David Sheff Quotes

Once you can accept that you have a mental illness, that is when you can work on it.

But my activities have been pretty much focused in the last almost 30 years on the recovery, of my own recovery, the understanding for my family of my recovery.

I was in my mid-40s. I was a bulimic, and I realized if I continue with this addiction of mine, I will not be able to continue doing my life. The older you get the more damage it does; it takes longer to recover from a binge. And it was very hard.

Sometimes, when I hear people without experience of addiction blame addicts for their behaviour, I feel like saying to them: 'You simply don't understand - how can a child be held responsible for doing such a dreadful thing to himself?' But then again, at other times I have to acknowledge: it was done wilfully.

I do not understand rehab. If it works for people, then God bless them.

Everyone reaches their point in time where either they die or they get sick of doing drugs. It started getting debilitating. I enjoy my music a lot better than my drugs.

I mean, I inherited the disease of alcoholism, and I learned early to get help when I needed it.

My main focus in sobriety has been to replace fear with faith or love.

Trying to overcome addiction is one of the hardest things for a person to do. And the fact that I had to do it under the scrutiny of tabloid press at first made it seem even more difficult. But in fact, it oddly ended up being a plus. Because of the tabloid stuff, it wasn't like I could walk into a bar and order a drink.

One girl was helped from my appearance on the show, and I swore I would not keep quiet again. When you talk about things that are embarrassing or devastating, obviously you can help people when you do.

Well, all I can say is, it's a day-by-day program, and so I'm very worried about relapsing, but I don't know. I don't want to use. I don't want to go back to that place because nothing good came of it. It was super dark; it's not nice.

I do take responsibility for it. I admit to having a problem. I have been to numerous treatment centers.

I mean, I inherited the disease of alcoholism, and I learned early to get help when I needed it. I always went to people who knew more than I did.

I was really proactive in trying to heal my family. I wouldn't give up. My whole life was about trying to get my father healthier, and there were moments when he was healthier. Then someone would give him a drink. I always felt if he had one person in his life who supported his healthy side, he'd be on his way.

I guess the worst day I have had was when I had to stand up in rehab in front of my wife and daughter and say 'Hi, my name is Sam and I am an addict.'

The guilt I felt for having a mental illness was horrible. I prayed for a broken bone that would heal in six weeks. But that never happened. I was cursed with an illness that nobody could see and nobody knew much about.

I've always been an extremist. Some of us have very addictive personalities, and for some of us, that mechanism gets tripped up. Mine certainly did. I'm not cured. You never are. The recovery is a day-to-day process.

Rehab is like a divorce.

Relapse happens, especially when you're dealing with folks who are frankly the least likely to succeed based on their own pasts and difficulties. We can work with the most likely to succeed. I'm not interested in that.

When I was diagnosed, I believed my illness would be my great, lifelong weakness. Bipolar disorder was to be my impenetrable prison, and I would be locked up with it in a castle Princess Toadstool style. Thinking there was no way out, I let it consume me.

At the beginning of me getting out of rehab and thinking about going back to work, I was scared because I didn't know if I could do this clean and sober.

I have a lot of shame, and until I got sober at 42 years of age, I had never voted. I was just a hippie.

The road to sobriety is not easy and rehabilitation and the recovery process are not to be taken lightly.

If a child had another disease, we'd be open about what we were going through, but addiction is stigmatised and comes with shame and guilt.

I was in rehab for nine months, and I needed some solace and distraction. I was in town one day and I sort of stumbled into a jazz jam session, and kept going back.