Dave Gahan Quotes

I was such a heavy drinker I was going to die at age 37. Not to mention the drugs. I'm glad to be sober, I haven't missed a thing. A lot of people never get the chance to come back.

I, myself, have not infrequently come across recovering addicts years later that I had given up on. It is like seeing a ghost come to life. The transformations can be astonishing.

Redemption means you just make a change in your life and you try to do right, versus what you were doing, which was wrong. So I think a lot of people get hooked on drugs and when they get over that addiction they go out and they try to talk to kids and they try to work in rehab centers.

I cleaned up. I quit drinking, I quit doing drugs, I quit stealing, I quit breaking into houses, I tried to quit being a bad human being. I developed a conscience later in life than many. I call it the lost-time-regained dynamic.

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

I said, to hell with the whole thing, to hell with show business. I'm gonna make a new life for myself, and I got off drugs, completely kicked all that stuff.

I hit rock bottom before I even went there. Actually, prison was the rescue mission that God had put on me. He sent out his angels to rescue me. In prison, he protected me the whole time I was in there, and it was just for me to get my will power back, to get my strength back, get my focus together.

Going to rehab was the best decision I ever made.

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

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 thing.

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

I've been sober for so many years. It wasn't like you flick a switch, and you're sober. It takes a while. You have to learn how to do everything all over again. You can measure how long that takes in terms of years.

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 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.

As an alcoholic, you have no appreciation for your wife or your children's feelings, but I'm making up for that now. I'm winning my children's trust back.

I'm an example of why people deserve second chances.

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.

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.

I've got to do something to make up for all those self-absorbed and selfish years when I just, you know, was taking drugs, sitting in my room, doing bad things, whatever.

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

It is not about the money. It's the public service aspect. Absolutely, I think it has qualities of redemption. The city gets a second chance. I get a second chance.

I like to think that even if we make some really bad choices and go down some bad paths, we'll eventually emerge from it.

During my time in prison, I told myself that I wanted to be a part of the solution and not the problem.