Like most people who decide to get sober, I was brought to Alcoholics Anonymous. While AA certainly works for others, its core propositions felt irreconcilable with my own experiences. I couldn't, for example, rectify the assertion that "alcoholism is a disease" with the facts of my own life. The idea that by simply attending an AA meeting, without any consultation, one is expected to take on a blanket diagnosis of "diseased addict" was to me, at best, patronizing. At worst, irresponsible. Irresponsible because it doesn't encourage people to turn toward and heal the actual underlying causes of their abuse of substances. I drank for thirteen years for REALLY good reasons. Among them were unprocessed grief, parental abandonment, isolation, violent trauma, anxiety and panic, social oppression, a general lack of safety, deep existential discord, and a tremendous diet and lifestyle imbalance. None of which constitute a disease, and all of which manifest as profound internal, mental, emotional and physical discomfort, which I sought to escape by taking external substances. It is only through one's own efforts to turn toward life on its own terms and to develop a wiser relationship to what's there through mindfulness and compassion that make freedom from addictive patterns possible. My sobriety has been sustained by facing life, processing grief, healing family relationships, accepting radically the fact of social oppression, working with my abandonment conditioning, coming into community, renegotiating trauma, making drastic diet and lifestyle changes, forgiving, and practicing mindfulness, to name just a few. Through these things, I began to relieve the very real pressure that compulsive behaviors are an attempt to resolve. Noah Levine
Hollowness: that I understand. I'm starting to believe that there isn't anything you can do to fix it. That's what I've taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you...
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Paula Hawkins
Depression weighs you down like a rock in a river. You don't stand a chance. You can fight and pray and hope you have the strength to swim, but sometimes, you have to let yourself sink. Because you'll never know true happiness until someone or...
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Alysha Speer
Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is a healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole.
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Unknown
The question is not how to get cured, but how to live.
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Joseph Conrad
Ligion is the opiate of the masses." "I did masses of opiates religiously.
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Carrie Fisher
More Quotes By Noah Levine
Waking up is not a selfish pursuit of happiness, it is a revolutionary stance, from the inside out, for the benefit of all beings in existence.
God has abandoned you. Fear does not serve you. Your heart has betrayed you. Only the music can guide you.
The truth is, going against the internal stream of ignorance is way more rebellious than trying to start some sort of cultural revolution.
The inner revolution will not be televised or sold on the Internet. It must take place within one's own mind and heart.
