Recovery quotes can make going through a challenging time just a little easier. And, even though these thoughts and insights can’t do everything, we hope they make the process less difficult for those in their time of need.
To be “in recovery” means that a person is making progress towards a goal. It doesn’t mean the person is cured, although it can mean being on the path to a definitive cure. Sometimes “in recovery” means being in remission, which suggests that relapse is a distinct possibility.
There are many components to recovery, including personal responsibility and hope. Individuals must take the lead on their own self-care. Hope provides inspiration and motivation for a positive recovery.
Best Recovery Quotes
Empowerment is another key aspect of recovery. People have the independence and control to participate in all decisions related to their recovery.
1.) The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.
Ernest Hemingway
2.) Even in the midst of devastation, something within us always points the way to freedom.
Sharon Salzberg
3.) If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.
Zen Proverb
4.) In the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths.
Drew Barrymore
5.) I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself did I know who I really was.
Unknown
6.) Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives.
Unknown
7.) 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
Good Recovery Quotes
Recovery addresses all components of a person’s life: physical, mental, and spiritual. As you review these sayings, note their holistic nature.
- Nobody stays recovered unless the life they have created is more rewarding and satisfying than the one they left behind.
Anne Fletcher - Anyone can give up; it is the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone would expect you to fall apart, now that is true strength.
Chris Bradford - Listen to God with a broken heart. He is not only the doctor who mends it but also the father who wipes away the tears.
Criss Jami - The 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 - If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.
Michael Jordan - Do not mock pain that you have not endured.
Unknown - If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.
Vincent Van Gogh - I think that power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you’ve done.
Robert Downey Jr.
Healing Sayings
Most recoveries are not perfectly linear. As with all of life, there are usually ups and downs. Don’t be discouraged by temporary setbacks.
- Courage isn’t having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don’t have strength.
Napoléon Bonaparte - An over-indulgence of anything, even something as pure as water, can intoxicate.
Criss Jami - Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles and you have to change.
Jamie Lee Curtis - Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.
Robert J. Sawyer - Relapses don’t erase progress. Progress is not linear.
Unknown - Mental illness is not a choice, but recovery is.
Unknown - Sometimes in order to change we need to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Unknown
Short Recovery Quotes
Having the support of a loved one as you go through recovery makes things so much easier. We all need someone to lean on occasionally.
- One of the hardest things was learning that I was worth recovery.
Demi Lovato - Sometimes you can only find Heaven by slowly backing away from hell.
Carrie Fisher - You must do the things you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt - Fall seven times, stand up eight.
Japanese Proverb - Recovery is hard. Regret is harder.
Brittany Burgunder - Where there is life, there is hope.
Ron Grover - Believe you can and you’re halfway there.
Theodore Roosevelt - Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.
Mark Twain - Either you run the day, or the day runs you.
Jim Rohn - If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz - Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.
Babe Ruth
Short Recovery Quotes for Women
Eliminating discrimination and fostering self-respect are critical in the healing process.
- Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.
Henry Ford - You can’t defeat the darkness by keeping it caged inside of you.
Seth Adam Smith - If things go wrong, don’t go with them.
Roger Babson - Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.
Robert Collier - No matter how dark the night may get, your light will never burn out.
Jeanette LeBlanc - If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.
Yogi Berra - Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising up every time we fail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Recovery Is About Progression Not Perfection.
Unknown - It always seems impossible until it’s done.
Nelson Mandela - You feel your strength in the experience of pain.
Jim Morrison - Be stronger than your strongest excuse.
Unknown
Motivational Recovery Quotes
The concept of recovery was probably most associated with the 12-step process to recover from depending on alcohol. But, the idea has expanded to many other areas of need.
The goal isn’t to be sober. The goal is to love yourself so much that you don’t need to drink.
Unknown
We’re either working on recovery or working on a relapse.
Unknown
Rising from the ashes, I am born again, powerful, exultant, majestic through all the pain.
Shannon Perry
Sometimes you’ve just got to give yourself what you wish someone else would give you.
Dr. Phil
Not all storms come to disrupt your life. Some come to clear your path.
Unknown
The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.
Albert Einstein
Recuperation and Improvement
One of the main reasons people are motivated to recover is to recapture their health and well-being while striving to reach their full potential.
- 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 - Your best days are ahead of you. The movie starts when the guy gets sober and puts his life back together; it doesn’t end there.
Bucky Sinister - I am not defined by my relapses, but by my decision to remain in recovery despite them.
Unknown - When everything seems like an uphill struggle, just think of the view from the top.
Unknown - Experience is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you.
Aldous Huxley - 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 - Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
Mahatma Gandhi
Recovery Sayings
Many times, recovery involves the individual, family, friends, and the community.
- Many people say that recovery from an aneurysm is like having a layer of skin ripped off – your experience of life is more intense.
Maryam D’Abo - Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.
Robert Collier - My identity shifted when I got into recovery. That’s who I am now, and it actually gives me greater pleasure to have that identity than to be a musician or anything else, because it keeps me in a manageable size. When I’m down on the ground with my disease-which, ‘I’m happy to have-it’ gets me in tune. It gives me a spiritual anchor.
Eric Clapton - Recovery is all about using our power to change our beliefs that are based on faulty data.
Kevin McCormick - It’s going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.
Joseph Campbell
Inspirational Recovery Quotes
Recovery offers the prospect of hope to individuals. Without hope, life can be a grim experience at certain times for some individuals.
- Focus on problems and you’ll have more problems. Focus on possibilities and you’ll have more possibilities.
Unknown - Heal the heart, don’t hide the pain.
Melanie Koulouris - Live less out of habit and more out of intent.
Unknown
How To Use These Recovery Quotes?
The road to recovery is full of challenges that include relapses. For these, times these quotes will inspire you to keep moving forward and see how these relapses have only helped you strengthen up and learn from another bad experience.
You may use these recovery quotes if you yourself are going through recovery, or you can read them to your loved ones faced with the same challenge. Other opportunities for using these thoughts include texting favorites to a friend, including them in emails or letters, or making one or several the focus of a conversation.
If you’re on a journey to recovery or know a friend on that path, we wish you all the best.
By Sarah Martin
Sarah is a writer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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