recovery quotes by castnoble
If you experience relapses, learn from it. Do not let it hold you back.

You can develop addiction from anything— and that’s the truth. We give you these recovery quotes to inspire resilience.

Society associates addiction to drugs, alcohol, and gambling. But, are these all that’s addictive? Experts suggest that things providing gratification or reward to a person can make a person addicted to it. 

Some might generalize people who have excessive enthusiasm as someone with addiction. However, there’s a fine line between some who’re excessively enthusiastic about a hobby than someone who’s addicted to it. A person who has an excessive but healthy enthusiasm adds meaning and enjoyment to their life; whereas addiction hinders you from enjoying life.

Unlike alcoholism and gambling, you will be surprised that there are several behavioral addictions hidden or unknown to most people. 

5 Modern Day Addiction that Surprises Us All

It’s quite overwhelming to know that these are the modern day addiction. 

1. Experienced a mini heart attack after you thought you lost your smartphone?

Geez. You can’t help being away with your phone, can’t you? There isn’t a minute you do not check your phone. It’s alarming how you ignore the people around you or procrastinate important tasks because you are excessively hooked with your phone.

“Today’s humans do not need terrorists to disrupt peace in the world— they’re doing it quite well.” — Abhijit Naskar

“Smartphones are definitely smarter than us to be able to keep us addicted to them.” — Munia Khan

“Pay attention to people, not your phone.”  — Abhijit Naskar

People who are excessively attached to their smartphones can’t go a day without it. It makes them uneasy not having their phones with them. If you think you are developing an addiction to your phone, seek professional help to avoid your phone from getting away from your life.

2. Do you love the caffeine high? But every high has a payback.

“As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?” – Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

It’s normal to have a cup of coffee every morning to boost your mood for the day. However, if you skip a day or two without caffeine, you might experience withdrawals, anxiety, and severe headache. Now, that’s pretty alarming.

“Even bad coffee was better than no coffee at all.” – David Lynch

3. Shopping haul? It feels good to have shopping bags on both hands!

“No decisions should be made on an empty shopping bag.” – Donita K. Paul

We all have ‘wants’ to satisfy, we purchase unnecessary things to give in to these cravings. However, constantly shopping to experience the dopamine or feel-good chemical can develop impulse-control problems. Not just that, going to the stores or purchasing online often can lead to financial, legal, or even social problems.

“I came, I saw, I bought!” – Ljupka Cvetanova

“The craving for the thing is rarely met by the satisfaction of getting it, and so we crave more, and the cycle repeats. We are encouraged to want what will only make us more. We are, in short, encouraged to be addicts.” – Matt Haig

4. Click repost, tweet, like… social media famous or lurker?

“If you feel the need to constantly post on social media documenting your every move, chances are you’re either addicted to social networking or there is a void somewhere in your personal life.” ― Germany Kent

How much do you spend time on social media that it has influenced you more than you have imagined? Sometimes we become too attached to social media that we aim to become famous. Sharing random things about yourself creates excitement which makes you want to engage more.

“The internet is a dangerous place. If you are not careful it will consume you and rob you of your happiness. It can make you angry, jealous, hostile, bitter and lead to the eventual loss of enthusiasm for living your best life. Be wary and avoid overconsumption.” ― Germany Kent

5. Love sweating it out? Not all workouts are healthy.

Medical science tells us regular workouts keep our brain function at an optimum level. However, not all workouts are deemed healthy. Some people have become extremely enthusiastic about working out that they push through the limits of their bodies. Thus, they become injured or physically exhausted.  

You can shape your body how you desire it to be. However, you need to respect the limits of your body. 

“The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides a champion from someone who is not a champion.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

What Makes a Particular Habit an Addiction?

When a person engages in pleasurable experiences, the brain produces a feel-good substance called dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for pleasure and reinforces behaviors that are essential for survival.  

Behavioral addiction is the continuous use of addictive substances or habits, of which the brain adapts in the long run. As the brain tries to reestablish the excessive dopamine substance and other brain neurochemicals. Thus, the person continues to do such habits to bring their dopamine level back to normal, or else, they will feel physically ill. 

5 Ways to Stop the Habit of Using Offensive Words

We might have focused on drinking, excessive use of smartphones and social media, or gambling– but the habitual use of using offensive words is not a healthy way of communication.

Although you might feel it’s fun or cool to hear, it’s not for everyone. If you are trying to stop your habit of using offensive words here are 5 ways:

1. Enlist a supportive friend.

Your friend got your back? Nah, they got your mouth. Enlist a supportive friend in your journey to change. Any time you express offensive words, they will call you out. The more you recognize your speech pattern, it becomes easier to change those.

2. Look for word replacements.

It’s fun to boost your vocabulary. Replace the swear words you easily use with positive ones.

3. Pretend an elderly is listening.

Of course, nothing beats the conscience and fear it takes if you swear around some elderly. Stop talking with offensive words if there are elderly around you.

4. Train your brain to think differently.

Let your mind train and act differently. Say the word replacement loud. 

5. Use the old-fashioned swear jar method.

I must say, the best method to stop a bad habit is through the jar method. Set a goal, for example your target is no swearing for a month, by the time you swear you take out a bill and place it inside the jar. The swear jar is the testament to your rehabilitation journey. 

49 Recovery Quotes & Sayings to Overcome Addiction & Live A Better Life

The journey to recovery is no joke. You have to overcome an excessive enthusiasm for the things you thought gives you happiness, but instead, take away a great portion of your life. 

When things are rough and you thought of giving up, or you are afraid you would relapse, take strength from these recovery quotes and sayings. We will be with you in your journey to live a better life.

On the way to live a better life…

  1. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt
  2. “Every worthy act is difficult. Ascent is always difficult. Descent is easy and often slippery.” – Mahatma Gandhi
  3. “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein
  4. “Sometimes you can only find Heaven by slowly backing away from Hell.” – Carrie Fisher
  5. “All the suffering, stress, and addiction comes from not realizing you already are what you are looking for.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn
  6. “You can come out of the furnace of trouble two ways: if you let it consume you, you come out a cinder; but there is a kind of metal which refuses to be consumed, and comes out a star.”– Jean Church
  7. “Hope is a good thing, maybe even the best of things, and good things never die.” – Stephen King
  8. “We may think there is willpower involved, but more likely … change is due to wanting power. Wanting the new addiction more than the old one. Wanting the new me in preference to the person I am now.” – George Sheehan

It’s a tough road to take, you have to cut off the things that give you excessive but unhealthy pleasure. Worse, you become ill with the withdrawals. But, remember, everything you do today, it may be difficult, but it will be worth it in the end.

Take inspiration from these celebrities and artists…

Celebrities are humans, too. They experience these kinds of high from things they find pleasure with. Especially, they’re put under overwhelming pleasure that they opt to look for escapes from their stresses. Of which, their habitual search for pleasure and enjoyment eventually leads to addiction.

However, they are brave enough to take the journey to a better life. If you think you can’t do it, take time to read these inspirations from celebrities. One of them might be someone you look up to.

  1. “Getting sober was one of the three pivotal events in my life, along with becoming an actor and having a child. Of the three, finding my sobriety was the hardest.” – Robert Downey Jr.
  2. “I realized that I only had two choices: I was either going to die or I was going to live, and which one did I want to do? And then I said those words, ‘I’ll get help,’ or, ‘I need help. I’ll get help.’ And my life turned around. Ridiculous for a human being to take 16 years to say, ‘I need help.’” – Sir Elton John
  3. “Cause sometimes you just feel tired. Feel weak, and when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up. But you gotta search within you. You gotta find that inner strength. And just pull it out of you, and get that motivation to not give up, and not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face.” – Eminem

Artists express their addiction and recovery in multiple forms. Their arts are a glimpse of both addiction and recovery.

  1. “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
  2. “I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.” ― Edgar Allan Poe
  3. “A lot of people think that addiction is a choice. A lot of people think it’s a matter of will. That has not been my experience. I don’t find it to have anything to do with strength.” – Matthew Perry
  4. “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” – J.K. Rowling

You can learn a lot from their struggles and success in life.

Put it to work…

Recovery is a difficult process to put into work. You have to concede a lot of effort to take the addiction off from your system. Sometimes, addicts even change their habits to a productive form of addiction only to keep their minds pre-occupied. Thus, it is best to seek professional help to avoid repeating the same habits.

  1. “The best way out is always through.” – Robert Frost
  2. “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” – Henry Ford
  3. “When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe

Some Chinese proverbs that can help you put it into work.

  1. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
  2. “If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.’
  3. “Patience and the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.”
  4. “Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it.”
  5. “Adapt the remedy to the disease.”
  6. “Control your emotions or they will control you.”
  7. “A wise man adapts himself to circumstances, as water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it.”
  8. “It is easy to get a thousand prescriptions but hard to get one single remedy.”
  9. “First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes a man.”
  10. “It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” 

The journey starts here..

As the journey starts, you become weary and fearful of what may come. The uncertain things you think would come your way. Deal with it for now– or it will haunt you. 

  1. “Not feeling is no replacement for reality. Your problems today are still your problems tomorrow.” – Larry Michael Dredla
  2. “What is an addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood.” – Alice Miller
  3. “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to continually be afraid you will make one.” – Elbert Hubbard
  4. “Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.” – Charlotte Whitton
  5. “You must do the things you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Do not fear. 

  1. “One small step is worth more than a thousand steps planned.”
  2. “Great acts are made up of small deeds.” – Lao Tzu
  3. “Courage isn’t having the strength to go on– it is going on when you don’t have strength.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
  4. “Don’t let the past steal your presence.” – Terri Guillemets
  5. “He conquers who endures.” – Perseus
  6. “Experience is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you.” – Aldous Huxley
  7. “Even in the midst of devastation, something within us always points the way to freedom.” – Sharon Salzberg
  8. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up everytime we fail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mistakes are bound to happen. The recovery process is not a sprint, but an endurance race, there will be times you feel like giving up.

Feel like giving up?

Take hold of these following quotes. It will give you strength.

  1. “If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.” – Michael Jordan
  2. “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar
  3. “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier
  4. “If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.” – Benjamin Alire Sáenz
  5. “Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.”– Paulo Coelho
  6. “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” – Jimmy Dean
  7. “Every experience in your life is being orchestrated to teach you something you need to know to move forward.” – Brian Tracy
  8. Keep steadily before you the fact that all true success depends at last upon yourself.” – Theodore T. Hunger

Prepare yourself from the challenges you will face in your recovery journey. If you experience relapses, learn from it. Do not let it hold you back.

Always pick yourself and make another step towards a healthy and better life.


Reference:

Smartphone Addiction Quotes (11 quotes). (2021). Retrieved 25 February 2021, from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/smartphone-addiction

Ba, & Social Distancing, Q. (2021). Could You Be Hooked? Surprising Addictions. Retrieved 25 February 2021, from https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/ss/slideshow-surprising-addictions

15 Quotes About Coffee All Caffeine Addicts Will Relate To. (2021). Retrieved 25 February 2021, from https://www.bustle.com/articles/151699-15-quotes-about-coffee-all-caffeine-addicts-will-relate-to

Shopaholic Quotes (38 quotes). (2021). Retrieved 25 February 2021, from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/shopaholic

15 Motivational Quotes About Addiction Recovery. (2021). Retrieved 25 February 2021, from https://www.gardenstatetreatmentcenter.com/addiction-recovery-quotes/

Recovery, L. (2021). 101 Inspiring Recovery Quotes About Addiction. Retrieved 25 February 2021, from https://landmarkrecovery.com/addiction-recovery-quotes/

Want to Swear Less? Here Are 5 Methods You Can Try. (2021). Retrieved 25 February 2021, from https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/567340/how-to-swear-less-5-methods-you-can-try

Author

Chel is an AB English Graduate from UM. She writes, verify, and fact-checked inspirations shared in Castnoble.