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

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

Why does it help to read others' stories? It is not only that misery loves company, because (I learned) misery is too self-absorbed to want much company. Others' experiences did help with my emotional struggle.

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.

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.

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

I didn't cause it. I can't control it. I can't cure it.