History Main / RecoveredAddict

* Dash from ''VisualNovel/{{Melody}}''has been able to be a productive member of his band, and to maintain a relationship with Jade, since getting clean.

* ''Series/YTheLastMan'': Hero is introduced going to AA with Sam.

* ''Series/{{Intergalactic}}'': Candy gets clean with great difficulty, quitting cold turkey before and almost trading sex for a fix but in the end managing.

* On ''Series/TheWestWing'', Chief of Staff Leo [=McGarry=] went from private sector business into politics, with a stop in rehab for an alcohol and pill addiction. He's a few years sober at the start of the series.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Willow's storyline in Season 6 involves her becoming [[AddictiveMagic addicted to magic]], using it excessively and for [[MundaneUtility mundane tasks like getting dressed]]. It reaches a head in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E10Wrecked Wrecked]]", where her addiction [[KickTheMoralityPet nearly kills Dawn]], and she swears off its use. She spends several episodes recovering...until Warren shoots Buffy and Tara, resulting in Willow going OffTheWagon and absorbing massive amounts of BlackMagic, becoming [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Dark Willow]] and nearly destroying the world. After that fiasco, Willow spends the TimeSkip between seasons and the early part of Season 7 on a rehab course with the Devon Coven in England, and when she returns, she spends most of the season [[AfraidOfTheirOwnStrength terrified of using magic again]].

->''"Congrats -– you're sober. It will take a while for your body to remember how to metabolize anything that isn't sugar from alcohol, so you're going to be pretty ravenous soon. Eat plenty. You can expect your coordination and balance to improve in a couple of weeks. In two months, you might start sleeping like a normal person. Full recovery will take years, though. It'll be depressing. And it'll be boring. Don't expect any further rewards or handclaps. This is how normal people are all the time."''

[[folder:Fan Woks]]

->''"Congrats – you're sober. It will take a while for your body to remember how to metabolize anything that isn't sugar from alcohol, so you're going to be pretty ravenous soon. Eat plenty. You can expect your coordination and balance to improve in a couple of weeks. In two months, you might start sleeping like a normal person. Full recovery will take years, though. It’ll be depressing. And it’ll be boring. Don’t expect any further rewards or handclaps. This is how normal people are all the time."''

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Willow's storyline in Season 6 involves her becoming [[AddictiveMagic addicted to magic]], using it excessively and for [[MundaneUtility mundane tasks like getting dressed]]. It reaches a head in "Wrecked," where her addiction [[KickTheMoralityPet nearly kills Dawn]], and she swears off its use. She spends several episodes recovering... until Warren shoots Buffy and Tara, resulting in Willow going OffTheWagon and absorbing massive amounts of BlackMagic, becoming [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Dark Willow]] and nearly destroying the world. After that fiasco, Willow spends the TimeSkip between seasons and the early part of Season 7 on a rehab course with the Devon Coven in England, and when she returns, she spends most of the season [[AfraidOfTheirOwnStrength terrified of using magic again]].

* On ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' Sherlock Holmes is a recovering heroin addict and Joan Watson was originally his live-in sober companion before becoming his protege, then partner, then quit to start her own private investigation business.

* ''Series/FeelGood'': Mae is a cocaine addict and has been clean for years. However, she's very reluctant to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings and otherwise go through formal 12-step recovery, but eventually does so. She later falls off the wagon with oxycodone.

Note that in real life, societies for addicts looking to go clean such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous emphasize that there is no such thing as a recovered addict, an addict is ''always'' in a state of recovery, regardless of how many years they've been sober.

* The very first episode of ''Series/MurphyBrown'' has the title character returning from rehab for alcoholism. She tries to get back down to business but sincerely questions if she still has her edge. When she goes for the jugular for her post-rehab interview, she's delighted that she does.

* A group of vampires in the second series of ''Series/BeingHumanUK'' do this under the leadership of Mitchell. They manage to form their own version of AA and go off drinking human blood entirely. Then a group of human vampire hunters bombs their celebration party, destroying quite possibly the only group on {{Friendly Neighborhood Vampire}}s on the planet.

* ''Fanfic/MaryPhillipsStory'' is a ''Jem'' fic that starts with Stormer getting addicted to cocaine. After an overdose, she's sent to rehab.

* ComicBook/CarolDanvers from ''Fanfic/APrizeForThreeEmpires'' kept getting drunk in order to deal with her past trauma and her fading powers. After she is kicked out of the Avengers and forced by her mother to own up to her addiction, Carol makes a recovery. She slips once, but afterwards she manages to stay clean.

* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5799406/1/CoDependence Co-dependence]]'' is a ''Captain Planet'' fanfic about Linka's recovery after she became addicted to [[FantasticDrug Bliss]] in the episode "Mind Games".

-->-- ''{{VideoGame/Disco Elysium}}''

* In ''Series/{{Graceland}}'', Paul Briggs is a recovering heroin addict, although given that he makes money selling heroin, it's unclear how committed he is to his recovery.
** In the second season, Jakes goes undercover at a bus company that's ostensibly smuggling drugs. His supervisor proudly talks about how he's been sober for 20 years. [[KickTheDog Later in the season, when their investigation goes south and Paul wants some quick answers, he decides to interrogate the poor guy by waterboarding him with a bottle of whiskey.]]

* ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'': Captain Cragen drank like a fish in his back story. His recovered status is repeatedly brought up. Mostly by Cragen himself.

* ''Series/HillStreetBlues'' has Detective [=LaRue=]'s struggle to overcome his drink problem as the secondary story arc for much of Seasons 3 and 4. [[spoiler: Captain Furillo]] also comes close to a relapse at one point.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': Laurel spent much of Season 2 spiraling into alcohol and drug addiction, but eventually turned it around and started attending meetings. She is then shown consistently keeping her sobriety, even when her father at one point bitterly (and quite literally) [[KickTheDog shoves a bottle of liquor into her hands]]. She even comments that she only take aspirin after being in a car crash.
* ''Series/CriminalMinds'' has Dr. Spencer Reid becoming this in later seasons of the show.

* After finally admitting that he's a [[TheGamblingAddict gambling addict]], ''Series/OneLifeToLive'''s Max Holden seeks help and becomes this trope.
* Larry Zito from ''Series/MiamiVice'' used to be an alcoholic. As of "Down for the Count," he hadn't had a drink in five years and was implied to be attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
* ''Series/MidnightCaller'': Jack Killian's struggles to quit smoking are a minor subplot in the second half of the first season.
* ''Series/OffTheMap'': Dr. Cole used to be addicted to morphine and heroin and consumes candy to stay clean. [[spoiler: When Cole and Mina must retrieve heroin to use as painkillers, he contemplates relapsing, but manages to overcome it.]]

* ''Series/WarOfTheWorlds2019'': Sophie is determined to become this by the end of the series, having stopped using drugs despite it making her suffer for Theo, the boy she's basically adopted.

** Olivia also had an alcohol problem at one point and eventually ends up being ''forced'' off the wagon by a madman who has her captured.
* ''Series/TheMentalist'': Cho is shot during a bust and is given pain medication during his recovery. As the episodes go on we see him popping the pills as needed. Eventually he realizes he's getting addicted to them. Cho [[TheStoic being Cho]], he solves his addiction by flushing the remainder of his pills down the toilet and never takes any again.

* Literature/JPBeaumont, the protagonist of a series of mystery novels by Creator/JAJance, drinks very heavily in the early books of the series. He eventually realizes he has a problem and joins A.A., with his step-grandfather as TheSponsor. He remains a recovering alcoholic throughout the later books.[[note]]WordOfGod from Jance, who had been married to alcoholic for several years, is that she did not realize that the level of drinking Beau was undertaking in the early books were warning signs for alcoholism.[[/note]]