Shawn Colvin Quotes

I quit drinking. That was a big problem for a lot of years. Then after that, I just started feeling grateful again.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life talking about when I used to drink or when I used to take drugs. I'm more interested in the future.

Since I've quit drinking, I'm not sure I've found the good life, but I've certainly uncovered a better one.

Going to rehab was the best decision I ever made.

When I was writing 'Southeastern,' I'd just recently gotten sober. For me, that was a major turning point in my life. It changed things I did on a day-to-day basis. My whole routine was upended. It took me some time to get used to that and figure out how do I keep myself entertained.

I can't emphasise enough how grateful I am to have come upon sobriety.

When you first get sober, you feel like a superhero. You feel real emotion because you've been suppressing it forever. It's so much easier to navigate what's important.

When I finally got sober, I moved towards what I might have been if I hadn't been destroying myself when I was young.

I feel very positive where I never did before, and I think that's all a direct result of getting sober.

When I got sober, that was 1990.

I think a lot of cynicism has dropped away from my shoulders since I stopped drinking.

I had such a wonderful life before drugs and alcohol abuse. I've got that life back now and plan to keep it. Maybe I had to go through what I did to get to this point, to appreciate this life more.

I have other obligations now - the show, my family, my life... though I know that without my sobriety I wouldn't have any of those things.

Getting sober just exploded my life. Now I have a much clearer sense of myself and what I can and can't do. I am more successful than I have ever been. I feel very positive where I never did before, and I think that's all a direct result of getting sober.

If I were to try to identify a turning point I'd say that was it - getting clean.

I got sober. I stopped killing myself with alcohol. I began to think: 'Wait a minute - if I can stop doing this, what are the possibilities?' And slowly it dawned on me that it was maybe worth the risk.

It's so weird that I went to rehab. I always said that I would die before I went to rehab. But I thought, 'I'm going to stay here tonight.' And I stayed there for a month. It was great.

The '90s were a time of building for me. Building a life that was sober, drained of harmful, wasteful excess and manufacturing in its place a family of my own.

My main focus in sobriety has been to replace fear with faith or love.

I could not finish the rest of the tours the band had planned. I was replaced by Matt Cameron. The next years of my life were about recovery, healing, and right living. I never lost the need to create.

Until I went to rehab, I didn't understand what it did.

I don't drink. I choose to be sober now. I have drunk over the last six years, but I just don't want to be that person anymore.

The first thought that I had about really trying to get sober was, 'Man, I could do a lot of good in the world. I can lead by example and just be this heroic recovery guy.' And that's just a bad reason to get sober. You can't get sober for anybody's benefit, let alone the world at large. You really got to do it for yourself.

Sobriety was the greatest gift I ever gave myself. I don't put it on a platform. I don't campaign about it. It's just something that works for me. It enabled me to really connect with another human being - my wife, Sheryl - which I was never able to do before.

I went into rehab to save my marriage, but I wound up saving myself.