The 53 Most Powerful Sobriety Quotes Of All Time
If you are testing yourself with a full year without drinking, and find yourself reading these 1 year sober quotes on your first year of sobriety – then well done!
If you have been battling alcohol addiction, substance abuse, or maybe you are just trying to live a healthier lifestyle – keep going!
If you have hit speed bumps along the way and these addiction quotes are the first step to making some positive changes again, that is also an amazing thing.
While Inspirational quotes can’t do all the hard work for you, they offer huge additional support in your recovery process – moving you in the right direction on your journey of recovery.
Whether you are on day 1 or day 364 – You’ve got this.
19 Sobriety Quotes From Famous People
On the outside, it often seems like celebrities have a better life than many of us – the money, the attention, the excitement, but anyone can be vulnerable to new addiction.
But the truth is, the pressure of the public eye is one of the hardest things that many celebrities will ever have to deal with.
These 1 year sober quotes show how much of a leveler addiction can be.
“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life”
– JK Rowling
“The thing is, if I don’t have sobriety, I don’t have anything.”
– Matthew Perry
“Recovery is something that you have to work on every single day and it’s something that it doesn’t get a day off.”
– Demi Lovato

“The mentality and behavior of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help, they have no hope”
– Russel Brand
“Perfect reason flees all extremity, and leads one to be wise with sobriety.”
– Moliere
“Sobriety and health is the greatest thing.”
– Jeff Bridges
“I’ve been sober now for a couple of years and I’m taking my sobriety very seriously – one day at a time and I am moving forward in my career.”
– Daniel Baldwin
“Being in recovery has given me everything of value that I have in my life. Integrity, honesty, fearlessness, faith, a relationship with God, and most of all gratitude. It’s given me a beautiful family and an amazing career. I’m under no illusions where I would be without the gift of alcoholism and the chance to recover from it.”
– Rob Lowe
“You can’t legislate sobriety.”
– Robert Zemeckis

“People still question my sobriety, my commitment to the program, and that hurts. I take things day by day, and sometimes I take them minute by minute, but I honor my commitment to stay sober.”
– Tom Arnold
“Even though a number of people have tried, no one has yet found a way to drink for a living.”
– Jean Kerr
“I keep telling people: Don’t make me the poster boy for AA because I don’t know a lot about sobriety, but I do know a lot about drinking.”
– Billy Joel
“I understood, through rehab, things about creating characters. I understood that creating whole people means knowing where we come from, how we can make a mistake and how we overcome things to make ourselves stronger.”
– Samuel L Jackson
“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.”
– Gary Oldman

“I think it’s important for me to show the world that sobriety hasn’t made me soft. I’m on a mission to prove I’m still a nutcase.”
– Steve-O
“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.”
– Rob Lowe
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step”
– Martin Luther King

“My main focus in sobriety has been to replace fear with faith or love.”
– Steve-O
“Sobriety was the best gift I ever gave myself”
– Rob Lowe
11 Inspirational 1 Year Sober Quotes
A little bit of inspiration can go a long way.
These inspirational 1 year sober quotes are a great way to help keep the sober changes you’ve made keep on moving in the right direction, because your best days are yet to come.
Keep going – you are stronger than you think.
“Suffering isn’t ennobling, recovery is.”
– Christiaan Barnard
“When you quit drinking you stop waiting.”
– Caroline Knapp, Drinking: A Love Story
“It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard drinking people.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“I’m not telling you it is going to be easy, I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it”
– Arthur L. William JR.
“My mind may be sober, but my confidence is high!”
– Habeeb Akande
“I’ve always believed clear-eyed sobriety was for the harder hearted.”
– Gillian Flynn

“I’m pretty confident about my sobriety, but I don’t want to get too confident because that’s when I’ll crash.”
– Mary Docter
“F-E-A-R has two meanings: “Forget Everything And Run” or “Face Everything And Rise.” The choice is yours.”
– Zig Ziglar
“Laughter is day, and sobriety is night; a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both, more bewitching than either.”
– Henry Ward Beecher

“There are women succeeding beyond their wildest dreams because of their sobriety.”
– Mary Karr
“There’s not a drug on earth can make life meaningful.”
– Sarah Kane
13 Motivational Quotes For 1 Year Of Sobriety
If this is your sober anniversary, then today is a good day.
If this is a new start to your recovery journey, then these 1 year sober quotes are for you too.
Building a new life without addiction isn’t easy, and good things are around the corner if you can just keep going.
“Sometimes when in a dark place you think you’ve been buried, when actually you’ve been planted.”
– Christine Caine
“One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through and it will be someone else’s survival guide.”
– Brene Brown
“The initial journey towards sobriety is a delicate balance between insight into one’s desire for escape and abstinence from one’s addiction.”
– Debra L. Kaplan
“Everything must be carried out in extreme sobriety.”
– Gabriele Nanni
“There is no better high than discovery.”
– Edward O. Wilson
“There is nothing wrong with sobriety in moderation.”
– John Ciardi
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten”
“I have raised the morals and sobriety of the people.”
– James Larkin
“Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.”
– Herman Melville

“Breakthroughs don’t get planned, they are prepared for.”
– Goitsemang Mvula, South African author and artist
“Strength of mind rests in sobriety; for this keeps your reason unclouded by passion.”
– Pythagoras
“Hit the bottom and get back up; or hit the bottle and stay down.”
– Anthony Liccione
“First, Resolve upon, and daily endeavor to practise, a life of seriousness and strict sobriety.”
– David Brainerd
9 Passages On Sobriety
There is no doubt that 1 year sober quotes are powerful, but sometimes a longer passage can be the best way of giving more insight.
The passages below are from books and poems around the world, helping you along the way in your positive journey to recovery.
“I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures.”
– Gail Caldwell, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author
“We are all damaged. We have all been hurt. We have all had to learn painful lessons. We are all recovering from some mistake, loss, betrayal, abuse, injustice or misfortune. All of life is a process of recovery that never ends. We each must find ways to accept and move through the pain and to pick ourselves back up. Be patient with yourself.”
– Bryant McGill author of Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
“Above anything else—above family or job—the main thing is staying sober. That’s because without being sober, I don’t have a family or a job.”
– William Regal, former professional wrestler and author
“I wanted a drink [because] I didn’t want to feel what I was feeling, and a voice within was telling me that I needed a drink, that I couldn’t bear it without it. But that voice is a liar. You can always bear the pain. It’ll hurt, it’ll burn like acid in an open wound, but you can stand it. And, as long as you can make yourself go on choosing the pain over the relief, you can keep going.”
– Lawrence Block, author of Out on the Cutting Edge
Why are you sober? “Understanding your personal reasons for getting sober will make it easier for you to stick up for yourself when challenged, and increases your success with abstaining as well as your satisfaction from doing so,”
– Dr. Heinzerling
“I personally believe this: We have only today; yesterday’s gone and tomorrow is uncertain. That’s why they call it the present. And sobriety really is a gift… for those who are willing to receive it.”
– Ace Frehley, No Regrets: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Memoir
“I personally believe this: We have only today; yesterday’s gone and tomorrow is uncertain. That’s why they call it the present. And sobriety really is a gift… for those who are willing to receive it.”Ace Frehley, No Regrets: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Memoir
“We want ecstasy as a way of life, not a liver-poisoning alcoholiday from it.”
– CrimethInc, Anarchy and Alcohol
“Getting sober is a radically creative act.”
– Meredith Bell, A Sober Year: Daily Musings on an Alcohol-Free Life
“When I got sober, I thought giving up was saying goodbye to all the fun and all the sparkle, and it turned out to be just the opposite. That’s when the sparkle started for me.”
– Mary Karr, American poet
1 Year Sober Quotes – The Bottom Line
Motivational quotes are easy ways to give you a quick lift, or find some strength to keep going.
We hope these 1 year sober quotes can play a part in celebrating the best day, or in your early recovery.
You have the rest of your life ahead of you, and whether it’s these quotes, the support of your family members or a treatment program that you need to lean on, make sure you reach out for the help that you need.
And next time you hit a sober anniversary, be sure to visit us and celebrate the new ending you are creating.
Good luck!