Quotes & Sayings About Substance Abuse

What is this thing you call substance abuse?
All I wanna do is forget and get loose.
Drinking and smoking over and over
What's so great about a life that's sober?
There's nothing cool about being young
When the monsters of night have stolen the sun.
I'm tired of searching for words in the sky.
All I wanna do is drink and die.
Nothing is real. It's all a big lie.
All I wanna do is drink and die.
There's nothing cool about being young
When the monsters of night have stolen the sun. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

She's a baby," Maggie told me. "Babies wear pastels."
"Says who?" I asked ... "Society. The same society, I might add, that dictates that little girls should always be sugar and spice and everything nice, which engourages them to not be assertive. And that, in turn, then leads to low self-esteem, which can lead to eating disorders and increased tolerance and acceptance of domestic, sexual, and substance abuse. — Sarah Dessen

Sex is a fact of life ... and while it may lead to abuses ... no words need be spoken ... for people to know that the subject is one pleasantly interwoven in all human activities and involves the very substance of creation itself. — Hugo Black

We expect teachers to handle teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, and the failings of the family. Then we expect them to educate our children. — John Sculley

If the last to know he's an addict is the addict, then maybe the last to know when a man means what he says is the man himself, he reflected. — Philip K. Dick

As applied to substance abuse, the cognitive approach helps individuals
to come to grips with the problems leading to emotional distress
and to gain a broader perspective on their reliance on drugs for
pleasure and/or relief from discomfort. — Aaron T. Beck

I saw people around me who were falling deeper and deeper into alcoholism and substance abuse. It's seductive because alcohol is amazing and drugs are amazing, they work so well. — Moby

Some people don't care about Christianity at all unless it can make them drunk or high "in the spirit." They use and abuse God and Christianity just like they would use any other substance in their life. They search for the experiences, but not God. — Lisa Bedrick

Instead of showing visibly distinct alternate identities, the typical DID patient presents a polysymptomatic mixture of dissociative and posttraumatic stressdisorder (PTSD) symptoms that are embedded in a matrix of ostensibly non-trauma-related symptoms (e.g., depression, panic attacks, substance abuse,somatoform symptoms, eating-disordered symptoms). The prominence of these latter, highly familiar symptoms often leads clinicians to diagnose only these comorbid conditions. When this happens, the undiagnosed DID patient may undergo a long and frequently unsuccessful treatment for these other conditions.
- Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision, p5 — James A. Chu

I work with The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. I sit proudly as one of only two recovering addicts on their board. — Jamie Lee Curtis

Love is the best drug, bar none. — Crystal Woods

Every marriage that ends in divorce; every serviceman who kills him- or herself; and every time a young warrior experience substance abuse issues, we witness a casualty of war. — Jay Kopelman

In the one-treatment-fits-all approach, clients sit in group meetings all day and all evening and listen to each other stories. At the end of the first week, everyone in the room knows everyone's story. That goes on for three more weeks, and then most people go home with the same problems they brought with them when they arrived. — Chris Prentiss

Honey, I usually get $300, but I like you, so I'll just take $200. — Dianne Harman

I take opioids to treat chronic pain. Stigmatizing them will harm me. — Sonya Huber

The ceremonial and religious uses of psychedelics are much older than their recreational uses and abuses. For most of their history, they have been mysterious, dangerous substances and must be treated respectfully. — Humphry Osmond

You know how most illnesses have symptoms you can recognize? Like fever, upset stomach, chills, whatever.
Well, with manic depression, it's sexual promiscuity, excessive spending, and substance abuse - and that just sounds like a fantastic weekend in Vegas to me! — Carrie Fisher

If you think a caregiver has an active substance abuse problem, that person should never be entrusted with your child. — Emily Yoffe

Because of media portrayals, clinicians may believe that dissociative identity disorder presents with dramatic, florid alternate identities with obvious state transitions (switching). These florid presentations occur in only about 5% of patients with dissociative identity disorder.(20) How ever, the vast majority of these patients have subtle presentations characterized by a mixture of dissociative and PTSD symptoms embedded with other symptoms, such as post-traumatic depression, substance abuse, somatoform symptoms, eating disorders, and self-destructive and impulsive behaviors.(2,10) — Bethany L. Brand

There's talk he's become emotionally unhinged. — Dianne Harman

I need to work on developing a new, less irritable personality. though I suspect that an empty nest would be at least a partial cure, today I resorted to substance abuse. — Eloisa James

People with family histories of alcoholism tend to have lower levels of endorphins- the endogenous morphine that is responsible for many of our pleasure responses- than do people genetically disinclined to alcoholism. Alcohol will slightly raise the endorphin level of people without the genetic basis for alcoholism; it will dramatically raise the endorphin level of people with that genetic basis. Specialists spend a lot of time formulating exotic hypotheses to account for substance abuse. Most experts point out, strong motivations for avoiding drugs; but there are also strong motivations for taking them. People who claim not to understand why anyone would get addicted to drugs are usually people who haven't tried them or who are genetically fairly invulnerable to them. — Andrew Solomon

As a result, GED, substance-abuse, and sex-offender programs are replaced by prison courses in "biblically based therapy sessions" and Christian sex-offender "cure" programs, with public dollars flowing into church coffers across the country. — Tara Herivel

Women have come a long way over the past 20 years, but in substance abuse and addiction, women have come the wrong way. — Joseph A. Califano Jr.

The substance of the attacks on the reality of organized abuse and torture of children always reduce to that old chestnut - it is unscientific. "Give us proof," say the naysayers. "How is this different from reports of alien abduction?" say the clever-clever wags of Private Eye. Indeed. How is it different? In the case of alien abduction, we are asked to believe that visitors to this planet from outer space have kidnapped someone, taken them away, and brought them back. It is not believable.

In the case of ritual abuse, we are asked to believe that people can organize themselves into groups for the purpose of torturing children. There would seem to be a significant difference here in what we are asked to believe. — Valerie Sinason

It is time to embrace mental health and substance use/abuse as illnesses. Addiction is a disease. — Steven Kassels

While humans have the propensity to develop a suite of prosocial behaviors, they are also capable of developing antisocial behavior, engaging in substance abuse, experiencing depression, and bearing children at an early age...Young people who develop aggressive behavior tendencies are likely to develop problems with tobacco, alcohol, and other drug use; to fail academically; to have children at an early age;
and to raise children likely to have the same problems. — Anthony Biglan

This is the part they don't tell you about in the movies. Or in On the Road. This is not rock 'n' roll.

You are not William Burroughs, and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference if Kurt Cobain was slumped over in an alleyway in Seattle the day Bleach came out. There is no junkie chic. This is not Soho and you are not Sid Vicious. You are not a drugstore cowboy and you are not spotting trains. You are not a part of anything - no underground sect, no counter-culture movement, no music scene, nothing. You have just been released from jail and are walking down Mission Street, alternating between taking a hit off a cigarette and puking, looking for coins on the ground so you can catch a bus as you shit yourself. — Joe Clifford

I traded in my
freedom for
a needy, whiny
and defiant
four-year-old,
a junky girlfriend,
and a relationship
riddled with
someone else's
problems

Now, I stare
out of open
windows like
a wild mustang
craving open
fields

I clench my
crotch, where
my balls
used to be,
and I hum a
loathsome tune,
like an out-
of-work castrato
who's realized his
dreams of someday
having his own family
are gone — Phil Volatile

People are the biggest drug addiction in the world, and I mean that quite literally. Take any single substance abuse problem in the world, and it's dwarfed in comparison to the addiction to feelings and people. — Chad Eastham

Teen girls are figuring out what they want out of life and who they want to be. They are becoming more and more independent, and are starting to make decisions that will affect them now and into the future. Combine this new responsibility with all the stress and pressures in their lives and the result, unfortunately, can be substance abuse. — Atoosa Rubenstein

If I were to create a word that more accurately describes alcoholism and addiction, I would say it was dependencyism. Sounds silly, doesn't it? Yet it's no sillier than the word alcoholism. The reason alcoholism no longer sounds silly to you is because you're used to hearing it, reading it, and thinking about it. — Chris Prentiss

Nobody from the Amazing Kingdom bothered to check with previous employers, such as the New York City Police Department, to inquire about allegations of bribery, moral turpitude, substance abuse, witness tampering and the unnecessary use of deadly force, to wit, the pistol-whipping of a young man suspected of shoplifting a bag of cheese-flavored Doritos. — Carl Hiaasen

Now many such things may be done without intitling the people to rise in arms. A gross, flagrant, and palpable abuse no doubt will do it, as if they should be required to pay a tax equal to half or third of their substance. — Adam Smith

Studies conducted around the world have shown a close correlation between materialist values, depression, and substance abuse. — Jeremy Rifkin

Alcohol does not a change a person's fundamental value system. People's personalities when intoxicated, even though somewhat altered, still bear some relationship to who they are when sober. When you are drunk you may behave in ways that are silly or embarrassing; you might be overly familiar or tactlessly honest, or perhaps careless or forgetful. But do you knock over little old ladies for a laugh? Probably not. Do you sexually assault the clerk at the convenience store? Unlikely. People's conduct while intoxicated continues to be governed by their core foundation of beliefs and attitudes, even though there is some loosening of the structure. Alcohol encourages people to let loose what they have simmering below the surface.
ABUSERS MAKE CONSCIOUS CHOICES EVEN WHILE INTOXICATED — Lundy Bancroft

We cannot build the new culture for learning to which we aspire in an environment which is depressed and dampened every day by the impact of alcohol and drug abuse, and we should not, and we cannot, hide from that reality any longer. More and more of our students are demanding that they not be imposed upon by others whose judgment and behavior are impaired by substance abuse. It is time to take a stand. — Robert Carothers

There's a heart-wrenching scene in Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the old stop-motion Christmas TV special, that has always resonated with me. After his run-in with the Abominable Snowman, Rudolph and his buddies seek asylum on the Island of Misfit Toys, a haven for crappy, deformed, and unwanted toys presumably built by an elf with substance abuse issues. There's the choo-choo train with square wheels, the water pistol that shoots jelly, the cowboy riding an ostrich, the white elephant with pink polka dots, the infelicitously named Charlie-in-the-Box. "Hey we're all misfits, too!" Rudolph squeals to his newfound friends, and everyone breaks into song. I cry every time I see it. — Anonymous

I'm calling for all responsible Americans to fight back and punish Pepsi for using a man who degrades women, who encourages substance abuse, and does all the things that hurt particularly the poor in our society. I'm calling for all Americans to say, hey Pepsi, I'm not drinking your stuff. You want to hang around with Ludacris (a rap singer that Pepsi planned to use for advertising), you do that, I'm not hanging around with you. Am I wrong to do that? — Bill O'Reilly

But no matter what the dictionary says, in my opinion, a problem derails your life and an inconvenience is not being able to get a nice seat on the un-derailed train. Given that, I've had three and a half problems. A dead guy in my bed, substance abuse, and manic-depression. — Carrie Fisher

Not everyone is bound for a life of substance abuse and addiction - but the moment you think you're untouchable is the moment you're most likely headed for trouble. If you're going to be obsessed with something, make God your choice. That's a habit worth keeping. — Max Lucado

Research does reveal a genetic disposition to substance abuse, but those who believe their addiction is a disease show less of an inclination to resist it. — J.D. Vance

Sunrise is starting to feel like a guilt trip. — Kris Kidd

Complicating matters, adolescent brains are more susceptible to substance abuse and dependence than adult brains, because they're making so many new synaptic connections and sloshing around with so much dopamine. Pretty much all quasi-vices to which human beings turn for relief and escape - drinking, drugs, video games, porn - have longer-lasting and more intense effects in teenagers. It makes acting out especially tempting to them, and it makes their habits especially hard to break. — Jennifer Senior

Virtually never are murderers the ordinary, law-abiding people against whom gun bans are aimed. Almost without exception, murderers are extreme aberrants with lifelong histories of crime, substance abuse, psychopathology, mental retardation and/or irrational violence against those around them, as well as other hazardous behavior, e.g., automobile and gun accidents. — Don Kates

With all due respect, many in the entertainment industry are deep into mind-altering substance abuse, and when one's logic and intellectual calculating powers are replaced with dopey feel-good, fantasy-driven denial, the democratic party serves them well. — Ted Nugent

A man's beliefs about the effects of the substance will largely be borne out. If he believes that alcohol can make him aggressive, it will, as research has shown. On the other hand, if he doesn't attribute violence-causing powers to substances, he is unlikely to become aggressive even when severely intoxicated. — Lundy Bancroft

The punishment approach and bad consequences approach to treatment is the kind of thinking that is prevalent in every residential substance abuse treatment center in the United States of which I'm aware. — Chris Prentiss

I have observed several hundred salespeople who were taught to use deceptive practices like 'bait and switch' and encouraged to play negotiation games with customers. They were so stressed by this behavior that they suffered from a high incidence of alcohol and substance abuse, divorce, job-jumping, and low productivity. In the same industry, I have observed countless people who had been taught to sell with high integrity. Ironically, their customer satisfaction, profit margins, and salesperson retention were significantly higher. — Ron Willingham

Our ordinary method of dealing with ingrained sin is to launch a frontal attack. We rely on our willpower and determination. Whatever may be the issue for us--anger, fear, bitterness, gluttony, pride, lust, substance abuse--we determine never to do it again; we pray against it, fight against it, set our will against it. But the struggle is all in vain, and we find ourselves once again morally bankrupt or, worse yet, so proud of our external righteousness that "whitened sepulchers" is a mild description of our condition. — Richard J. Foster

The biographies are very enlightening because you realise, Oh my God, all these people I've admired - and tried to emulate even - when I was younger died tragically from substance abuse. — Eva Mendes

I had been up all night with my old friend Allen Ginsberg, the poet, and we had both slid into the abyss of whiskey madness and full-bore substance abuse. It was wonderful, — Hunter S. Thompson

My sister stood up, trembling, and I must admit that I expected her familiar sneer to have taken its usual place on her face. But all I could find there was unhappiness and fear. Fear of my reaction, perhaps. But when a person has lived a life like hers, a life of promiscuity, rootlessness, and substance abuse, resentment and fear tend to replace all reasonable and proper emotions, and the world becomes your enemy. — J. Robert Lennon

We live in a time when the values of courage and honesty, particularly for women writers, equate to confessing only the darkest, most painful parts of our lives. "How brave you are," my students say to each other over workshop tables, "to expose that." Meaning, to uncover this family secret or that heinous act or to openly confront the demons of alcoholism, promiscuity, substance abuse, incest, infidelity, illness, betrayal ... I have also wrestled many dark angels, and continue to do so, so I acknowledge the price such writing exacts. But more and more I have come to respect the honesty and courage required to recognize the bright angels when they appear in our memory, and to allow them equal space in our narratives. — Rebecca McClanahan

Social media allows us to subjugate feelings and problems we don't want to confront, like emotional eating or substance abuse, thus perpetuating our problems and delaying our happiness. — Sam Owen

I wanted to meet the monster.
Why go down if you can go up? — Ellen Hopkins

Too many codeine pills,
Too many nights of cold chills
Too many weak-handed deals
Too many lives, the addict steals — Phil Volatile

Another California study counted 30,000 substance abusers who are pregnant are White woman. So, The Wire paints the picture of drug addiction, drug dealing, and drug abuse as being a specifically a Black issue. — Ishmael Reed

the media, at least in the U.S., tends to focus on pain pill use, abuse, and addiction by people who do not have chronic pain.
Even if these stories offhandedly mention that these pills are used to treat pain in people whose physical pain does not go away, however, the stories of those who use pain medicine responsibly -- or, worse, accused of drug-seeking behavior because they need certain types of pills for chronic pain -- are usually overshadowed by the "How can we prevent pain pill addiction?" concern, instead of asking, "How can we treat chronic pain more effectively? — Anna Hamilton

An over-indulgence of anything, even something as pure as water, can intoxicate. — Criss Jami

If I was having a bad day, eating was like self-medicating. But if you abuse food, you still have to use that substance that you abuse every day. You have to learn to use it responsibly. — Al Roker

When you push someone's head under water for 5 minutes, they will drown. It doesn't matter if the person is a sinner or a saint. It's just a natural process. If their head is under water, the lack of oxygen will make them drown. That rule applies to everyone, good or bad, equally. It doesn't matter if the drowning person has strong moral fiber.
And it doesn't matter if you're a good or a bad person, once you become addicted to drugs. What happens next is inevitable. It's a natural process that happens in everyone's brain, once the drugs take over. So don't ever fool yourself into thinking that only weak or bad people get addicted. — Oliver Markus

Procrastination has been a boon to my sobriety. I keep thinking I'd like to go out and get really trashed some night--but not tonight. It's really a variant of "One Step at a Time. — Rob Dinsmoor

and tonight we held each
other, one last time,
like a dance to a
slow song
on an empty
floor,
underneath a single
disco ball
in front of
no one
at all — Phil Volatile

If he were any other man, I might have suspected him of substance abuse, of being coked up or something. But Barrons was too much a purist for that; his drugs were money, power, and control — Karen Marie Moning

ALCOHOL HAS NO BIOLOGICAL CONNECTION TO ABUSE OR VIOLENCE
Alcohol does not directly make people belligerent, aggressive, or violent. There is evidence that certain chemicals can cause violent behavior - anabolic steroids, for example, or crack cocaine - but alcohol is not among them. In the human body, alcohol is actually a depressant, a substance that rarely causes aggression. Marijuana similarly has no biological action connected to abusiveness. — Lundy Bancroft

Getting help for substance abuse can be reduced to the deceptively simple focus of 'keeping away from the dope.' But what does getting help with depression mean? Learning to keep away from your own mind? — Elizabeth Wurtzel

A jurisdiction thus vague and arbitrary was exposed to the most dangerous abuse: the substance, as well as the form, of justice were often sacrificed to the prejudices of virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser seductions of interest or resentment. — Edward Gibbon

Karate has helped me lots, otherwise I might have got lost in substance abuse or something like the things a lot of other people do. — Dolph Lundgren

Economists have calculated that every dollar invested in high-quality home visitation, day care, and preschool programs results in seven dollars of savings on welfare payments, health-care costs, substance-abuse treatment, and incarceration, plus higher tax revenues due to better-paying jobs.37 — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

Frankly I'm not great with heroin addicts. I tried heroin, but it was by accident. I'm not great with that level of substance abuse. — Michael Stipe

While binge drinking is a significant issue, it is likely that many members of the public would be surprised by its categorisation as a mental illness, particularly at the milder end."

Public confusion caused by differing understandings of the term 'mental illness'.
Jorm AF, Reavley NJ.
Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2012 May;46(5):397-9.
PMID: 22535288 — Anthony F. Jorm

In the debate over opioid addiction, there's one group we aren't hearing from: chronic pain patients, many of whom need to use the drugs on a long-term basis. — S. E. Smith

Don't ever think you're better than a drug addict, because your brain works the same as theirs. You have the same circuits. And drugs would affect your brain in the same way it affects theirs. The same thought process that makes them screw up over and over again would make you screw up over and over as well, if you were in their shoes. You probably already are doing it, just not with heroin or crack, but with food or cigarettes, or something else you shouldn't be doing. — Oliver Markus

First things first: studies show policing is hard. At a minimum, they prove many LEO's struggle to cope with what they are exposed to. For example, research indicates that while 8.2% of the general population suffers from an active alcohol or substance abuse addiction, up to 23% of public safety personnel, including law enforcement officers, are engaged in the same struggle. Furthermore, due to the constant exposure to violence, conflict, death, pain and suffering, coupled with the extremely stressful and draining nature of their work, police run a significant risk of experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Injuries (PTSI)/Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Lastly, research by Dr. John Violanti in 2004 indicates a combination of alcohol use and PTSD produces a tenfold increase in the risk of suicide. This small snapshot of research paints a grim picture on how policing can negatively impact those that take up its calling. — Karen Rodwill Solomon

The number one cause of PTSD in the United States is motor vehicle accidents.14 As many as 25 to 33 percent of people show signs of PTSD - such as sleep disturbances, heightened anxiety, hypervigilance, nightmares, and avoidant behavior - 30 days after an accident. It's so common that 2.5 million to 7 million people in the United States suffer from it. Their risk of substance abuse is five times greater than normal. And well over half of people in car accidents (60 to 66 percent) have chronic pain, just like Emily did.15 — Gary Kaplan

Drug addiction was a disease, and just as I wouldn't judge a cancer patient for a tumor, so I shouldn't judge a narcotics addict for her behavior. At thirteen, I found this patently absurd, and Mom and I often argued over whether her newfound wisdom was scientific truth or an excuse for people whose decisions destroyed a family. Oddly enough, it's probably both: Research does reveal a genetic disposition to substance abuse, but those who believe their addiction is a disease show less of an inclination to resist it. Mom was telling herself the truth, but the truth was not setting her free. I — J.D. Vance

The American Bar Association reports that suicides among lawyers are close to four times greater than the rate of the general population. An American Bar Association Journal article reported that experts on lawyer depression and substance abuse attributed the higher suicide rate to lawyers' perfectionism and on their need to be aggressive and emotionally detached. — Brene Brown

The idea that the creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time ... Substance abusing writers are just substance abusers - common garden variety drunks and druggies, in other words. Any claims that the drugs and alcohol are necessary to dull a finer sensibility are just the usual self-serving bullshit. I've heard alcoholic snowplow drivers make the same claim, that they drink to still the demons. — Stephen King

They got drunk and high on a regular basis, but this is a vestige of youth that you either quit while you're young or you become an addict if you don't die.
If you are the Old Guy In The Punk House, move out. You have a substance abuse problem. — Bucky Sinister

An alcoholic is someone you don't like, who drinks as much as you do. — Dylan Thomas

Character issues such as drug abuse are not exclusive to Detroit Public Schools. My reference to substance abuse, not intended to focus on any particular school district, was simply used to illustrate this position. — Kwame Kilpatrick

People who fail to use their emotional intelligence skills are more likely to turn to other, less effective means of managing their mood. They are twice as likely to experience anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and even thoughts of suicide. — Travis Bradberry

U.S. domestic drug policy does not carry out its stated goals, and policymakers are well aware of that. If it isn't about reducing substance abuse, what is it about? It is reasonably clear, both from current actions and the historical record, that substances tend to be criminalized when they are associated with the so-called dangerous classes, that the criminalization of certain substances is a technique of social control. — Noam Chomsky

I'll say that I don't think you can throw a stone and not come in contact with someone who knows someone or has problems with substance abuse. — Octavia Spencer

People who aren't asleep when Ruby comes around have to take sleeping pills. Everyone is afraid of those pills- even the substance- abuse guests. — Patricia McCormick

Substance abuse is a disease which doesn't go away overnight. I'm working hard to overcome it. I did fail my recent drug test. I'm prepared to face the consequences. — Lindsay Lohan

Almost all people suffer some form of intense inner pain at some times in their lives. The suffering might be depression, anxiety, substance abuse, or suicidal thoughts and it results from the battles we wage against our thoughts as we futilely try to get rid of our historie. — Steven C. Hayes

Addiction does not cause partner abuse, and recovery from addiction does not "cure" partner abuse. — Lundy Bancroft

If love is a form of substance abuse, I hope to die high. — Crystal Woods

He told us that it was important to eat right, exercise, and treat your body as a temple. But he didn't tell us how to get health care services that people with no money could afford. He didn't tell us how we could quickly obtain birth control and other reproductive health services. He didn't recommend any solutions for behavioral or psychiatric care, and for sure some of those broads needed it. He didn't say what options there might be for people who had struggled with substance abuse, sometimes for decades, when they were confronted by old demons on the outside. — Piper Kerman

Society. The same society, I might add, that dictates that little girls should always be sugar and spice and everything nice, which encourages them not to be assertive. And that, in turn, then leads to low self-esteem, which can lead to eating disorders and increased tolerance and acceptance of domestic, sexual, and substance abuse."
"You get all that from a pink Onesie?" Leah said after a moment. — Sarah Dessen