#Recovery Quotes

“One wants recovery to start from the bottom, and the other wants it to start from the top. I don't know which is right. I've never heard of anybody suggesting that they might start it in the middle, so I hereby make that suggestion. To start recovery halfway between the two, because it's the middle class that does everything anyhow. But I don't know anything about it.”

“If you lose 50%, it takes 100% to get back to where you started-and that takes something you can never get back: time.”

“I know things are going to get better in spite of both sides. Then when things do get better, then you'll hear the yell that will go up. The Democrats will swear that recovery was due to them. Now the Republicans, they'll say it was due to them. Nobody wanted to claim the credit for the country blowing up, but wait until it starts picking up and they'll both be on it then. See?”

“I think the most important factor in getting out of the recession actually is just the regenerative capacity of - of American capitalism.”

“I can't give up. It's a rap thang. And I ain't goin back to the crack game.”

“The fact is, we'll never build a lasting economic recovery by going deeper into debt at a faster rate than we ever have before.”

“"It's just literally being afraid. And you think, oh, [the alcohol] will ease the fear. And it doesn't." What was he afraid of? "Everything. It's just a general all-round arggghhh. It's fearfulness and anxiety." He added, "For that first week you lie to yourself, and tell yourself you can stop, and then your body kicks back and says, no, stop later. And then it took about three years, and finally you do stop."”

“My battles with addiction definitely shaped how I am now. They really made me deeply appreciate human contact. And the value of friends and family, how precious that is.”

“I couldn't imagine living the way I used to live. Now people come up to me from the drug days and go, 'Hi, remember me?' And I'm going, 'No, did I have sex with you? Did I take a dump in your tool box?'”

“There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.”

“Becoming a vegan gave me another opportunity to live a healthy life. I was so congested from all the drugs and bad cocaine, I could hardly breathe, [I had] high blood pressure, [was] almost dying [and had] arthritis. And once I became a vegan all that stuff diminished.”

“The junkie can never start to cure himself until he recognizes his true condition.”

“I need solitude, which is to say, recovery, return to my self, the breath of a free, light, playful air.”

“It's just a matter of getting those legs back.”

“I'll be a good boy, please make me well. I promise you anything, get me out of this hell. Cold turkey has got me on the run.”

“Time, time will heal the wound.”

“When men die of disease they are said to die fromnatural causes. When they recover (and mostly they do)the doctor gets the credit of curing them.”

“I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while.”

“Towns find it as hard as houses of business to rise again from ruin.”

“I simply decided that dope wasn't worth the ritual.”

“Brenda [Carlin] went into therapy and I soon joined her. First we put the drugs behind us, then we began serious work on our relationship. And, in time, we got well together.She just drove through a hotel lobby. Now, that's bottoming out.”

“Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town.”

“My history of moving away from drugs is not the kind you hear from most people. Certainly not from celebrities, especially those professionally recovering people. What I've noticed in my overuse of cocaine is the period of pleasure versus the period of pain. That is to say that when you first get high on anything, the pleasure is predominant and you don't pay much price. A little hangover or whatever it might be with another drug. But after a while the ratio begins to change, and there' s far more pain in the deal than pleasure. It just completely goes in another direction.”

“The ending of my experience with cocaine came in a periodic way. I would get high less frequently, I would use smaller amounts, and I would do coke for less periods of time. And that process just kept increasing and increasing until I wasn't using it at all. I didn't go on a program anywhere. I didn't join an organization or detox anywhere. I just slowly tapered off until it was gone. That was also true of my heavy pot use. I just tapered off until there was almost no use at all. And the same thing was true of drinking tons of beer.”

“When the heart is still disturbed by the relics of a passion it is proner to take up a new one than when wholly cured.”

“A man is not measured by how much he can take and stand but by how fast he regains once fallen.”

“Any physical addiction, it doesn't matter how long they've been taking it or how full of it their body is, and addiction, would, between three and thirty days, be completely cleared from the system. Usually closer to three days than thirty days. But it is the emotional craving that must be tended to.”

“Time will bring healing.”

“It was my decision to get clean, I did it for me Admittedly I probably did it subliminally for you”

“It was a slow process. You gotta remember I hadn't recorded a song sober in seven years. So it took me awhile to even feel like I could record a song sober.”

“It is a common thing for people to begin to lean in the direction of recovery, only to stop and take score too soon. And when they still find unwanted symptoms or conditions, they then offer resistant thought and lose the improved ground they have gained. With consistent releasing of resistance, all unwanted conditions will subside, returning you to your natural state of Well-Being.”

“It's a trip when people take sobriety for granted. Feeling trapped in my addiction and then getting sober - you appreciate it so much more, because I didn't know if I would ever know what it's like to feel normal again, ever.”

“So while an incredible amount of progress has been made, on this fifth anniversary, I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you - and fight alongside you - until the job is done. Until New Orleans is all the way back, all the way.”

“Now that I understand that I'm an addict, I definitely have compassion for my mother. I get it.”

“We remember, we rebuild, we come back stronger.”

“Scattered wits take a long time in picking up.”

“Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again.”

“It's not a problem. In four or five days I will be beautiful once again.”

“I'm in love with football, but I just needed to recapture that strength to train and play. So many people helped me along the way that I'm afraid to leave anyone out. Above all, though, I want to mention the help of my medical team that has been working alongside me for the past two years.”

“I think sometimes the best training is to rest.”

“Listlessness to everything, but brooding sorrow, was the night that fell on my undisciplined heart. Let me look up from it - as at last I did, thank Heaven! - and from its long, sad, wretched dream, to dawn.”

“I will continue to urge creditors to take the steps needed to put Greece on a path towards a durable economic recovery because it's in all of our interests that Greece succeeds.”

“We are all damaged goods in recovery.”

“I am looking forward enormously to getting back to the sea again, where the overstimulated psyche can recover in the presence of that infinite peace and spaciousness.”