raced. The vendors still served food. The world did not stop because I had a brain tumor. — Sally Stap

The winds of tribulation blow out some men's candles of commitment.(Maxwell) Our job in recovery is to protect our candle from those winds. — Roger Stark

When the sum of our faith and humility is sufficient, it reaches a type of spiritual critical mass and hope is fostered and grows. A willing heart emerges which generates the ability for us to submit to the process of recovery. — Roger Stark

The power of hope! Even a lack of ambition can, for a time, pay off as a necessary facet, as long as hope outweighs it. — Criss Jami

The world is filled with human toxins
not the darkness that we all occasionally crave, but actually people who are so unwilling to bask in the angelic light that is offered us all that they grow poisonous
and you can pray for their eventual recovery and healing. And sometimes those prayers will be answered. But sometimes these individuals have been vaccinated against goodness and against angels and they are so unwilling to give an inch to their God that often they never (and I use this expression absolutely literally) see the light. — Chris Bohjalian

Someone once asked me how I hold my head up so high after all I have been through. I said it's because no matter what, I am a survivor NOT a victim. — Patricia Buckley

I'm here to tell you that if you get broken, it's possible to put yourself back together. I'm here to tell you that if you get lost, it's possible that a light will come, dancing, on the horizon, to lead you home. — Nick Lake

Only love can neutralize shame. — Omar Manejwala

She hadn't been Rachel that night. She was evidence, a body of things to be picked and probed at, pictured and asked about, recorded and quoted. I want my life back. The voice was faint inside her own mind. She could hear the plaintive, almost despairing note to that voice. Like the wail of a scared child, this wasn't just about facing her fears. This was about everything. Her injuries, the loss of the life and world she'd once taken for granted, her long recovery. — Anais Torres

But it is hazardous and, I believe, counterproductive to become frozen in time by an obsession with past wrongs and errors. — George S. McGovern