Anne Lamott Quotes

I just think the whole disease model of addiction is crap. It's rooted in fiction and junk science.

Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain.

There's 1,000 ways into addiction 1,000 ways out.

Addiction is a serious desease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death.

There's no such thing as addiction, there's only things that you enjoy doing more than life.

Facing my addiction was one of the hardest things I've had to do in my life.

I did spend years as an addict, so I know that world, although I wish I didn't.

I feel that any form of so called psychotherapy is strongly contraindicated for addicts. The question Why did you start using narcotics in the first place? should never be asked. It is quite as irrelevant to treatment as it would be to ask a malarial patient why he went to a malarial area.

Addiction is a revolt of the soul.

Anyone who has lived through it, or those who are now living through it, knows that caring about an addict is as complex and fraught and debilitating as addiction itself.

Addiction is a disease of exposure. Doctors and nurses, for instance, have a high addiction rate.

I admire addicts. In a world where everybody is waiting for some blind, random disaster or some sudden disease, the addict has the comfort of knowing what will most likely wait for him down the road. He's taken some control over his ultimate fate, and his addiction keeps the cause of his death from being a total surprise.

Too many people believe they can control their drug of choice. But the drug is almost always in control. If an addict truly wants help, it is available, but it is a rocky path. The monster always calls. Never give an addict money. Clothe them. Feed them. But enabling them is the quickest path to watching them fade away completely. This may seem harsh. But I've watched my own child relapse, after six years sober. I love her. Always. But I can't help her die.

All addictions have one thing in common - they numb you out to what is happening in the moment.

Drugs shift the way that we think. So, yeah, the logical thing would be to get help, but that's not the way addicts operate, which is why it's really, really hard to get someone to understand that they need treatment.

I had a lot of frustrations, and I was drinking far too much, and I was just trying to survive and this is what came out of it.

What a weary time those years were -- to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.

I'm a very disciplined person when it comes to my work, but discipline can't save m from being a drug addict.

You're chasing the dragon, you're chasing the high. A bird with one wing, who's still trying to fly.

It's a very lonely place, being an addict.

Sometimes it’s all you can do,” he murmured. “Fight back; run wild, until you get it all out.” “Sometimes there is nothing to fight and nowhere to run.

I felt a constant, low-flying desperation, the kind you feel when you are trying, trying, trying to get something you will never, ever get.

Try managing a junkie - especially if you've never been one yourself.

Poor me, poor me, pour me another.

We have to do more about addiction, not only drugs, but also alcohol.