“Try to open up, I know it’s hard, but it's the silence that kills. It robs you of reaching out, it makes you feel unworthy, it closes you off. Just try, open up, to a mirror, a wall, then a person, sometimes a stranger will listen better than a family. A preacher, a pastor, they are there not to con…”— JoAnne B., recovery.org
“I love you, and I am sorry you are having these feelings. I am here, I will help you get through this. You will come out a better person. I know. I promise because I have been there. Now, let me pray for you.”— Ness F., recovery.org
“We are all of us like that boy sometimes. I mean we all carry something inside us that can be rejected; that can look silver in the light. You can deny it, or try and throw it in the garbage by all means. You can despise it so much you drink yourself halfway to death. At the end of the day, though,…”— Olivia Laing, amazon.com
“For several days, I slept. Whether this was a necessary part of physical recovery, or a stubborn retreat from waking reality, I do not know, but I woke only reluctantly to take a little food, falling at once back into a stupor of oblivion, as though the small, warm weight of broth in my stomach were…”— Diana Gabaldon, amazon.com
“So believe me when I say: You will survive this. And the next one too.”— Nikita Gill, shopcatalog.com
“You see, you may be damaged and broken and unhinged. But so are shooting stars and comets.”— Nikita Gill, shopcatalog.com
“1. You must let the pain visit. 2. You must allow it teach you. 3. You must not allow it overstay.”— Ijeoma Umebinyuo, amazon.com
“Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again.”— Charles Dickens, amazon.com
“Abuse leaves a person emotionally handicapped, unable to maintain healthy, lasting relationships without some kind of intervention.”— Joyce Meyer, amazon.com
“We yearn so badly to be healed We let anyone in We cram them into what small space we have left Hoping they have good intentions”— Samantha King, amazon.com
“The hardest thing about 'everything happens for a reason' is waiting for that reason to show up.”— Karen Salmansohn, amazon.com
“I promise you will bloom again. I promise you will flourish. Trust me when I say that wildflowers grow in the oddest of places, between the cracks of memories, they gather strength within scar tissue, stretching toward the light, saying ‘We deserve to be here, no matter where we have come from.’ Now…”— Bianca Sparacino, thoughtcatalog.com
“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.”— Pema Chodron, amazon.com
“Feeling sorry for yourself that’s only allowing them more control, more power, and to steal more of your life from you. Don’t you dare give them another second of your life.”— Elizabeth A. Smart, youtube.com
“After I had been raped and brutalized, there was something new inside my soul. There was a burning now inside me, a fierce determination that no matter what I had to do, I was going to live!”— Elizabeth A. Smart, Chris Stewart, amazon.com
“Alcohol was an escalating madness, and the blackout issue was the juncture separating two kinds of drinking. One kind was a comet in your veins. The other kind left you sunken and cratered, drained of all light.”— Sarah Hepola, amazon.com
“We all want to believe that our pain is singular - that no on else has felt this way - but our pain is ordinary, which is both a blessing and a curse. It means we're not unique. But it also means we're not alone.”— Sarah Hepola, amazon.com
“Addiction was the inverse of honest work. It was everything, right now. I drank away nervousness, and I drank away boredom, and I needed to build a new tolerance. Yes to discomfort, yes to frustration, yes to failure, because it meant I was getting stronger. I refused to be the person who only playe…”— Sarah Hepola, amazon.com