I am becoming used to an overwhelming, grinding mixture of anger and worry.

How can both Nics, the loving and considerate and generous one, and the self-obsessed and self-destructive one, be the same person?

Anyone who has lived through it, or those who are now living through it, knows that caring about an addict is as complex and fraught and debilitating as addiction itself.

We deny the severity of our loved one's problem not because we are naive, but because we can't know.

An alcoholic will steal your wallet and lie to you. A drug addict will steal your wallet and then help you look for it.

This stigma associated with drug use--the belief that bad kids use, good kids don't, and those with full-blown addiction are weak, dissolute, and pathetic--has contributed to the escalation of use and has hampered treatment more than any single other factor.

I am becoming used to an overwhelming, grinding mixture of anger and worry.