Below is a selection from Privileged Addict Quotes 3. The other book I’ll be publishing in conjunction with Anybody Can Take Steps is Privileged Addict Quotes, which will include the substance or essence of everything I’ve written on addiction. Editing is well under way for Anybody Can Take Steps.
“I started getting better when I started hearing what I didn’t want to hear and doing what I didn’t want to do.”
“Being recovered has nothing to do with what I’ve learned or read or blabbed on and on about with a therapist. How ridiculous the notion that we can talk our way into recovery, when all addicts do is talk.”
“Words and ideas are but dormant seeds – devoid of power unless grown and cultivated via rigorous and repeated action.”
“Relapse is NOT part of recovery. That’s the whole point of recovery. You don’t relapse. This sort of waiting room wisdom is exactly the kind of nonsense I had to toss out of the window in order to recover from addiction.”
“The term ‘miracle drug’ is an oxymoron, as miracles only occur in the absence of drugs. Drugs such as methadone and suboxone are incompatible with miracles.”
“Drugs, regardless of class, are the antithesis of the spiritual life. True spirituality is about facing reality and living in it. To make an insane drug addict sane again requires quite the opposite of dissociating from reality.”
“Clinicians believe the implied scientific notion that a lack of dopamine must be met with more dopamine, and this approach is one of the primary causes of addicts failing in recovery.”
“It is precisely our addiction to comfort that must be dissolved in order to accept life as it is, on life’s terms, as a human being that suffers from time to time.”
“Many addicts never employ the solution because that would actually involve some work.”
“You just simply cannot give up and you cannot stop moving forward. There is no secret, no complex modality, no miracle drug and no special new formula. The answer is simple: hard work and God.”
“The status quo continues to deny the spiritual nature of addiction and the moral necessity of recovery and therefore, we are beginning to see addiction and our selfish behavior rationalized and even justified under the guise of the disease model.”
“Real kindness and real love is not allowing an addict to continue lying to themselves… and then showing them a solution that actually works.”
“Make no mistake that the lies an addict tells himself are the primary ingredients of a lethal overdose.”
“Compassion doesn’t work for drug addicts, so don’t waste your time. Addicts need to be shredded and humbled beyond belief… and then built back together one spiritual brick at a time.”
“Enabling is a moral hazard. It feeds, fuels and thus perpetuates the very behavior you want to eradicate. It sends the message to the addict that we can continue to use or drink or do whatever the fuck we want because you will ALWAYS take us back and shower us with love, food, shelter and money.”
“If someone around you is a complete disaster, the bar has been set pretty low, and some codependents feed off of that. Us being sick makes you the hero, and empowers you in a maladaptive way. The enabler may get something out of being the caretaker, and uses the illness to conveniently avoid themselves. Our addiction is your bridge to insanity.”
“Treat the core of the addiction and the chemistry in your brain changes.”
“An addict is simply a child in an adult body.”
“Once we figure out that life includes both emotional suffering and physical discomfort, and once we figure out that we are no different from the 7 billion other human beings on earth, we can grasp the practical idea that feelings don’t have to stop us. Addicts must accept the fact that it’s okay to suffer. As well, we must stop resisting the way we feel. What we resist will persist. We must accept and befriend our negative feelings, understanding that they are part of us. In this way, they move along and eventually dissipate without crippling us.”
“There is no such thing as a drug that can effectively reduce cravings, or obsessions rather, as cravings refer to the physical process of withdrawal. Once we are cleaned out, there are no cravings.”
“There is no reducing obsessions via pharmaceutical intervention, and drugs that claim to do this are just placebos. It has always amazed me the degree of ignorance among the medical community when it comes to addiction. And more important than getting too deep into that is the fact that any drug we take to aid our recovery will negate that portion of our recovery. In other words, we will fail to accomplish for ourselves what the drug has accomplished for us. Drugs of this nature in fact rob us of our recovery.”
“To hold an addict’s hand is to cripple and paralyze them.”
“If we become so disgusted by drugs and alcohol, by what they do to us and to others, we will repel them viciously as instruments of pure evil and never even think about picking up again. All we have to do is care deeply and profoundly about the consequences of our actions and we will be free from drugs and alcohol forever.”
“The twelve step process doesn’t fail anybody. It is we who fail ourselves, and it is we who fail the twelve steps.”
“Addressing addiction scientifically fails to remove our condition of insanity.”
“Considering addicts are essentially preoccupied with self and self-comfort, the trick is to be okay without depending on this adjusted homeostasis, if you will, the condition of needing above-normal amounts of dopamine to be okay.”
“Why is sobriety something to be celebrated when nobody should become an addict to begin with? Why is becoming normal and non-abusive again something that deserves praise and recognition? Isn’t that the wrong message to send to a group of people who are trying to rid themselves of self-pity, delusion, arrogance and grandiosity?”
“Um, no, I don’t celebrate anniversaries. Addiction and alcoholism is something to be left in the dust as we continue to run the other way, forward, and begin to amass ‘actual’ life accomplishments.”
“The degree to which we change is directly proportional to the action we take. Recovery is not a function of time or clinical application. It is a function of what actions we take and at what frequency we take them.”
“When we give ourselves to God, we are essentially giving ourselves to the cultivation of, and the obedience to our conscience.”
“Achieving physical sobriety is not an accomplishment, it is a requirement. Becoming recovered is not an accomplishment either, it is our responsibility.”
“When I understood that my previous life was guided by an impulsive and narrow frame of mind based on fear, pride, arrogance, insecurity and self-will, it was then I also realized that getting better involved the removal of this frame of mind.”
“The view from inside an addict is very narrow and narcissistic.”
“What a travesty that God has been replaced with methadone.”
“We need not make any apologies for our relationship with God, as it is the single most important thing in our lives.”
“Addiction isn’t complicated and neither is the solution. You just need some guts.”
“You have to remember that while having a broken body and an abnormal reaction to drugs and alcohol is a permanent situation, having a broken mind and being powerless is a temporary situation.”
“When an active addict tells you they are a really spiritual person, you are dealing with someone who is suffering delusions of grandeur. “
“Just walk right through it. Walk through the pain. Walk through the fear. Walk through the depression. Walk through the endless thoughts and the heavy feelings. Walk through it like a warrior and God will reward you.”
“Addiction is a consequence of doing the wrong thing, while recovery is a consequence of doing the right thing.”
“Addicts must continue to employ the false solution of drugs in an attempt to mask the damage they are doing to their conscience.”
“Believe me, regardless of how sweet and talented and innocent you think you are or you think your child is, every addict in the world puts considerable effort into destroying their bodies and their minds enough to cross that line and become an addict.”
“The truth is that the Twelve Steps are not really about alcohol and drugs but about clearing a way and delineating a practical path to God.”
“The humility of feeling powerless over drugs and alcohol is truly one of the best things that can happen to a drug addict or an alcoholic.”