Songs for Recovery: Lyrics from Experience

I have recently started writing songs for the recovery community. I have spent over 20 years in 12 step programs. I started in Al-Anon (family/friend of alcoholic), then ACoA (adult child of alcoholic), AA (Alcoholics) and N.A. (Narcotics Anonymous).

So yes, I have history. And besides, real life stories are such rich song lyrics! I have a few on SoundCloud if you’d like to listen.

Recovery Quotes

“If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.” – Benjamin Alire Sáenz

“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” – C.S. Lewis

“One of the hardest things was learning that I was worth recovery.” – Demi Lovato

“Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“My recovery from drug addiction is the single greatest accomplishment of my life… but it takes work — hard, painful work — but the help is there, in every town and career, drug/drink freed members of society, from every single walk and talk of life to help and guide.” – Jamie Lee Curtis

“Addiction: the disease that makes you too selfish to see the havoc that you created or care about the people whose lives you shattered.” – Unknown

“Sometimes you’ve just got to give yourself what you wish someone else would give you.” – Dr. Phil

“First, you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out.” – Robert Collier

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising up every time we fail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Your addiction is not you, but it feels like you because you’ve spent so much intimate time together.” – Toni Sorenson

“I’m not telling you it is going to be easy. I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it!” – Anonymous

“Rising from the ashes, I am born again, powerful, exultant, majestic through all the pain.” – Shannon Perry

“Addiction is just a way of trying to get at something else. Something bigger. Call it transcendence if you want, but it’s like a rat in a maze. We all want the same thing. We all have this hole. The thing you want offers relief, but it’s a trap.” – Tess Callahan

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson