Shawn Colvin Quotes

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.

Anybody that's not supportive of me staying sober obviously has to go. But on the other hand, there are not really a lot of people who don't want me to stay sober. I was a nightmare.

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.

When the addict gets recovery, his family gets recovery, right?

I think a lot of people are scared, and I know I was scared to get sober, at least using this as an excuse; 'I don't want to be one of those sober people.' And I don't think you have to be. I think you can be one of those people who happens to be sober.

'Higher Power' was the result of a personal experience: a friend of mine who went through the process of addiction and recovery. It's a very, very tough thing - very easy to become addicted and very, very hard to become a recovering addict.

One of the things that's often forgotten about drug rehabilitation, it's not a destiny. It's a journey.

I'm sober now and very happy.

I just hope by how I live my life every day that people can see there is another side to addiction. You can live with it and have a successful life.

I'm sure that I am enjoying my sobriety. And respect it. If you've been through what I've been through, then you really do treasure it.

When I got clean and sober, that was a major change in my life.

When you get into recovery after some addiction you have to relearn a lot of perceptions, attitudes and self-awareness if you want to stay clean. You really do change. Change doesn't happen often but to a certain extent in some way, I think when you get into recovery and you stay there, you change.

But my activities have been pretty much focused in the last almost 30 years on the recovery, of my own recovery, the understanding for my family of my recovery.

When I cleaned up some 17 odd years ago, I felt terrible for about six months. The only thing that gave me any real relief was strenuous physical activity.

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

I was the one that put myself in rehab. I was the one that went to my parents and said, you know, 'I have a problem and I need to take care of it.'

Everyone reaches their point in time where either they die or they get sick of doing drugs. It started getting debilitating. I enjoy my music a lot better than my drugs.

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.

Well, I'm still here. Didn't have to go to rehab, and I'm not broke.

Well, all I can say is, it's a day-by-day program, and so I'm very worried about relapsing, but I don't know. I don't want to use. I don't want to go back to that place because nothing good came of it. It was super dark; it's not nice.

Going to rehab was the best decision I ever made.

In '85, I went through rehab and I wasn't ready. If you're not ready, you're not ready. You don't want to hear the truth, and you're gonna keep doing what you keep doing.

There were times when rehab and the halfway house were very, very tough, but I never felt that I wanted to leave.

The society focuses on the addict, and its impact on our quality of life, but we don't focus on people who are rehabilitated and in recovery.