82 Quotes About Alcoholism

I carried a bravado about my drinking like I was a hero of debauchery. But on that Christmas Day, I felt like shit. I had a vague realisation that I was just trying to keep up with some version of myself that I had decided was accurate. Nadia BolzWeber

I'm sitting in front of the TV, watching Jerry Springer, and it makes me think of how many mad people there are in the world, and whether everyone is mad deep down, they just pretend they're not, and it's the people in asylums or on Jerry Springer who are the honest ones. I have a notebook and a chewed-up pen, and I'm trying to think of a topic for the Youth Issues speech. Mrs Thomas says she thinks I have a lot to say, but I don't. Nothing I can put words to anyway. I could talk about bullying, or alcoholism, but I don't think I could speak about that out loud, it's too real, and it'd be like I was standing up there naked. More than naked. It would be like my skin was all peeled off and I was just standing there with my heart all bloody and thumping in my rib cage for everyone to see. . Megan Jacobson

As a teenager, I loved how I looked in the outfit of using drugs and exercising poor judgement. I had tried it on, spun around in the mirror, and decided I would choose this look, this image, this identity. But eventually and without realising it, the ability to choose had gone. I had become what at first I had only pretended to be. Nadia BolzWeber

A town with more drinking joints than reading joints has a problem reading can solve Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

When it happens and it hits hard, we decide certain things, and realize there's truth in all those dark, lonely days" He had an instantaneous look about him, a glimmer and a glint over those eyes, he knew how the world worked, and took pleasure in its wickedness. He would give a dime or two to those sitting on the street, he would tell them things like:" It won't get any better, "and" Might as well use this to buy your next fix, "and finally" It's better to die high than to live sober, " His suit was pressed nicely, with care and respect, like the kind a corpse wears, he'd say that was his way of honoring the dead, of always being ready for the oncoming train, I liked him, he never wore a fake smileand he was always ready to tell a story about how andwhen" We all wake up alone, " he said once, " Oftentimes even when sleeping next to someone, we wake up before them and they are still asleep and suddenly we are awake, and alone." I didn't see him for a few days, a few days later it felt like it'd been weeks, those weeks drifted apart from one another, like leaves on a pond's surface, and became like months. And then I saw him and I asked him where he'd been, he said, " I woke up alone one day, just like any other, and I decided I didn't like it anymore. Dave Matthes

The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it's egotism. Robert Frost

It is difficult to feel sympathy for these people. It is difficult to regard some bawdy drunk and see them as sick and powerless. It is difficult to suffer the selfishness of a drug addict who will lie to you and steal from you and forgive them and offer them help. Can there be any other disease that renders its victims so unappealing? Would Great Ormond Street be so attractive a cause if its beds were riddled with obnoxious little criminals that had “brought it on themselves?. Russell Brand

Life will hack off your head and shit down your neck every chance it gets. I've found that consuming drugs and booze, listening to music and always having an excuse in the best way to tip the scales. Dave Matthes

She’s happier than Nicola. That’s probably true. Alcoholics can stop drinking but what is there for the children of alcoholics? Is it always too late? Probably. She doesn’t know. Roddy Doyle

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

A drinking man's someone who wants to forget he isn't still young and believing Tennessee Williams

I'll never amount to anything–well anything my parents want, so instead I’ll end up puking and drinking till I’m blind drunk, It’s funny my mother says I hurt myself to spite her but she doesn’t know I hurt myself because I am, I am, I am a writer. P.A. Bitez

It was clear to her now, Happiness was a seductive illusion. No one as fucked up as her deserved one drop of joy. But oh god was it delicious when it fell into her lap for a little while. (Such a pretty face) she muses (with such a bruised and battered soul). When the dawn of a promise fades into the dusk of reality, all that remains is the nightmare. Sweet, sweet loneliness. Shadows come to play and prey on her beaten mind. Her lovely little dreams of poison. Solange Nicole

If I left any good or planted any flowers among thorns, the credit goes to God and my many substantial friends. Unknown

By all accounts Rafe's life had been shattered by the loss of his brother Peter. But whereas she turned away from drink when Draven died, Rafe had simply upended a barrel of brandy on his head and hadn't taken that hat off since. Eloisa James

I could simply kill you now, get it over with, who would know the difference? I could easily kick you in, stove you under, for all those times, mean on gin, you rammed words into my belly. (p. 52) Barbara Blatner

Oh. she heard it too-no waters coursing, canyon empty, sun soundless- and the beast your life nowhere hiding (p. 103) Barbara Blatner

...gripping the rim of the sink you claw your way to stand and cling there, quaking with will, on heron legs, and still the hot muck pours out of you. (p. 27) Barbara Blatner

The GeraniumWhen I put her out, once, by the garbage pail, She looked so limp and bedraggled, So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle, Or a wizened aster in late September, I brought her back in again For a new routine -Vitamins, water, and whatever Sustenance seemed sensible At the time: she'd lived So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer, Her shriveled petals falling On the faded carpet, the stale Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.( Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.) The things she endured! - The dumb dames shrieking half the night Or the two of us, alone, both seedy, Me breathing booze at her, She leaning out of her pot toward the window. Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me- And that was scary- So when that snuffling cretin of a maid Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can, I said nothing. But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week, I was that lonely. Theodore Roethke

When people view their lives as insignificant, they escape using pleasure. Moxie Will

People don't like to talk about alcohol. They don't like to think about it, except in the most superficial of ways. They don't like to examine the damage it does and I don't blame them. I don't like it either. I know that desire for denial with every bone in my body: clavicle, sternum, femur and phalanx. Olivia Laing

You don't have to go back to the way things were. Just go back to the point where you left off. Don't start over.. just keep going, but there's a right way of keeping going. And no one here is going to be angry at you for leaving. We all have to leave sometimes. And some of us never come back. But there's always a choice, even if you've already decided never to return. You can still come back from this. That is the only kind of faith that matters. Not in the world, not in.. God.., not in our friendship.. just in yourself. . Dave Matthes

She'd either be a heartless mother and wife or a spineless enabler, when all she really wanted was the man she'd once believed him to be. Nicholas Sparks

God cannot be happy when we ignore such issues as crime, corruption, alcoholism and child neglect Sunday Adelaja

Sure, genetics do play a role in alcoholism. You're more likely to be an alcoholic if one or both of your parents are also alcoholics. But that's just one part of the equation; the other part is your behavior. You can't become an alcoholic if you never take a drink. So if you know you're predisposed to addiction because you have a family history, then just don't get started, and you'll never find yourself on that path. Gaby Rodriguez

Now I see that it isn't the problems along the way that make us or break us. It's how we learn to stand and face them that makes the difference. Joan Bauer

She came towards me with a juicy gash between her legs that smelled like my best friend's sister" Just when I thought I'd escaped them all She comes reeling herself inpulling at my stringsher hand quick to find my zipper She moaned the way a drunk old lady does And I wasn't even inside her yet" You don't have anywhere else to be, " she managed to say.." My wounds have been reopened tonight already, " I muttered I caught wind of the gully. .the part of her she once kept sacred as a ChristianI smelled the information I lifted my hand into the air and hailed a cab He rolled down his window and saw her" Find another cab, " he said, and sped off into the night I took her homebecause she said she was lonelyreally she was drunk off somethingsome memory or some choiceshe walked funny.. -one of her heels had broken On the couch I left her, Before I could go, she grabbed my cock I slapped her across the face and she pulled harder Her eyes stayed closed Her lips dripped Her grip clenched I wasn't getting out of this one unscathed" If I take my pants off, will you let me go?" I asked" If you take your pants off, I'll be suckin' that cock till you pass out from all the screamin'.." I slapped her again, because she needed it She laughed Saying her cousin beat her harder Saying her father knew how to really...make things happen I asked her what her father's number was Let's get his motherfucking self up here to take you away, that's what I said She said he died, or killed himself" What's the difference really, " she said, chewing on her hair She let go of my cock on her own accord And she opened her eyes for a moment She closed them again And I could tell she was sleeping Her eyes opened once more Her face red where I'd hit her She tasted the blood on her lip" Do you think if we remind ourselves enough, we can make up for all the pain we've caused others?" I said to her, "We can't. All we can do is keep ourselves from all those who don't deserve it. Dave Matthes

You know one day, you're going to look back on these days. And everyone you went to high school with will either be getting married to each other, shitting out kids, or dropping dead like flies, " when she spoke, Miss Jenson sighed at the end of every few words; she must have been narrating her own thoughts she might have otherwise kept to herself, "and everything you never did, you'll never be able to even try. Dave Matthes

...people who don't live at least a little bit in fear, have nothing left to live for. Dave Matthes

I never had a childhood. Not like the rest of them anyway. I had a starting point from which I have never stopped running. Dave Matthes

I want to feel calm and at ease. Like someone who lives in Half Moon Bay, California, and makes hummus from scratch. Instead, I feel like I'm a contestant on some awful supermarket game show where I've got sixty seconds to hurl my shopping cart down the aisles, piling it with as much as possible before the buzzer goes off. Augusten Burroughs

I dun knw things get trapped In my mind Then itss smethin That I wanna find I dun get the answer Is there anyone listenin to me No one there to see To see the pain and the agony Inside ur beautiful heart To see that u kissed the pain And kicked everythin apart B. Bhardwaz

...you're either gonna spend your life fucking pussy, or taking it to church. Dave Matthes

~Posters with torn edges hanging from rotten walls~ The doctor told me something onceshe said S T O P DRINKINGI slapped her across the face with this N O I walked right out of that officewent right down to the hole I told the bartender W H I S K E Y, MOTHERFUCKERhe poured and he pouredand I slapped my money down on that barthe man I had been driving around withhe just sort of sat there next to this hookershe probably had something rottenway down there between her legsher eyes told of no soul I emptied the bottle down my throatand ordered some chipsthe bartender told me T H E Y' R E STALEand I give him a I DON'T FUCKIN' CARE, GIVE ME SOMETHIN'He slid me a ham sandwich dripping with cheap low-fat mayo and said E N J O Y I went back to my roomand talked all nightso much conversationit turned the toilet bowl pale . Dave Matthes

I didn't recognize it as such then, because I was only thirteen years old, but later I found it a bit ironic that my first time seeing a woman in all her form and glory and saggy drug-tainted tits, arrived at the same exact time as my first introduction to death. Dave Matthes

The head can travel a far piece while the body sits in one spot. It can traverse many decades, and many conversations can be had, even with the dead. Mary Karr

Tomorrow! How sweet its prospects for a drunkard the night before. There is no better word. Before the earth hurls itself into sunshine, nothing is not possible. Mary Karr

Slurping these spirits is soul preparation, a warped communion, myself serving as god, priest, and congregation. Mary Karr

That was it. To be a rolling stone. In the romantic places of the earth. Ready for a fight, a frolic, or a feed. And since I was Irish, since I was Billy Hamill's son, since I was from Brooklyn: a drink too. Pete Hamill

His eyes are so clear and blue that nothing but clichés enter my mind. Augusten Burroughs

His laugh is made of porch swings and lemonade. Augusten Burroughs

Kate was about to protest when something caused her to look in her mother’s direction. She was standing statue-like in front of the television with that brave, painted-on smile. Then Kate realized what had caught her attention: her mother’s tear-filled eyes were reflecting the on-off motion of the blinkers like a watery mirror. Kate stared transfixed at the flashing points of light that betrayed her mother’s pain. The urge to tell her father how much she wanted him to be proud of her and how much he had hurt her, faded in the dark depths of her mother’s eyes. Sabrynne McLain

Gwynn, she was always talking about wanting to be drunk and honestly I did want to encourage that, I wanted to go to a bar with her and let all the stuff sobriety pushed down be released so I could catch it in my palms and finally kiss her. She was just so sad. Melancholy was a fleshy wave permanently cresting on her face, she had to speak through it when she talked. Michelle Tea

Being crazy, for the rest of us, is a form of sanity. Dave Matthes

Let me ask you this: How many days do you have left, if any, in the life you promised for yourself yesterday? Dave Matthes

So you mean to tell me you won't fuck anyone you don't share some kind of deep emotional connection with? What a sad, depressing, truly horrible life you must lead... Dave Matthes

An empty bottle of Jack is almost just as beautiful as a new and unopened bottle...in the same sense as looking down at muddied feet, and looking back the way you came. The journey you've taken to get to this point, the experiences and sights and music listened to, the shit scrolled down on paper. An empty bottle may hold more promise than a full one in that regard... Dave Matthes

I'm sick of the ignorance that lack of funding has generated, of the fathers who apporach me at dinner parties with their four-year-old girls clasped to their pant legs and say, "Yeah, but studies say kids can buy drugs more easily than they can buy alcohol." To which I always respond, "I guess that means you keep heroin in your liquor cabinet? Koren Zailckas

There are millions of people out there who live this way, and their hearts are breaking just like mine. It’s okay to say, “My kid is a drug addict or alcoholic, and I still love them and I’m still proud of them.” Hold your head up and have a cappuccino. Take a trip. Hang your Christmas lights and hide colored eggs. Cry, laugh, then take a nap. And when we all get to the end of the road, I’m going to write a story that’s so happy it’s going to make your liver explode. It’s going to be a great day. . Dina Kucera

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. Craig Ferguson

Those unexpected morality lessons provided by the trip had jolted me into some kind of action. It was time to jettison the past before the present jettisoned me. This was my first veiled attempt at recovery. Although perhaps I was just running away again. I returned to Glasgow, planning to say a final goodbye to Anne and get out of her life, but ended up drinking with buddies in the Chip Bar and never seeing her. I called her instead to say I was moving to London and told her she could have the house and everything else we owned, which wasn't much. I think she was as relieved as I was that I was leaving town for good. . Craig Ferguson

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. Russell Brand

Whether I or anyone else accepted the concept of alcoholism as a disease didn't matter; what mattered was that when treated as a disease, those who suffered from it were most likely to recover. Craig Ferguson

I felt empty and sad for years, and for a long, long time, alcohol worked. I’d drink, and all the sadness would go away. Not only did the sadness go away, but I was fantastic. I was beautiful, funny, I had a great figure, and I could do math. But at some point, the booze stopped working. That’s when drinking started sucking. Every time I drank, I could feel pieces of me leaving. I continued to drink until there was nothing left. Just emptiness. Dina Kucera

Spurred by Amy’s death I’ve tried to salvage unwilling victims from the mayhem of the internal storm and am always, always just pulled inside myself. Russell Brand

Now I’msober and Irealize, Ididn’t drink toescape the world, I drank to escapemyself Phil Volatile

I pawned the remote to my misery, trading it in for liquor that was cheap;screwdrivers for my vitamin c, and a little bloodstream to my IV, helping to soothe my lunacy Phil Volatile

What was so painful about Amy’s death is that I know that there is something I could have done. I could have passed on to her the solution that was freely given to me. Don’t pick up a drink or drug, one day at a time. It sounds so simple; it actually is simple but it isn’t easy; it requires incredible support and fastidious structuring. Russell Brand

Alcoholism or addiction is a disease because it fits the definition of disease. It is progressive and chronic, and left untreated, it will kill. Irene Tomkinson

In this way, the Church was a true reflection of the whole of Russian society. The KGB and the Russian people had penetrated each other to such an extent that they could not be separated. The culture of betrayal and suspicion and distrust that the KGB relied on had become part of the national culture, poisoning politics in the 1990s and beyond: decades of corruption, murder and sordid sex scandals. If it cannot purge itself, however, the Russian nation will never rid itself of the illness that has driven people to alcohol. Russians need to trust each other again. Oliver Bullough

A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. An alcoholic, a real alcoholic, is not the same man at all. You can't predict anything about him for sure except that he will be someone you never met before. Raymond Chandler

And in my mind, this settles the issue. I would never drink cologne, and am therefore not an alcoholic. Augusten Burroughs

Life is better when you're drunk. I ought to become an alcoholic. Ahmed Mostafa

What she liked the most about drinking was not being present, that feeling of self-evasion, of disconnection, of liberation, of escape. Alcohol offered her an excellent alternative to being herself without actually dying. Laura Esquivel

Drinking gave me a rush of confidence, and for a boy hounded by feelings of inadequacy, the buzz was a welcome relief. What was impossible to realize at the time was that I was shooting myself in the head in some strange time warp where the bullet takes many years to finally reach its target. Brennan Manning

Gin and whisky cost so much more. Oblivion and courage could no longer be purchased for the price of an old song. Norah Hoult

When I walked into the house, I went in search of one of my dad's bottles. Not that they were that hard to find. He hid bottles all over the house. I knew where they all were. That was one of my hobbies, finding where my dad hid his bottles. It was my version of looking for Easter eggs. In my house, Easter lasted forever. Unknown

When it's summer, people sit a lot. Or lie. Lie in the sense of recumbency. A good heavy book holds you down. It's an anchor that keeps you from getting up and having another gin and tonic. Many a person has been saved from summer alcoholism, not to mention hypertoxicity, by Dostoyevsky. Put The Idiot in your lap or over your face, and you know where you are going to be for the afternoon. Roy Blount Jr.

It wasn't fair to pull her into that vortex, because I couldn't be fixed. And Roxy was a fixer. She thought she could help me, I could see it in her eyes. Ashleigh Z.

Maybe it was that brokenness inside of Bentley that I recognized and drew me to him, I didn't know. I just remember thinkin' how I wanted to know more about him. And I wanted to make him smile. Cause' that boy never smiled. Ashleigh Z.

Roxy was my breath of fresh air. My soft place to land. She was home to me. Ashleigh Z.

The longer we spent together, the more she discovered about me. The things I didn't want her to know. The darkness and the anger and the pain. Ashleigh Z.

She was trying to hide it, the pain I had caused her again. Because she knew how much those tears destroyed me. Ashleigh Z.

If there’s one thing I learned in Alanon, it’s that you got to face the music because it just grows louder when you ignore it. Vicki Covington

I had to feel sorry for Bubba's wife. In AA we called it denial. We take the asp to our breast and smile at the alarm we see in the eyes of others. James Lee Burke

Ethan didn't mind his blood being taken - he just disliked the fact that it had to be sucked through a needle in order to do it. Belinda G. Buchanan