I am a recovering alcoholic.
Addiction should never be treated as a crime. It has to be treated as a health problem. We do not send alcoholics to jail in this country. Over 500,000 people are in our jails who are nonviolent drug users.
The mentality and behavior of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help they have no hope.
I envy people who drink. At least they have something to blame everything on.
Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do.
Reality is an illusion created by a lack of alcohol.
Even though a number of people have tried, no one has yet found a way to drink for a living.
The task ahead of us is never as great as the power behind us.
Wine is constant proof that God loves us and likes to see us happy.
Seeing is believing to most families who have lived with a drinker.
When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
Alcohol is a very patient drug. It will wait for the alcoholic to pick it up one more time.
Cocaine is God's way of telling you you are making too much money.
When the wine goes in, strange things come out.
When a woman drinks it's as if an animal were drinking, or a child. Alcoholism is scandalous in a woman, and a female alcoholic is rare, a serious matter. It's a slur on the divine in our nature.
To limit yourself to a label of "alcoholic" is masochistic and false if you have awakened a deeper spiritual identity within and have come to know your true self as unconditioned pure awareness. This doesn't mean that recovering alcoholics don't have to be concerned with relapsing, they must always remain vigilant. The power of addiction should not be underestimated. This exercise in vigilance can become a spiritual tool of liberation as well. Always being aware of choosing between real happiness and false happiness is also the discrimination required to attain enlightenment.
I found the prospect daunting, but somehow comforting, too, because the counselors insisted it could be done, and, after all, many of them were recovering alcoholics themselves.
Accept the things I cannot change," I said. "And pray for the courage to change the things I can, as well as the wisdom to know the difference." The thing is... I know this is good advice. It's called the Serenity Prayer, and it really does put things in perspective (it's suppose to be for recovering alcoholics, but it helps recovering freakoutaholics, like me, as well).
Recovering alcoholic guys wake up in the morning, and they have to think of a reason to get up, and then, once they're up, to not have a drink. It's like all these little heroic battles they have that they fight with and against every day of their lives.
or simply:
