Addiction Alcoholism Drinking Quotes

Addiction, at its worst, is akin to having Stockholm Syndrome. You're like a hostage who has developed an irrational affection for your captor. They can abuse you, torture you, even threaten to kill you, and you'll remain inexplicably and disturbingly loyal. ~ Anne Clendening

Despite evidence to the contrary, I hated drinking to the point that I misplaced really big slabs of time. ~ Augusten Burroughs

It's the same whether we eat margarine or don't. Dull translation jobs or fraudulent copy, it's basically the same. Sure we're tossing out fluff, but tell me, where does anyone deal in words with substance? C'mon now, there's no honest work anywhere. Just like there's no honest breathing or honest pissing."
"You were more innocent in the old days."
"Maybe so," I said, crushing out a cigarette in the ashtray. "And no doubt there's an innocent town somewhere where an innocent butcher slices innocent ham. So if you think that drinking whiskey from the middle of the morning is innocent, go ahead and drink as much as you want."
The room was treated to an extended pen-on-desktop staccato solo. ~ Haruki Murakami

What was so painful about Amy's death is that I know that there is something I could have done. I could have passed on to her the solution that was freely given to me. Don't pick up a drink or drug, one day at a time. It sounds so simple; it actually is simple but it isn't easy; it requires incredible support and fastidious structuring. ~ Russell Brand

How is that for some people drinking is a short-term loan on the spirit, but for others a heavy mortgage on the soul? ~ Sebastian Barry

Becoming a writer is a polite way of saying you've chosen alcoholism as a career. ~ Joe Ducie

If I were to create a word that more accurately describes alcoholism and addiction, I would say it was dependencyism. Sounds silly, doesn't it? Yet it's no sillier than the word alcoholism. The reason alcoholism no longer sounds silly to you is because you're used to hearing it, reading it, and thinking about it. ~ Chris Prentiss

Gin and whisky cost so much more. Oblivion and courage could no longer be purchased for the price of an old song. ~ Norah Hoult

Somebody tells you they drink because they're a failure, it ain't so. They're a failure because they drink. And they drink because it's so damn hard not to. But as long as they have a bottle that isn't empty, they never feel far from being happy.
("Bums") ~ William Kent Krueger

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil. ~ William Shakespeare

One main problem with raising awareness of LGBT abuse is the denial. The term "domestic violence" is perceived as something akin to alcoholism, ("I don't sit on a park bench drinking") and people do not see that they are perpetrating or are a victim of DV because they have a set idea about what it is. ~ Kim Kardashian

When you are young your body cannot handle alcohol, and when you get old your mind cannot handle it. Either way, alcohol has its way. ~ Robert Black

There is this malign curse laid on dipsomaniacs. That they must absolutely have a drink: in order to feel strong enough to stop drinking. ~ Caitlin Thomas

Alcoholism, of course, is more than a habit. It's a physical addiction with psychological and perhaps genetic roots. ~ Charles Duhigg

Most memoirs about alcoholism, promiscuity, and addiction are deep, sobering tales full of scars that will never heal and include alarming statistics and reflection about recovery.
This is not one of those memoirs. ~ Kate Madison

Still another and all-sufficient answer to the argument that the use of spirituous liquors tends to poverty, is that, as a general rule, it puts the effect before the cause. It assumes that it is the use of the liquors that causes the poverty, instead of its being the poverty that causes the use of the liquors. ~ Lysander Spooner

The alcoholism got me and I ruined my first marriage with drinking and the lying and the deceit and infidelity, and all of that. The whole bloody thing. ~ Malachy McCourt

I understood drinking to be the gasoline of all adventure. ~ Sarah Hepola

You're walking down Fool's Street, Laura used to say when he was drinking, and she had been right. He had known even then that she was right, but knowing had made no difference; he had simply laughed at her fears and gone on walking down it, till finally he had stumbled and fell. Then, for a long time, he stayed away, and if he had stayed away long enough he would have been all right; but one night he began walking down it again - and met the girl. It was inevitable that on Fool's Street there should be women as well as wine.

He had walked down it many times in many different towns, and now he was walking down it once again in yet another town. Fool's Street never changed, no matter where you went, and this one was no different from the others. The same skeletonic signs bled beer names in vacant windows; the same winos sat in doorways nursing muscatel; the same drunk tank awaited you when at last your reeling footsteps failed. And if the sky was darker than usual, it was only because of the rain which had begun falling early that morning and been falling steadily ever since. ~ Robert F. Young

Maybe my addictive tendencies weren't limited to my zest for things I could drink. Like maybe (I learned while working with my therapist) I had broader issues with control and addiction and using substances to dial down my anxiety. And maybe self-medication is a real dangerous way of trying to quiet the noise of a mental health disorder. And maybe alcoholism also runs in the family. ~ Anne T. Donahue

Of the small number of things which I have liked and done well, drinking is by far the thing I have done best. Although I have read a lot, I have drunk more. I have written much less than most people who write; but I have drunk more than the majority of the people who drink. ~ Guy Debord

America today is a "save yourself" society if there ever was one. But does it really work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, typhus, etc. Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children, suicide, murder. Take your choice. Labor-saving machines have turned out to be body-killing devices. Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of the nuclear family, and as a result, our divorce courts, our prisons and our mental institutions are flooded. In saving ourselves we have nearly lost ourselves. ~ John Piper

One doesn't even think of
the liver
and if the liver
doesn't think of
us, that's
fine. ~ Charles Bukowski

We all have those things that help us carry on through life. It is important that these things upon which we depend for daily strength are healthy for our character rather than harmful. We must ask ourselves whether the comforts we reach for each day are vices or virtues? Do they feed the best parts of us or do they rob us of them? Even when we are at our most fatigued and are tempted to reach for self-destructive things, we must try to seek out and take solace in those things that will lead to our eventual renewal; rather than those things that will only serve to bring us lower. ~ L.M. Browning

Alcoholism is above all a disease of denial. ~ David Stafford

It is ethanol that everyone is after when they drink alcoholic beverages. That is what gives us the euphoric feeling, and that is what all vendors of alcoholic drinks are selling. ~ Chris Prentiss

To a drinker the sensation is real and pure and akin to something spiritual: you seek; in the bottle, you find. ~ Caroline Knapp

Getting sober is a radically creative act. ~ Meredith Bell

My Parents couldn't get me to stop drinking. The Police couldn't get me to stop drinking. The Courts couldn't get me to stop drinking. The threat of losing my job couldn't get me to stop drinking. My Wife couldn't get me to stop drinking. But when my eldest daughter was 5 years old and said, "Daddy, we don't like you when you drink!" That is when I stopped! ~ James Hauenstein

I drink out of desperation. Life is too dreary to endure. The misery, loneliness, crampedness - they're heartbreaking.[ ... ] What feelings do you suppose a man has when he realizes that he will never know happiness or glory as long as he lives? Hard work. All that amounts to is food for the wild beasts of hunger. ~ Osamu Dazai

When I walked into the house, I went in search of one of my dad's bottles. Not that they were that hard to find. He hid bottles all over the house. I knew where they all were. That was one of my hobbies, finding where my dad hid his bottles. It was my version of looking for Easter eggs. In my house, Easter lasted forever. ~ Benjamin Alire Saenz

What stops you killing yourself when you're intoxicated out of your mind is the thought that once you're dead you won't be able to drink any more. ~ Marguerite Duras

Life is better when you're drunk. I ought to become an alcoholic. ~ Ahmed Mostafa

Anybody who drinks seriously is poor: so poor, poor, extra poor, me. ~ Caitlin Thomas