Michael Heil > Michael's Quotes

“For me, drugs were ultimate, and the police were stopping me from getting them. We cannot help but hate that which stops us from getting more of that which we love most.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“What if the solution isn’t quick but lengthy, isn’t easy but painful, isn’t cheap but costly? What if there is no magical solution but a difficult process in which the cost we pay is determined by the choices we make? What if it doesn’t always feel good or make me happy? What if hope and purpose are refined through the trials rather than by avoiding them?”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“The more I “outsmarted” my drug tests and the system, the more messed up I became. The more things I got away with, the worse my problems became. The fact I could manipulate any situation to get what I wanted, when what I wanted, was killing me.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“As bad as my drug use was, it was a symptom of something much deeper. And their assembly line method of dealing with addicts did very little to help me pinpoint the real issues, let alone address them. So long as I believed that this lifestyle was best, I would find a way to keep doing it, regardless of the penalties. So long as I kept throwing out God, my life would be void of any purpose or meaning greater than making myself feel good before I died.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I was so stuck in my ways, my beliefs, my biases that I was determined to let no one persuade me out of them. Though I couldn’t be persuaded out of them, I couldn’t avoid the consequences of them, either. Drugs, sex, and partying had first been something I stumbled across, something I used to alleviate the dullness in life and the pain of loneliness. Now they were my god, my ultimate objective, my end goal. They were all that I lived for and they were the fuel that got me there. I was willing to risk my future for them.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“If drugs, pleasure, and adventure were not capable of providing lasting fulfillment in life, then were relationships? If the right relationships with the right people could not meet my needs, then could wealth, status, or luxury?”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I kept telling myself that I was great, that I was enviable, that I was attractive, and wonderful, but this source of self-worth seemed trivial, because whenever my circumstances changed, so did the narrative that I told myself. It’s hard to think you’re the bomb when your life looks like a bomb hit it. It seemed disingenuous to tell myself that I was awesome when the people around me thought otherwise. In a way, it felt like I was lying to myself. The deep, inward insecurity probed at me, exposing that one opinion —mine or theirs —was not rooted in reality.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“Feelings dictated what I did and why. I sought what felt good, almost to the exclusion of all else. The only purpose of my existence and my identity was to make myself feel good.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I guess I simply wanted to feel good while I still could, before I passed from this life and couldn’t feel anything ever again. I didn’t have the presence of mind to ask why base everything on feelings when they’re so misleading, deceptive, and unreliable. For some people, probably the best they ever felt was when they overdosed and were killing themselves.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I believed everything my culture and the education system trained me to believe. My existence was an accident, I would die and turn to dirt, I was nothing but a sophisticated animal, and I needed to make the most out of my life while I still could. I sat on the throne of my life, I chose what I would do with it. No one created me and there was no purpose for my existence. Ultimately, when I died, there would be no penalties and no one to hold me accountable because there would be nothing period.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“Believing these ideas meant my life had no ultimate purpose, no end goal, and no ultimate hope. Secularism, hedonism, existentialism, Darwinism taught me to scrutinize and criticize any prospect of a creator. All I had was this short life, but I got to rule it and do whatever I wanted with it.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I was trying to live a meaningful life, but the pendulum upon which I was swinging tick-tocked back and forth between rebellion and pride, enjoyment and arrest, insecurity and proving myself. Like a grandfather clock’s pendulum my life was ticking away. Time was a limited commodity and I wanted to spend mine well, but everything I chose seemed to backfire, shooting me from one end of the spectrum to the other.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“My goal was to find something that would fill the hole, but everything I turned to seemed fleeting and temporary. The only things that proved enduring were my tenure in the justice system and the consequences of my actions. In my innocent pursuit of lasting pleasure, nothing was lasting except the fact that I became a pothead, an alcoholic, a womanizer, a heroin addict, a smoker, and a bulimic who was completely obsessed with what others thought of me.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I was not willing to succumb to the monochrome monotony of the goodie-goodie life. I was determined that the rebel life was the good life. As long as I held this belief I would manipulate every situation to enable me to continue pursuing drugs, sex, and partying, despite the consequences.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“All activities, things, actions, and ideals have consequences; it’s the law of cause and effect. What makes us so angry is not the consequences themselves, but when something we believe in brings about negative consequences.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“There is something insidious about the way drugs slowly grab control over your life. Their first appearance can be a delightful, consequence-free indulgence, lighting up your mind and body with incomparable euphoria. The first time you use drugs, it can feel like they’re adding something to your life, giving you something you’ve been missing or have longed for, but that first moment is the only time drugs will give you anything; what they give is merely a façade.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“Without knowing it, I had exchanged long term wellbeing for short term euphoria. When weed releases dopamine to the parts of the brain that deal with pleasure and awe, it temporarily makes the menial seem remarkable. Normal sights, sounds, tastes, and smells become less and less attractive in contrast to their weed-enhanced alternatives. Over time, weed becomes more essential for appreciating anything at all, and we lose the ability to appreciate normal “unenhanced” life.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“One day I realized it didn’t matter if I white-washed my vocabulary, scrutinized all my actions, and changed the way I dressed. Until I bore their same religious label, I would never truly fit in. I carried the weight and sadness of this reality for many years. I experienced this feeling as shame, as something fundamentally wrong with who I was, and I blamed religion for this deep feeling of inadequacy.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I never realized that Mormonism didn’t represent the whole of Christianity. I never realized that people are people; we all do stupid things whether we’re religious or non-religious. I never realized it’s not fair to judge a religion based on the actions of its teenagers, who are fallible and riddled with hormones and inconsistencies. Instead, I judged and rejected God, religion, and all of Christianity based on the sum of a few bad childhood experiences.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I did not know my decision to resist religion would involve my decision to conform to drug use and addiction. I didn’t know that in throwing out religion, I was tossing away the protocols, boundaries, and safety mechanisms that could have prevented decades of trauma, or that by throwing out God, I was annihilating the source of affirmation, care, and encouragement that my soul desperately longed for.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“Rejecting religion, I found no purpose in conforming to any form of morality. Licentiousness, pleasure, addiction, and self-indulgence freely subsumed me.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I didn't know my decision to resist the social pressures of religion would leave me solely in the company of other wounded souls sedating their lives with substances. The drugs seemed so much less tyrannical, so much less monopolizing, but how wrong I was. The drugs were enough of a mystery to keep me enticed, enough of a high to keep me unworried about whether I fit in or not, and enough of a habit to give me an identity and a social group —all the ingredients necessary to effectively take control of one’s life.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I couldn’t understand why my teachers taught that I came from a monkey and then got mad at me when I acted like one.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“If there was no big guy upstairs, then there would be no consequences for doing whatever the heck I wanted. If natural selection got me here by being tougher and meaner than all the other foul creatures out there, why stop?”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I chose drugs because they looked fun. I chose to push religion away because it didn’t. I figured most of the normal world —outside of Valley Grove— was evolving past religion anyway.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I figured I might as well do the same. It would take me years before I found out that drugs and sex were their own sorry version of the rat race of endless marathons of promises that failed to deliver.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I loved that feeling of arising when I finished smoking and climbed out of the shed, bushes, basement, or attic, and emerged into a world completely transformed in front of me. There was that unquenchable giggle that would make even a child blush and the stoned musings and ponderings so deep and so reflective that they seemed to hold the answers to all life’s deepest questions.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“As the delightful high of smoking weed became more central to our lives, the idea of stopping became unfathomable. Why stop when we could function so well on it and it made us feel so good?”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I felt like drugs were the sole reason my life was suddenly blossoming. I accredited all the good changes in my life to drugs: my sudden popularity and ability to maintain friendships, my relationship, and the fact I finally had a social group. I credited drugs for all of it. Drugs not only brought us together, but they also filled our time together with laughter, chaos, and fun.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“If something brings us status, praise, and acknowledgement, we will keep doing it. At this moment in my life, drugs were bringing all of those things and helping me push away the anxiety and lessen the blow of being a social anomaly.”
― Michael J. Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose