Substance Abuse Quotes

“An alcoholic is someone you don't like, who drinks as much as you do.”
― Dylan Thomas

“An over-indulgence of anything, even something as pure as water, can intoxicate.”
― Criss Jami, Venus in Arms

“If the last to know he’s an addict is the addict, then maybe the last to know when a man means what he says is the man himself, he reflected.”
― Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly

“If he were any other man, I might have suspected him of substance abuse, of being coked up or something. But Barrons was too much a purist for that; his drugs were money, power, and control”
― Karen Marie Moning, Darkfever

“They got drunk and high on a regular basis, but this is a vestige of youth that you either quit while you're young or you become an addict if you don't die.
If you are the Old Guy In The Punk House, move out. You have a substance abuse problem.”
― Bucky Sinister, Get Up: A 12-Step Guide to Recovery for Misfits, Freaks, and Weirdos

“Someone who is trying to be sober is often trying to work out deeper emotional issues and is attempting to undo years of habitual behavior. When you reduce recovery to just abstinence, it simplifies what is really a much more complex issue.”
― Sasha Bronner

“We cannot incarcerate ourselves out of addiction. Addiction is a medical crisis that—when it comes to nonviolent offenders—warrants medical interventions, not incarceration. Decades later, data unequivocally illustrates that this war has been a massive failure. It has not only failed to reduce violent crime, but arrest rates—throughout its tenure—have continuously ascended even when crime rates have descended.”
― Dominique DuBois Gilliard, Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores

“Drinking and drugs might temporarily bring some relief, but there is no problem in life that drugs and alcohol don't make worse--whether the issue is financial, emotional, or legal. If you are reading this and find yourself struggling, ask God to take the burden off your shoulders, reach out for help, and stop digging a deeper hole for yourself. There is a community of millions of men and women who have been in similar circumstances and will be there for you, stranger or not, because their own recovery depends on helping people like you.”
― Danny Trejo, Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood

“Stressing about a relapse happening only leads to a release happening.”
― D.C. Hyden, The Sober Addict

“It's not the substance that hooks you, it's the emotions," he explained. "There is a crack somewhere in our spirits, and we have to heal that before anything.”
― Antonio Michael Downing, Saga Boy: My Life of Blackness and Becoming

“When I was 29, my gynecologist gave me a reprieve; I was no longer living under the 10-year cancer death threat. I had gotten a clean bill of health, finally. I felt free, but dissatisfied.

Only years later did I realize that on a deep unconscious level, I was ready to experience young adulthood, something that I did not think I had the opportunity to experience at the appropriate time.

Unfortunately, it would come at the expense of my children.”
― Marilyn L. Davis

“Be careful what you do, because your actions become your habits. Be careful what you make a habit, because your habits become your character, and your character becomes your destiny.”
― Tony Hoffman

“I have living problems--I have obligations to the government, to my children, to my community. Life isn't worth living if you don't have some problems, But in truth, drugs and alcohol are really the only problems I have. If I touch either one of those, my life goes to hell and I can't take care of my obligations.”
― Danny Trejo, Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood

“Criminalization and interdiction have filled prisons and corrupted governments in country after country. However, increasingly potent drugs that can be synthetized in any basement make controlling access increasingly impossible. Legalization seems like a good idea but causes more addiction. Our strongest defense is likely to be education, but scare stories make kids want to try drugs. Every child should learn that drugs take over the brain and turn some people into miserable zombies and that we have no way to tell who will get addicted the fastest. They should also learn that the high fades as addiction takes over.”
― Randolph M. Nesse, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry

“Most chemicals that give humans a buzz evolved to disrupt insect nervous systems. If our brains used different chemicals, we would not be so vulnerable. However, we have common ancestors with insects. It was long ago, about 500 million years ago, when our ancestors split off from the arthropod lines that became modern insects. However, our neurochemicals remain about the same as theirs. Fortunately, most plant neurotoxins don’t kill us. We have evolved to eat plants, and we are much larger than insects, so low doses are not fatal. But drugs can hijack our motivation mechanisms and take control of our lives.”
― Randolph M. Nesse, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry

“Common practice was to drown themselves in drugs and alcohol, seal themselves within the shell of the self, and flee the visions of the past by briefly escaping into that waking dream.”
― Rieko Yoshihara, Ai no Kusabi Vol. 1: Stranger

“When substance use progresses to the point of addiction, a person no longer chooses to use drugs or alcohol; they are compelled despite the consequences”
― Mark A. Myers

“God, I had hope a minute ago, but now I feel so empty (...) I wish I could cry, but I can't, I'm broken that way. Just fucking broken, like a clock on the wall. Stopped in time.”
― Erika T. Wurth, White Horse

“JACK AND JIM WILL ALWAYS BE THERE FOR THE GOOD TIMES...BUT EVEN THEY LEAVE FEELING EMPTY.”
― Allene vanOirschot, Daddy's Little Girl

“Although I've been told I'm an ALCOHOLIC, which means I cannot stop drinking, I've also discovered, over years of experience, that if I have no money, or car, and it's cold in the winter, most days I am not terribly excited to run out and steal beers from the Rite Aid. Think for yourself.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“Islam emphasizes reason; it is the basis upon which humans are held accountable for their choices. It is also the characteristic that elevates the human being above the rest of Allah's creation, if that gift is used appropriately.
Islamic law is designed in such a way as to preserve reason and intellect and to ensure its well-being and freedom. Islam prohibits the use of any substance that may affect the mind negatively or decrease its ability in any way.”
― Aisha Utz, Psychology from the Islamic Perspective

“We take drug abuse very seriously, Lydia.”
Abuse? Use, surely. She was using it exactly as intended.”
― Eddie Robson, Drunk on All Your Strange New Words

“Once you know where drugs and alcohol will take you, you can never enjoy them the same way again.”
― Danny Trejo, Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood

“...I learned I didn't have to be a slave to my circumstances. I could look beyond the prison walls from within the prison walls by changing who I was. Letting go of drugs was getting a gorilla off my back. I could face any scenario without turning to chemicals to protect my soul. Taking it day by day, I didn't need to feel guilt and regret and anger for the past. I didn't need to fear the future. Those things were outside of me and I could just be.”
― Danny Trejo, Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood

“...there's no psychiatrist in the world who can help a man unless he deals with his drug problem first.' (Dr. Berkman, San Quentin prison)”
― Danny Trejo, Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood

“Materialism is substance abuse, literally.”
― Ben G. Price

“The trajectory is clear: our minds have always been vulnerable to capture by alcohol, marijuana, tobacco, coca, and opium, but problems with them have escalated as advances in chemistry, transportation, and technology have increased the diversity, purity, and availability of drugs. The mismatch was bad before; now it’s getting much worse.”
― Randolph M. Nesse, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry

“I wanted to feel connected to being Native, and to being Cheyenne, but I didn't quite know how and didn't even know any other Cheyenne people who weren't in my family. Being in recovery seemed to fulfill that in some way. Native people were in recovery everywhere. Had found out that they couldn't not take substance use to its abuse point. Had found out that some wounds were bottomless holes asking to be filled every day. Running alone did what I needed done to keep sober. So that's what I kept doing. Every day.”
― Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars

“A drinker has a hole under his nose that all his money runs into.”
― Thomas Fuller

“The inability to cope with stress can lead to addiction.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman