24 Russell Brand Quotes from Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions

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Excerpt: This collection of Russell Brand Quotes from Recovery isn’t just for ‘addicts’—it’s for anyone with addictive tendencies… it’s for us all.

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Introduction: We’re all on the addiction spectrum

This collection isn’t just for ‘addicts’—because addiction isn’t just a ‘black-and-white’ situation. It’s for those of us who harbor addictive tendencies. And not solely in the realms of drugs, alcohol, gambling, or sex. But, also in the not-so-obvious realms such as relationships, food, work, technology, pornography, hoarding, social media, etc. Essentially, this is a collection of quotes (and a book) that can help us all. Because we all have addictive tendencies—we’re all just knowingly or unknowingly at different points on the spectrum of addiction.

The reality, as Russell Brand makes a case for throughout his book, Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions is that whenever we try to solve an inner problem with outer means, in spite of negative consequences, this, fundamentally speaking, is a symptom of addiction in some form. It’s only when we learn how to solve our inner problems with inner means that we may finally free ourselves from those harmful vices.

This, by no stretch of the imagination, is an easy process. But, it may undoubtedly be a life-changing one. Modeled after the traditional, tried and proven 12 Step Program; with the guidance of a recovered addict whose only qualification is that he claims to have been more addicted, more narcissistic, and more driven by lust, power, and recognition than you; all bound together in well thought-out, actionable, witty, and easy to read chapters—this book is well worth the investment.

At the very least, these quotes from Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions will point you in the right direction. And if you find these quotes valuable, consider reading Brand’s book in full—it comes highly recommended. For more immediate resources in dealing with addiction and to find help today, you can visit The Addiction Center Online. Otherwise, I hope these insights find you well and that they lead you to a more free life.

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The List: 24 Russell Brand Quotes from Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions

“In your life you’ve faced obstacles, inner and outer, that have prevented you from becoming the person you were ‘meant to be’ or ‘are capable of being’ and that is what we are going to recover. That’s why we call this process Recovery; we recover the ‘you’ that you were meant to be.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 42)

“My authority comes not from a steep and certain mountain top of po-faced righteousness. This manual for Self-Realization comes not from the mountain but from the mud. Being human is a ‘me too’ business. We are all in the mud together. My qualification is that I am more addicted, more narcissistic, more driven by lust and the need for power and recognition.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 6)

“We adapt to the misery of an unloving home, of unfulfilling work. Of empty friendships and lacquered alienation. The 12 Step program, which has saved my life, will change the life of anyone who embraces it. I have seen it work many times with people with addiction issues of every hue: drugs, sex, relationships, food, work, smoking, alcohol, technology, pornography, hoarding, gambling, everything. Because the instinct that drives the compulsion is universal. It is an attempt to solve the problem of disconnection, alienation and tepid despair, because the problem is ultimately ‘being human’ in an environment that is curiously ill-equipped to deal with the challenges that entails. We are all on the addiction scale.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 4)

“The fact is that it doesn’t matter if you are gambling to the point where it harms you, if you are drinking too much, if you are lost in your life and afraid to articulate even to yourself how unhappy you are, how fearful of the future, of death, of other people, of being poor, of not being good enough, sexy enough, thin enough, tough enough, famous enough, if you feel that you are not enough and that if you could only ‘X, Y, Z, then everything would be fine,’ I believe you are on the spectrum of addiction. By this definition: ‘Trying to solve an inner problem by outer means, in spite of negative consequences.’”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 221)

“Pain is a signal, it’s some aspect of us that’s beyond our somewhat narrow conception of ‘self,’ communicating. A pain in the leg means ‘don’t put pressure on this leg’; a pain in the mind means ‘change the way you live.’”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 28) (Read Matt’s Blog on this quote)

“You build the pain into the story of who you are until it isn’t pain anymore, it’s just another piece of who you are.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 75)

“I live in negotiation with a shadow side that has to be respected. There is a wound. I believe that this is more than a characteristic of addiction. I think it is a part of being human, to carry a wound, a flaw and again, paradoxically, it is only by accepting it that we can progress.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 26)

“There is no objective history, this we know, only stories. Our character is the result of this story we tell ourselves about ourselves, and the process of inventorying breaks down the hidden and destructive personal grammar that we have unwittingly allowed to govern our behaviour.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 69)

“My best efforts, my best intentions will be sucked into the quagmire if I am not vigilant. You too, you may think, ‘yes, I am an addict, I will change the way I drink or eat or think or relate to sexual partners,’ but surely the craving will find a new expression, like a magnetic field ordering iron filing. You can replace the filings but the pull stays the same. It is only by finding a more powerful magnetic pull that you can change the patterns completely. This can be the program itself, sedulously applied. It can be a support group, made up of like-minded people. It can be an orthodox or traditional idea of God. It can be nature. It can be a unified field of consciousness that supports all phenomena. It frankly doesn’t matter and it is entirely for you to choose, as long as it is loving, caring and more powerful than you.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 45)

“Oddly, counterintuitively, in our culture of individualism and self-centered valour, it is by surrendering that we can begin to succeed. It is by ‘admitting that we have no power’ that we can begin the process of accessing all the power we will ever need.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 27)

“I believe that the mystery of creation and the laws of the universe hold great power in them. I believe that the innate love that human beings have for one another is a power. I believe people’s willingness to suffer for a cause is a power. I believe the healing of an injury is a power. Muhammad Ali’s sacrifice for what he believed in is a power. The music of Mozart (or Moz), the Sistine Chapel ceiling, George Best—all these allude to some Power that is greater than me. The chances that I have had in life, the people that have loved me and been there for me. There are many examples of a Power greater than myself, alone, with my addiction and my thoughts.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 46)

“‘Sought’ is from the verb to seek; I have always been looking for something. I see that now, for as long as I can recall I harboured fantasies of how some object or experience would heal me, would make me whole. Sometimes before Christmas I would be so euphoric at the prospect of the following day’s gifts that I’d vibrate until it felt like I might shape-shift. What was I imagining the millennium Falcon or whatever it was would bring? What was the inherent drive that was so fiercely engaged? I always felt these artefacts would bring completion. It was like I was born with the yearning to be whole and continually felt that each new object or encounter, particularly if enthusiastically heralded, would bring redemption.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 194)

“What I used to think of as happiness was merely distraction from the pain. The pain of disconnection, of separateness from you. All longing, all yearning, all thirst, flung on unworthy surrogates, false idols, unsated by unworthy objects, still pulling us unwillingly back together.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 208)

“It is commonly understood that the opposite of addiction is connection. That in our addictive behaviours we are trying to achieve the connection. Think of it: the bliss of a hit or a drink or of sex or of gambling or eating, all legitimate drives gone awry, all a reach across the abyss, the separateness of ‘self,’ all an attempt to redress this disconnect.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 86)

“When you start to drink, wank, eat, spend, obsess [excessively] you have lost your connection to the great power within you, the great power in others, the great power around all things. There is something in you speaking to you and you don’t understand it because you’ve never learned its language. So we try to palm it off with porn and consuming but it is your spirit calling and it craves connection. Spend time alone, write, pray, meditate. This is where we learn the language.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 134)

“Beyond today your projections of life are conceptual. You don’t have to not drink for twenty years today. You don’t have to give up white bread for all eternity, right now. And if you do make it through today, and wake up tomorrow, what does it really matter that you didn’t act out yesterday? I mean, you’re not accumulating tokens for punitive pleasure. This ‘one day at a time’ cliché when taken plainly is no less profound than any ‘be in the moment’ Eastern wisdom I’ve since encountered. Today is all I have.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 25)

“You can’t think your way into acting better but you can act your way into thinking better.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 160)

“In justifying our misery we recommit to it.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 101) (Read Matt’s Blog on this quote)

“By forgiving the perpetrator, I release myself. I can revise the event. I can see it as something that gives me more compassion and understanding. I can let go of it. There is no benefit to establishing an imaginary judicial system in my own mind where I carry out punishments to people who have wronged me. By letting go of this long-held inner drama I become a little more liberated and useful. In essence it’s bad that it happened but it’s worse that I allow myself to be affected by it now. I cannot control the past but I can control the present through forgiveness.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 134)

“Forgiveness is a powerful spiritual tool, without it we are damned as individuals and as a people. Forgiveness means letting go. It means being willing to accept that we are all mortals flawed and suffering, imperfectly made and trying our best. That sometimes there is a collision of instinct. Am I determined that the world must be as I decree. Do I see a future in that way of thinking, especially when it’s done nothing but bring me pain so far? What am I holding on to? What is gained by withholding forgiveness, for ruminating on a concluded event, by holding on to bygone pain and wishing ill upon a man just like me? Nothing.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 134)

“None of us can adequately control the meteorology of other people: they’re nice, they’re nasty, they come, they go. We have no choice but to address, alter and amend the inner coordinate if we want to have a different model of reality, if we want to have more choices.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 122) (Read Matt’s Blog on this quote)

“Our relationships with people become the instantiations of negative attitudes to ourselves: I believe myself to be ugly; I behave in an ugly way; I then have relationships with others that confirm my belief. A self-perpetuating doctrine.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 150)

“They say all the energy that has ever been is still here now and will always be here. That means there is a totality and I am part of it. When I have an opinion on suffering, it is only that, an opinion. I do not and cannot understand the full context of events that occur in an infinite and eternal universe. It’s as if within my finite lifetime I glimpse a second of a three-hour movie and try to understand the entire plot. All I must do is engage with this idea: I will become open to the idea that my conceptions, beliefs and experiences are limited. I will become open to new beliefs and new possibilities. I will become open to the idea that I can live a better, more loving and useful life, even if I don’t fully understand how I will do it or what it will be like.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 47)

“If we all feel that we are alone, how alone are we? If we all feel worthless then who is the currency of our worth being measured against? Perhaps this program is a personal and social tool that illuminates the truth that religious people have long known and physicists have proven: all the energy that has ever existed has always existed and will always exist. Form and separation are temporary. We are all one.”

Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 94)

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If you enjoyed these quotes from Recovery, you should check out Russell Brand’s book in full. It comes highly recommended: