So I’ve been working on “Anybody Can Take Steps” now since December and unfortunately, my current workload confines me to about half a day every week to work on it. The point is I’ll need a few more months to edit it properly and make sure it’s worthy of release, even if it is just self-published child’s play. But to make up for the delay, I will soon be releasing “The Privileged Addict Quotes”.
See for yourself. Below is a selection from the book. Keep in mind the book contains extensive passages and new stuff you cannot find in the blog. If you enjoy this or find it useful, pick up the book and tell your friends about it. Or if you have an agent or publisher friend who doesn’t mind publishing words that tend to challenge the status quo drivel, let me know and I’ll send them copies of The Privileged Addict, The Privileged Addict Quotes & Anybody Can Take Steps.
Finally, I’ll also be releasing The Privileged Addict Prayers in the Spring of 2016. Just remember that written work is just that, words on a page, and can never be equated with pure action. We must not simply read but must work hard if we are to recover and effect real and lasting change. Thank you.
From, The Privileged Addict Quotes, Copyright 2015.
“Recovery is not a function of time. It is a function of what actions we take and at what frequency we take them.”
“Becoming recovered from alcoholism or drug addiction is not an accomplishment, it is our responsibility.”
“Resentments are like acid to the seeing eye. They burn and blind us so that we cannot see clearly.”
“We make amends for the object of our amends, not to clear our conscience.”
“When I get out of my own way, what fills the space is God’s will.”
“Why should we reward ourselves with sobriety chips just because we stopped hurting other people?”
“The absence of Self is to the benefit of anyone, addict or non-addict.”
“It’s useless to study or understand the 1st Step intellectually. We must feel powerless in our hearts, our guts, our cells.”
“Alcoholism is not a function of when you drink, it is a function of how you drink.”
“Drug addicts should be roasted and humbled beyond belief, and then built back together one spiritual brick at a time.”
“Our problem isn’t really drugs and alcohol, but what happens to us in their absence.”
“If we have the capacity for honesty, we have the seed of God within, and we can nourish that seed into a fountain of strength.”
“The AA slogan ‘Just Don’t Drink’ contradicts the 1st Step of Alcoholics Anonymous.”
“Spirituality isn’t about trying to achieve constant rapture. It’s about facing reality and being human.”
“The only healthy fear is the fear of doing wrong.”
“What matters is what you do, not how you feel or what you believe.”
“There is no access to God without the absence of drugs and alcohol.”
“If we could do anything on our own power, we probably wouldn’t be full blown drug addicts now, would we?”
“Doctors too often engage in status quo treatment, prescribing pills and therapy, but what could be more contrary to a solution for drug addicts than more drugs and more talking?”
“If calling someone when you want to drink can prevent you from drinking then celebrate because you’re not an alcoholic! Alcoholics, on the other hand, have lost the power of choice.”
“Like a fool, when I see my own flaws in others, I loathe it in them and excuse it in myself.”
“If happiness lies in the ability to enjoy less, than being an addict is the precise opposite of such a condition.”
“It’s okay to suffer. It’s not gonna kill you. It’s called Life on Earth.”
“The secret to getting better is so simple it hurts: Repeated action.”
“Whether direct or indirect, service is a recipe for inner peace and outer abundance whereas selfishness is a recipe for outer failure and inner chaos.”
“Sure addiction is an illness, but it is a self-created one.”
“Physical sobriety alone is but a temporary state of purgatory (selfishness) between relapses.”
“Power is the heroin of the psychopath. Heroin is for cowards, but power is for confident, narcissistic psychopaths who worship only themselves and refuse to bow before anything, especially God.”
“No psychiatrist will disagree with you if you walk in and tell them you have a problem.”
“That feeling everybody flashes like a badge of honor in AA meetings about never fitting in, never feeling a part of the world, never feeling connected, well, um, we all have that. It’s called being human.”
“There are those who give their whole lives to God and those who don’t. Those who don’t, fail.”
“Our existence is determined not simply by God’s spiritual intelligence but by each and every thought, word and action of our own. We are literally shaping our reality, and more importantly, the world we leave behind.”
“Nothing makes us want to use.”
“Do what you fear and that which you fear loses power.”
“No offense, but if you still want to drink or use, have thoughts about drinking or using, or still suffer quite a bit, then there is something wrong with your program.”
“Trust me, if we get better and build lives for ourselves, we shouldn’t pat ourselves on the back. We didn’t do it. God did.”
“If we want to recover, we can no longer deny what life is and cower from the way things are. Instead we must stand in harmony with reality.”
“The quality of our recovery is directly proportional to the amount of action we take. So the better we want to get and the better we want to feel, the more action we will take.”
“Doctors and counselors will tell you that you relapsed because you were triggered. Wrong! You relapsed because you were doing the wrong thing.”
“When an addict becomes willing to let go, he can then touch divinity. At that point, anything is possible.”
“Addiction/alcoholism is simply a natural extension of a preexisting spiritual condition.”
“We must give up everything we think we need in order to truly be okay.”
“Hitting bottom occurs when we can no longer lie to ourselves. Getting better occurs when we can no longer lie to others.”
“The reward in not being an addict is not being an addict.”
“Who and what we are is the sum of what we do. We do not talk or study or pill-pop our way into recovery. We act our way in.”
“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. Many people don’t understand that clichés and catch phrases like this are designed by treatment centers, treatment professionals and pharmaceutical companies to peddle products and services to addicts and their families.”
“The term ‘miracle drug’ is an oxymoron, as miracles only occur in the absence of drugs.
“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.”
“Trust me, any opiate addict telling you they are just going to smoke pot from now on = guaranteed relapse.”
“The idea that there are solutions for addiction that do not require hard work and other-centeredness fails to account for the very problem we are suffering from.”
“The status quo continues to deny the spiritual nature of addiction and the moral necessity of recovery and as such, we are beginning to see addiction and our selfish behavior rationalized and even justified under the guise of the disease model.”
“Becoming an addict is simply the result of multiple voluntary acts of selfishness.”
“An addict is simply a child in an adult body.”
“To hold an addict’s hand is to cripple and paralyze them.”
“Drugs and medication can’t undo what we have done. Given the nature of our transgressions, we have to manually undo what we have done.”
“There is no point to dwell on all kinds of traumatic events in therapy year after year. We deal with our past and we move on. What we do from this point forward is by far more important than looking backwards. While internal analysis may be interesting and provide some insight, it is action that really changes people and cements their recovery, not analysis.”
“Drug addiction can cause depression but depression doesn’t cause drug addiction.”
“This process of the expansion of one’s conscience is the process of a person returning to sanity.”
“Selfishness is not an involuntary symptom of a blameless genetic predisposition.”
“Regardless of what changes may occur to the brain from abusing drugs and alcohol year after year, the root of our problem is selfishness and the root of our recovery is unselfish action.”
“A sober addict or alcoholic with no character or moral compass is essentially a failure.”
“If you can get an addict to want God more than drugs, you have solved the problem.”
“Fighting against what is will often just prolong it. Consider this as you exert your will and try to make war with someone’s addiction.”
“So if therapy is sitting on a couch and talking about yourself, you wanna do the opposite of that.”
“The process of losing choice is a choice.”
“Banning drugs does nothing to curb drug use, just as taxing people for more treatment centers does nothing to increase recovery rates. If addicts want to get high, they will get high. If addicts want to recover, they will recover. So you can’t just control and ban everything you think is bad, for that sort of power trip lays the foundation for tyranny.”
“Brain chemistry is not the cause, it is the effect.”
“What you must understand is that nothing outside of the addict can fix the addict. There is nothing that can be said, nothing that can be bought, no pill that can be taken, no therapist that can explain it away, no guru that can provide the magic answer, no doctor that can treat what ails us, no science project that can magically remove the darkness inside. Only addicts can fix themselves by taking enough action to access the unlimited power of God.”
“There is no science that can justify ripping a mother’s heart right out of her chest.”
Thanks for the update! And for the great quotes. The second to last one is something I need to remind myself of often.
You bet. Thank you so much for reading. Book coming out sometime this week, and it's gonna be good 😉