Once and for all, people must understand that addiction is a disease. It’s critical if we’re going to effectively prevent and treat addiction. Accepting that addiction is an illness will transform our approach to public policy, research, insurance, and criminality; it will change how we feel about addicts, and how they feel about themselves. There’s another essential reason why we must understand that addiction is an illness and not just bad behavior: We punish bad behavior. We treat illness.

A world of contradictions, wherein everything is gray and almost nothing is black and white.

Wherever you be, wherever you may, seek the truth, strive for the beautiful, achieve the good.

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.

Along with the joy of parenthood, with every child comes a piercing vulnerability. It is at once sublime and terrifying

Here's a note to the parents of addicted children: Choose your music carefully...There are millions of treacherous moments.

At my worst, I even resented Nic because an addict, at least when high, has a momentary respite from his suffering. There is no similar relief for parents or children or husbands or wives or others who love them.