David Sheff Quotes

This disease of addiction has touched not just me but millions of Americans out there. Me being in the spotlight, I want to tell my story because there are a lot of misconceptions. I want to let people out there know that there's hope.

Every relapse is dangerous, but often it takes multiple relapses before someone finally gets sober for good.

I have been sober for the longest time. Oh, it's over a decade now. No joke.

The tragic fact is that with addiction, like many other illnesses, sometimes you can do everything right and people die.

When Bugs Bunny walks into rehab, people are going to turn and look. People at rehab were stealing my hats and pens and notebooks and asking for autographs. I couldn't concentrate on my problem.

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

I am a recovering alcoholic.

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'm pretty confident about my sobriety, but I don't want to get too confident because that's when I'll crash.

I've triumphed over addiction.

I do not live in the world of sobriety.

Folks, I've been straight for seventeen days... Not all in a row.

I understand the world of addiction. I get it. I know how fleeting recovery can be.

Everybody tells you over and over again that addiction is a disease. But when I read Nic's book I understood not just that this is a disease, but what the disease means.

Above anything else - above family or job - the main thing is staying sober. That's because without being sober, I don't have a family.

Those who have to struggle with addiction in their lives know the 'you only live once' mentality doesn't really work because you can only do that for so often before you're self-destructive.

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.

When I got clean and sober, that was a major change in my life.

I trust my recovering peers completely. I'll occasionally look sideways at them because they're addicts but it would break my heart and surprise me to find out that any of these people were lying. Still, addiction is cunning and baffling and you never know.

I'm calling for a cultural change in how we think about addiction. For far too long people have thought about addiction as a character flaw or a moral failing.

My makeup wasn't smeared, I wasn't disheveled, I behaved politely, and I never finished off a bottle, so how could I be alcoholic?

Addiction is a terrible thing.

A lot of people think that addiction is a choice. A lot of people think it's a matter of will. That has not been my experience. I don't find it to have anything to do with strength.

For a lot of folks who get sober, the process of getting and staying sober becomes their higher power, and it becomes a religion that sort of consumes a whole lot of them. I just don't think that that's necessary. I think that that can be a side note rather than the story of your life.

I'm a recovering alcoholic so I should be home.