As soon as I arrived in 12-step recovery meetings, I found people dropping lots of cool quotes & phrase-ings.
These have been incredibly useful in my recovery journey, always popping into my head and guiding my better choices.
Good Habits are easy to break."
"You wanna feel better go to a meeting;
you wanna get better, work the steps
"I am sticking with the program that has been laid out for me
by those who wouldn't cosign my addiction."
"This is the definition of f*king crazy:
I'm negotiating with myself how I'm going to hurt myself."
"I know that it's not true, but I never feel that it's not true"
"It's all hot and sexy until you hear a Step 1 share."
"Recovery is like pancakes on a hot stove;
gotta turn it over to the higher power."
"I want my cake and to eat it too. But I'm allergic to cake."
"Today is the only day that matters in my recovery
help me to make it a good one"
"My addict will sell me dirt on the street, and to me and it will sound great"
"Ill tell you super secret code to recovery...at the next meeting"
"How do you know when you've reached rock bottom?
When you stop digging your own grave"
"Acting out leads to 'pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization'
"i honestly feel like being in recovery is one of the highest forms of love we can show others."
"Religion is for people who are afraid of hell,
spirituality is for people who have been there"
"Tomorrow will look out for itself"
"We are not only our toughest critic, but our easiest audience
[can convince ourselves of anything]"
"Our higher power is not our co-dependent"
"He has to want to get better; you cant want that more than he does" [on supporting fellows]
"Those were the days!"
'No, they werent, Bill' [fellow reflecting on acting out years ago]
"I cant, god can, I'll let her"
"Imagine you're by the ocean.
You walk out into the waves.
You hold out your hand and you say "stop, be still"
And if the ocean obliges, congratulations you're god.
And if it doesn't, sit down, shut up, and accept how powerless you really are. Or act out."
"There's no stop lights in recovery"
"There's no traffic jams on the high road"
"If my addiction affected every area of my life, my recovery can to"
"We are professional addicts, probably in their finest form"
"Prevent relapse: read 3 pages of Green Book every day"
"The middle circle is a safety net, not a place to park and hide"
"The middle circle is a safety net, if you fall in it can save your life. But don't jump in just to see what happens"
"When im in addiction, the highs are temporary but the lows are permanent
When im in recovery, the lows are temporary and the highs are permanent"
"Hang out at the barber shop long enough and you're gonna get a haircut" [Middle Circle]
"You have to be a human being, not a human doing"
Good, healthy sexual acts experience "gratitude and enjoyment" (gratitude after the fact)
"Am I committed more to my addict or am I committed more to my recovery?"
"You're looking for a toxic connection based solely on being able to act out with someone, and not being in trouble because someone else is acting out with you" [on searching for acting out partner]
"It's like two alcoholics drinking together saying: 'We're social drinkers, not alcoholics!'"
"Hanging in middle circle is like going out on a frozen pond. Don't hang around too long."
"It's the hardest thing youll ever have to do,
but if you dont do it,
the person that did it controls you."
"I still have problems, but they are new improved problems"
"Anonymous is the name but honesty is the game" - Dean G.
"A good day is a day I dont act out.
A great day is any day everything goes to hell and I still dont act out"
"Show me your friends and I'll show you youre future"
"There's a reason the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror"
"Recovery is nothing short of life or death"
"My favorite ship is the S.S. fellow"
"My sobirety is more important than playing with fire."
"Life is tough, so am I!"
"Whatever you put before recovery, you will lose"
"The last thing you put before recovery is the first thing you'll lose from addiction"
"Those that mind won't matter, and those that matter won't mind" [Telling people about addiction]
"With the help of our higher power, we can choose goodness, and we do"
"An idle mind is the devil's playground"
"A grateful addict will never use"
"Microwave recovery [expecting fast results]"
"The sexual buffet of dating apps is a fast train to relapse"
"An expectation is a guaranteed resentment"
"I wasn't looking to be different, but in order to be sober, I have to change"
"Find serenity, taking urgency out of my life"
"Resentments are like me drinking poison and expecting you to die"
"Ain't no shame in sobriety!"
[if you have to leave a situation or have a vulnerability]"
"In addiction we see people only as reflections of ourselves"
"Their response is inconsequential if I felt the amends was necessary"
"Do a positive 'what if'- What if it goes right?"
"You can only get fed recovery if you open your mouth and talk"
"Recovery is a lifestyle; not something I do once in a while when I am relapsing or not getting something I want."
"You are as sick as your secrets"
"True intimacy is truth"
"My superpower is I can tell everyone hates me without even talking to them"
"I can carry the message not the addict"
"Addiction is like always almost catching the bus...
and getting splashed in the face"
I was a hostage in a prison of chemicals."
"If Im the biggest piece of crap in the world, it's still all about me"
"The greatest rewards come not so much from good rewards as from right living." "Regret for the past and worry for tomorrow will give way to today" "The way I relate to them [old friends] plateaud" "In the 10+ years we were together, we never talked about our emotions or our struggles or our spirituality" "Our disease is progressive, so our recovery has to be progressive too" "If you're unhappy with recovery we will fully refund your misery" "Higher Power is like a microwave, you dont need to understand how it works to use it" "Recovery is like driving on the highway, no matter how far you go, you're only 6 feet away from the ditch." "What is being sold as our liberation is actually our enslavement" "what is sold to us as freedom, may in fact, be our servitude." "We love you until you can love yourself [Fellowship]" "There are 2 bottoms - the one youre sitting on and the one thats out there" "Church is wherever you feel safe" "You will violate your standards quicker than you can lower them" [In active addiction] "If I do something I say is good for me, but I cant stop doing it - is it really good for me?" "I'm not anti-knowledge; I'm pro-program" "The only thing an addict does in moderation is step work" "Resentment is the express lane to relapse" "Faith and fear cannot be in the same place" "No that's not a mistake; you havent learned from it" "I dont need a reason to act out; I need a reason to stay sober" "If I'm not the problem, there is no solution" "I have a $1000 porn machine called a laptop" "At home you're driving by known acting out locations with every room" "Every relapse has 3 stages: anticipation, consumption, regret" "No one, to my knowledge, has ever shamed themselves into sobriety" "There is no time-zone in addiction." "What are the last 2 letters of shame?" "There's no last page on screens" "Our addiction's diet is shame" "Your greatest success is just one step past your fear" S.O.B.E.R. "sonova bitch, everythings real" F.E.A.R. "face everything and recover" A.A.A. "Acknowledge Affirm Avert"D.E.N.I.A.L. "dont even know I am lying"
Q.T.I.P. "quit taking it personally"
S.L.I.P. "sobriety lost its priority"
Intimacy "into me I see"
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