Popular quotes about Addiction! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 25
Once and for all, people must understand that addiction is a disease. Itโs critical if weโre 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. Thereโs another essential reason why we must understand that addiction is an illness and not just bad behavior: We punish bad behavior. We treat illness.
David SheffBecause addiction is a developmental problem, the developmental stage is important, things like employment are important, things like having a sense of purpose, meaning and hope are important, and this is why there's been so many spiritual cures for addiction, because those things often give people a sense of meaning and purpose.
Maia SzalavitzMarijuana is not addictive. People are the addicts and they will find a substance or a belief that will feed the addiction they need to make their day go away. Meaning one looks for a substance that allows them not to live with who and what they really are. To stop addiction we must treat the patient and stop blaming everyone and everything else but the abuser.
Steven MachatI used to find myself goofed out in the street on drugs. And I had such a bad problem with addiction at the time that I didn't mind. I was dealing cocaine and shooting up a lot of cocaine. And that's not a good space to be in.
Will SelfI have family members who literally struggle with crack addiction, and I've seen how destructive that's been, not only for their relationships and their children and their career, but perpetually even until today because that meant that that person was not there all these years to raise their child and just the damage that it inflicts.
Rosario DawsonWhat has drug addiction done for me? It's cost me my career, my fortune and basically my sex life when I found out I was HIV positive.
Robbin CrosbyAll people talk of money sometimes, everywhere. But not for all people, everywhere, is money the addiction, the obsession, the stimulant, that it seems to be in New York. It is a large part of the clamor, and it is the voice - quite literally - of the man in the street.
Marya MannesWe need to take a hard look at the war on drugs and the number of non-violent offenders who end up getting their lives destroyed by going to prison. We need to look at mandatory minimum sentencing and give judges more flexibility when there are issues of drug abuse or addiction.
Bernie SandersWe need to reduce or at least limit U.S. demand for oil as quickly as possible, and we need to develop new technologies that can further help address our addiction to oil in the future.
Sherwood BoehlertIt turns out that dopamine is a chemical on double duty in the brain. Along with its role in motor commands, it also serves as the main messenger in the reward systems, guiding a person toward food, drink, mates, and all things useful for survival. Because of its role in the reward system, imbalances in dopamine can trigger gambling, overeating, and drug addiction - behaviors that result from a reward system gone awry.
David EaglemanThe hero surviving his own murder, his own suicide, his own addiction, surviving his own disappearance from the scene
Allen GinsbergI was in my mid-40s. I was a bulimic, and I realized if I continue with this addiction of mine, I will not be able to continue doing my life. The older you get the more damage it does; it takes longer to recover from a binge. And it was very hard.
Jane FondaWe have turned doctors into gods and worship their deity by offering up our bodies and our souls - not to mention our worldly goods. And yet paradoxically, they are the most vulnerable of human beings. Their suicide rate is eight times the national average. Their percentage of drug addiction is one hundred times higher And because they are painfully aware that they cannot live up to our expectations, their anguish is unquantifiably intense. They have aptly been called 'wounded healers.' " ~ Barney Livingston, M.D. (Doctors, 1989)
Erich SegalOpioid replacement therapy is the standard evidence-based model to treat people with acute opioid addiction, and that is unassailable according to every research study that's been done. If that is the evidence-based model, then why can't we meet the large-scale need that's out there? We can't because one, there aren't enough doctors who can prescribe [drugs like methadone], and two, there are these artificial limits [by insurers] on who doctors can prescribe to.
Patrick J. KennedyAnyone who would tackle our current addiction to fossil fuels is going to have to maneuver around denial.
William H. CalvinThe mentality and behavior of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help they have no hope.
Russell BrandThere was a lot of tabloid journalism about my supposed sex addiction. Bullshit. It's all bullshit. I mean, come on, I never pretended to be a saint. But give me a break.
Michael DouglasIf you're losing the battle against a persistent bad habit, an addiction, or a temptation, and you're stuck in a repeating cycle of good intention-failure-guilt, you will not get better on your own. You need the help of other people. Some temptations are only overcome with the help of a partner who prays for you, encourages you, and holds you accountable.
Rick WarrenIn the short term, corporal punishment may produce obedience. But it is a fact documented by research that in the long term the results are inability to learn, violence and rage, bullying, cruelty, inability to feel another's pain, especially that of one's own children, even drug addiction and suicide, unless there are enlightened or at least helping witnesses on hand to prevent that development.
Alice MillerThe difference between passion and addiction is that between a divine spark and a flame that incinerates.
Gabor MateMan has but little heeded the advice of the wise men. He has been - fatefully, if not willingly - less virtuous, less constant, less rational, less peaceful than he knows how to be, than he is fully capable of being. He has been led astray from the ways of peace and brotherhood by his addiction to concepts and attitudes of narrow nationalism, racial and religious bigotry, greed and lust for power.
Ralph BuncheSurfing is a huge passion of mine. I'm and addict to it in a sense. I think it is a good addiction. I spend about anywhere from two to eight hours a day in the water when I am home. I enjoy competing and traveling. I don't know, I just like being in the ocean and enjoying God's creation. Just the adrenaline you get and its good exercise you get at the same time.
Bethany HamiltonWhat I've learned to do is arrest my addiction - arrest it myself, so I don't get arrested.
Rodney KingIt is impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the addict finds, or hopes to find, in the drug or the addictive behaviour.
Gabor MateWhen you get into recovery after some addiction you have to relearn a lot of perceptions, attitudes and self-awareness if you want to stay clean. You really do change. Change doesn't happen often but to a certain extent in some way, I think when you get into recovery and you stay there, you change.
Shawn ColvinHowever, there probably is a slight connection between the high-wire, super sensitivity, open to everything and too much, and slightly fragile soul of the artist and the need to self-medicate, which can lead to bad trouble either in drugs, or alcohol. So it's not that there's no connection, it's just that we can't make too much of it because it isn't the addiction that's the issue, it's the fragility of some people who do artistic work, who end up in rehab somewhere or other.
Anne RoipheI went public with the alcoholism, very early on... the early '70s. Mercedes McCambridge, the actress, I think was the first recognizable person that went before Congress and talked about it, and I thought that was a good idea, to take some of the stigma away from it and say "Normal, average people can fall prey to it." So it's been public for me. I did a movie about an alcoholic. And today, you're nobody unless you've been to rehab. It seems like everybody has some kind of an addiction.
Dick Van DykeThe very wealthy and the very famous have a much closer affinity with the indigent street person than with the rest of us. There's the narcissism, the addiction, even the outlandish dress. Often they don't put great value in relationships.
Drew PinskyAddiction is a brain disease - this isn't a moral failing - and we have got to stop looking at it that way.
Perri PeltzIt is time to end the discrimination against people who need treatment for chemical addiction. It is time for Congress to deal with our Nation's number one public health problem.
Jim RamstadEvery form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.
Carl JungWhile the Internet generally tends to have a stress-relieving function for adults - as long as they aren't inclined toward sex addiction - I don't see this being the case for adolescents.
Volkmar SiguschNow we are all learning what it's like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence... Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and - now - Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.Photography to me is an addiction. I get jittery after a couple of days without a camera. Everyone who knows me says I'm happiest when I'm shooting.
RankinPeople don't get that being a musician is a job, they don't get what the work takes. And that's just because you're living a dream, so everyone who's observing it from the outside can't really empathize with how much work it is because you're fortunate. And it's a kind of competition with yourself to stay away from all of the excess, whether it's booze or drugs or just the late nights with the addiction to watching the sun rise in some weird part of the world. But when you meet the other musicians, there's generally a spiritual exhaustion that you connect with.
Kevin DrewI'm an actor, and, beyond that, the thing I do most compulsively is writing. So I come at it very much from this sense of character. I get interested in people. And I feel confident in my capacity to absorb and manifest the characteristics of people. I have a real auditory hang-up for dialogue; re-creating the way people talk really is an addiction in my brain.
Edward NortonAll who are caught in its seductive, tantalizing web and remain so will become addicted to its immoral, destructive influence. For many, that addiction cannot be overcome without help. The tragic pattern is so familiar. It begins with curiosity that is fueled by its stimulation and is justified by the false premise that when done privately, it does no harm to anyone else. For those lulled by this lie, the experimentation goes deeper, with more powerful stimulations, until the trap closes and a terribly immoral, addictive habit exercises its vicious control.
Richard G. ScottWhen people get in trouble with addiction, it's because they're holding themselves to too high a standard and because they're not meeting it, they have to punish themselves, and it turns into this cycle of failing and falling lower and lower.
Ron Livingston[On his heroin addiction:] I did it to myself. It wasn't society...it wasn't a pusher, it wasn't being blind or being black or being poor. It was all my doing.
Ray CharlesIn the '70s, everybody thought drugs were just good times. People didn't really know about drug addiction, or that such a thing existed. When I grew up in the '70s I thought you had to take drugs. It was almost like I didn't think you had a choice.
Aimee MannWhen we hunt or fish, we deliberately kill a defenseless being who wishes us no harm. This is a direct violation of the First Precept. It is absolutely forbidden to Buddhists. As to eating meat, we know that the only way we can obtain it is for an animal to be killed. Therefore, when we eat meat, it is our intent that an innocent animal should die to satisfy our addiction to flesh. And that underlying intention, no matter how well hidden behind a smokescreen of rationalizations will block the growth of compassion and create negative karma.
Norm PhelpsOnstage it was always comfortable for me because that's where I felt at home. Offstage it was a different situation. I was still shy offstage and unfortunately, my shyness and my inability to communicate and really have great conversations or be part of the gang - in inverted commas - led me to the drug addiction, which, you know, blighted my life for 16 years because I thought by doing that it would make me join in.
Elton John