Quotes About Addiction

Some 68,000 Americans now die annually from drug overdoses, another 88,000 from alcohol abuse and 47,000 from suicide. More Americans die from these causes every two weeks than died during eighteen years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Canadians and Europeans pay higher taxes and get universal health care, less poverty and homelessness, lower addiction rates and arguably more humane societies, and that's probably a worthwhile trade-off.

Some 80 percent of Americans addicted to opioids began with prescription painkillers, not with illegal street drugs. Essentially, pharmaceutical executives acted like Colombian drug lords, with legal approval. Many cities and states, including Baltimore, are now suing Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies to recover some of the costs of treating the opioid epidemic, but no one can ever give Daniel back what he lost.

Alcohol is the river we sit on the banks of, contemplating. Sometimes we watch ourselves float past, sometimes we watch ourselves sink.

I know cigarettes can kill & wonder why she wants to die.

Self-destructing – in rock, in public, in fact anywhere – is not good for the human spirit, not to mention the lungs, liver and kidneys. Artistically, it's best approached the way David Bowie did it in the mid-1970s. His cocaine addiction turned him into a withered stick-insect figure of a man but also inspired the best music of his entire career. Then he sorted himself out and became the golden-haired survivor we know and love today.

If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don't actually live longer, it just seems longer.'1

The ability to consume pornography is the distinctive characteristic of the imbecile.

Porn and gaming have become the bread and circuses of the internet.

My bulimia was my addiction. Hurting myself was my addiction... The music is what saved me. That's the only thing I can trust.

What's worse? Being strung out or being fat?

She wept and suffered, and finally, when Father had left the house again, she went to one of her secret places where a bottle was, and drank a tunnel away from the pain.

Being without electronics for more than a few hours is like being kidnapped by a cult deprogrammer in a cheap brown suit and taken to a fluorescent motel

Active addiction is a kind of hell. It is like being a hungry ghost, wandering through life in constant craving and suffering. Refuge Recovery, the Buddhist-inspired approach to treating addiction, offers a plan to end the suffering of addiction.

It is not a lack of morality or any deep character flaw that creates addiction; it is almost always just a lot of pain and a lack of tolerance or compassion for this pain that get us stuck in the repetitive and habitual patterns of drinking, drugging, overeating, or whatever actions our addictions take. In some cases the underlying causes are not as clear, but the suffering that addiction creates is always obvious and undeniable.

What we must recognize is that the self-centeredness of the addict is just an extreme example of a universal human condition. Everyone is self-centered; we are born that way. Our minds and bodies have evolved over thousands of years with a built-in survival instinct that is both inwardly and outwardly focused.

The intermediate stage between socialism and capitalism is alcoholism.

An alcoholic promising not to drink again is roughly like anyone promising never to fart again

Only a habit can subdue another habit.

A wound not fully felt consumes from the inside. We must run very hard if we want to stay one step ahead of this pain. Exhausted, we try to bury it with drugs, alcohol, overwork, television, physical activity. We are a very creative species—we can use just about anything to anesthetize ourselves. But in doing so, we also remove ourselves from feeling the joy.

I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts.

Addiction is perhaps a sickness of the spirit.

I soon came to understand that drink, tobacco and prostitutes were all great means if dissipating (even for a few moments) my dread for human beings. I came even to feel that if I had to sell every last possession to obtain these means of escape, it would be well worth it.

Pronto comprendí que el alcohol, el tabaco y las prostitutas eran un método excelente para librarme del miedo a los seres humanos, aunque fuese sólo por un momento. Y llegué a la conclusión de que para conseguir esos momentos valdría la pena vender hasta la última de mis posesiones.