Sobriety Journey Quotes

I finally came to the decision that I couldn't do it like that anymore. So I surrendered to that. I did (the Sabbath reunion tour) without anything - cigarettes, tobacco, dope, anything. And I had so much more fun without it.

The trick is to use the drugs once to get there, and maybe spend the next ten years trying to get back there without the drug.

I'm not the kind of person who could join AA or have rules for myself or on Thursday take this vitamin pill. So, basically, I learned the hard way. I learned by trial and error, and tried to get drugs out of my work. That took about a year. If I was going to work, it was best that I be straight. And I was surprised at what came out.

Anybody can be a non-drunk. It takes a special talent to be a drunk. It takes endurance. Endurance is more important than truth.

The only thing worse for smoking than drinking is quitting drinking. Because then it's the only thing you can do.

Friend of mine just told me he used to be a bad alcoholic. I calmed him down. Told him he was a good alcoholic just a horrible drinker.

Thank God I never hooked on anything. I never had a monkey on my back. I just wanted to self-medicate, to numb myself through liquor. It's how I dealt with life, reality, stress, change, sadness, memories. The list goes on. I was really trying to feel nothing.

I was a weekend drinker...I'd start on Saturday, end on Friday...thought I was controlling it...but I don't drink any more.

Johnny Depp already seen how alcohol and drugs can get in the way of a career. And you have to remember one thing: Johnny was a guitar player and a rock-and-roller way before he was an actor. When he came to Los Angeles, he came with his band.

When I gave up dope and alcohol, my immediate feeling was 'I've saved my life, but there'll be a price because I'll have nothing that buzzes me any more'. But I enjoyed my kids. My wife loved me and I loved her. And eventually the writing came back and I discovered that the writing was enough. Stupid thing is that probably it always had been.

Anyone who's been a heavy drinker and heavy smoker and has the good future to survive that and give it up knows what a very different kind of daily existence one has. I was smoking a couple of packs of cigarettes a day. And I was drinking heavily on tours.

My manager said, "Don't use liquor as a crutch!" I can't use liquor as a crutch, because a crutch helps me walk.

Sobriety has been the most life-affirming path for me.

I've been sober now for 18 years. With all the drugs, psychedelics and narcotics I did, I was [really] an alcoholic. Honestly, I only used to do cocaine so I could sober up and drink more. My last five years of drinking was a nightmare. I was drinking a half-gallon of rum with a fifth of rum on the side, in case I ran out, 28 beers a day, and three grams of cocaine just to keep me moving around. And I thought I was doing fine because I wasn't crawling around drunk on the floor.

One day [when I relapsed] I walked into a store and saw a little bottle of Jack Daniel's. And then that voice - I call it the 'lower power' - goes, 'Hey. Just a taste. Just one.' I drank it, and there was that brief moment of 'Oh, I'm okay!' But it escalated so quickly. Within a week I was buying so many bottles I sounded like a wind chime walking down the street.

I think I've improved in a lot of ways because of being able to stay clean and sober.

I got sober at age forty-two.

I was poisoning myself with alcohol and medicating myself. I was trying to numb things. I was trying not to feel things, and that's ridiculous. It's one of the dumbest things you can do, because all you're doing is postponing the inevitable. Someday you'll have to look all those things in the eye rather than try to numb the pain.

My experiences with dope were not good for me. I had to go another route. Because in my experience, dope didn't give me those insights.

Sobriety was the greatest gift I ever gave myself.

I went to rehab [for alcoholism] in wine country, just to keep my options open.

Drugs were pretty easy to quit taking. I was never addicted to anything to begin with. But then, liquor - I had to wait about another six years before I finally got around to quitting that. I'm sure glad I did.

There is this to be said in favor of drinking, that it takes the drunkard first out of society, then out of the world.

I'm sure that being sober all these years accounts for my ill humor.

Being sober and clear-eyed changes everything.