Lies My Mother Never Told Me Quotes

“Medical research has revealed that in about one-tenth of the population, the liver processes alcohol differently, releasing a chemical messenger that creates the craving for another drink; once that second drink is taken, the desire is doubled. But the real problem of the alcoholic is actually centered in the mind, because we can’t remember why it was such a bad idea to pick up that first drink. Once we start, we can’t stop; and when we stop, we can’t remember why we shouldn’t start again. It is a form of mental illness, like a manic-depressive who, after being stabilized on medication for a while, suddenly decides she is fine and no longer needs her pills.”
― Kaylie Jones, Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir

“I remembered my father telling me when I was a little girl, "Guilt is bullshit. Don't ever let anyone make you feel guilty.”
― Kaylie Jones, Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir

“You’re in the hallway and it feels scary right now but just keep going. There’s another door, and you’re going to find it. And then the whole world is going to open up to you.”
― Kaylie Jones, Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir

“
The needy child voice inside me said, If she says you’re a nut, then you must be a nut. She’s your mother, the one who always tells the brutal truth.
”
― Kaylie Jones, Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir

“No is a sentence with a period at the end of it.”
― Kaylie Jones, Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir

“I decided I would not go to court to have my mother declared incompetent, I would not fight. I put the car in drive and hit the gas. I felt as if I'd jumped off a sinking ship and was in a life raft with my little girl, my face turned away from the horror, rowing, rowing, as fast and as hard as I could in the opposite direction.”
― Kaylie Jones, Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir

“Alcoholics are like cockroaches. You find one, you know there’s a nest nearby.”
― Kaylie Jones, Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir

“Depression is anger turned inward,” he explained. “Do you think you’re angry?”
― Kaylie Jones, Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir

“They also suffer from a fundamental terror of intimacy, which is disguised by the false intimacy that develops between people when they’re drinking excessively. I know it was true for me, and in rereading this novel of his, I see it was also true of both my mother and father.”
― Kaylie Jones, Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir

“This explanation may only partly answer my question, but it is important: most alcoholics, if not all alcoholics, suffer from an abnormally pronounced fear of abandonment, which they unwittingly pass on to”
― Kaylie Jones, Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir