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.

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

The hopeful part about that is when you do have that help, you will feel better. It still doesn't make this easy. Nothing makes this easy, but you can make better decisions.

When I transformed my random and raw words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into chapters, a semblance of order and sanity appeared where there had been only chaos and insanity.

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

How innocent we are of our mistakes and how we responsible we are for them.

Openness is the first step toward recovery... addiction remains a secret because of the overwhelming shame associated with it.