“
All worries are less with wine.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
I'll drink your champagne. I'll drink every drop of it, I don't care if it kills me.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (Gatsby Girls)
“
Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing. The only worthwhile miracle in the New Testament—the transmutation of water into wine during the wedding at Cana—is a tribute to the persistence of Hellenism in an otherwise austere Judaea. The same applies to the seder at Passover, which is obviously modeled on the Platonic symposium: questions are asked (especially of the young) while wine is circulated. No better form of sodality has ever been devised: at Oxford one was positively expected to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied. It's not a coincidence that Omar Khayyam, rebuking and ridiculing the stone-faced Iranian mullahs of his time, pointed to the value of the grape as a mockery of their joyless and sterile regime. Visiting today's Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn't particularly take to it themselves, and bootlegging it with great brio and ingenuity. These small revolutions affirm the human.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
“
Cannibal: epicures who abstain from alcohol and tobacco. As moral guides, they are underutilized in the police forces of modern societies.
”
”
Bauvard (Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic)
“
Liver failure is the easiest way to say 'no' to alcohol.
”
”
Bauvard (Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic)
“
I remember in treatment, Mr. Shaw told me that the alcohol and drugs never were my problem. He said the alcohol and drugs were my solution and that was my problem. And he was right.
”
”
Ryan Winfield (South of Bixby Bridge)
“
Hunger gives flavour to the food.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
You are not an alcoholic or an addict. You are not incurably diseased. You have merely become dependent on substances or addictive behavior to cope with underlying conditions that you are now going to heal, at which time your dependency will cease completely and forever.
”
”
Chris Prentiss (The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery)
“
Some people when they see cheese, chocolate or cake they don't think of calories.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
It may not feel too classy, begging just to eat
But you know who does that?
Lassie, and she always gets a treat
So you wonder what your part is
Because you're homeless and depressed But home is where the heart is
So your real home's in your chest
Everyone's a hero in their own way Everyone's got villains they must face
They're not as cool as mine
But folks you know it's fine to know your place
Everyone's a hero in their own way
In their own not-that-heroic way
So I thank my girlfriend Penny
Yeah, we totally had sex
She showed me there's so many different muscles I can flex
There's the deltoids of compassion,
There's the abs of being kind
It's not enough to bash in heads
You've got to bash in minds
Everyone's a hero in their own way Everyone's got something they can do Get up go out and fly
Especially that guy, he smells like poo
Everyone's a hero in their own way
You and you and mostly me and you
I'm poverty's new sheriff
And I'm bashing in the slums
A hero doesn't care if you're a bunch of scary alcoholic bums
Everybody!
Everyone's a hero in their own way Everyone can blaze a hero's trail
Don't worry if it's hard
If you're not a friggin 'tard you will prevail
Everyone's a hero in their own way Everyone's a hero in their...
”
”
Joss Whedon (Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog: The Book)
“
Mixing old wine with new wine is stupidity, but mixing old wisdom with new wisdom is maturity.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
People who believe they have bad luck create bad luck. Those who believe they are very fortunate, that the world is a generous place filled with trustworthy people, live in exactly that kind of world.
”
”
Chris Prentiss (The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery)
“
If you examine your motive for doing anything, you'll soon discover that your reason is that you believe it will make you happy.
”
”
Chris Prentiss (The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery)
“
But it is hazardous and, I believe, counterproductive to become frozen in time by an obsession with past wrongs and errors.
”
”
George S. McGovern (Terry: My Daughter's Life-and-Death Struggle with Alcoholism)
“
Drinking is something people do; it's not what you are. But when it becomes what you are, you need to think about becoming something else.
”
”
Tim Cowlishaw (Drunk on Sports)
“
Being a compulsive overeater is no different from being an alcoholic or drug addict. The only difference is that you can avoid drugs and alcohol completely and you have to have a relationship with food every day for the rest of your life. It's actually the hardest addiction to live with. If you were an alcoholic and someone said to you that you were required to have a single drink three to five times a day, but were not supposed to ever drink to excess, or a drug addict who was required to take just one pill severeal times a day every day, but you're not supposed to ever take more than that...no one would ever make it through rehab.
”
”
Stacey Ballis (Good Enough to Eat)
“
Classically, there are three ways in which humans try to find transcendence--religious meaning--apart from God as revealed through the cross of Jesus: through the ecstasy of alcohol and drugs, through the ecstasy of recreational sex, through the ecstasy of crowds. Church leaders frequently warn against the drugs and the sex, but at least, in America, almost never against the crowds.
”
”
Eugene H. Peterson (The Pastor: A Memoir)
“
Everyone wants to be a God. We manufacture our own worlds, duping ourselves with things to escape the reality we call our lives. Drugs, alcohol, sex, work, school. Bigger houses, newer cars and designer clothes are the universes we invent to exert our god-like rule. We can't control the weather, but it's always a perfect seventy-two degrees in our central-air controlled worlds.
”
”
Brian Krans
“
The social prestige of wine at table and at the club must be destroyed through lofty example and polite ridicule; forces which are not always available, and for whose successful operation much time will be required. But the outstanding fact remains, that the world has come to regard liquor in a new and clearer light. Our next generation of poets will contain but few Anacreons, for the thinking element of mankind has robbed the flowing bowl of its fancied virtues and fictitious beauties. The grape, so long permitted to masquerade as the inspirer of wit and art, is now revealed as the mother of ruin and death. The wolf at last stands divested of its sheep’s clothing.
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft
“
My alcoholism is in no way any sort of excuse for any of my past behaviors. Just because I quit drinking, my life was not suddenly transformed into a tabula rasa-if I have wronged someone, drunk or not, then the responsibility for this lies squarely with me. And I must do my best to set things square with that person. ...
....And just because I am sober now does not mean anyone else should care. I do not deserve a cookie for finally trying to act like a decent human being.
”
”
D. Randall Blythe (Dark Days: A Memoir)
“
[Marilyn] Monroe, the consummate sexual doll, is empowered to act but afraid to act, perhaps because no amount of acting, however inspired, can convince the actor herself that her ideal female life is not a dreadful form of dying. She grinned, she posed, she pretended, she had affairs with famous and powerful men. A friend of hers claimed that she had so many illegal abortions wrongly performed that her reproductive organs were severely injured. She died alone, possibly acting on her own behalf for the first time. Death, one imagines, numbs pain that barbiturates and alcohol cannot touch.
”
”
Andrea Dworkin (Right-Wing Women)
“
I remember seeing a sign in a bar that said, “Alcohol may not solve your problems, but neither will water or milk.” Well, that is very true. Having a drink or two takes the edge off. Happy hour is the perfect way to do so. You’ll find inspiration, and sometimes even enlightenment, during happy hour. It’s a time to make plans, to share dreams, to envision success, and to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Happy hour also helps get you through the tough times because it gives you a designated space to hash things out and put them in perspective. Conversely, you can use happy hour as a time not to hash things out, but to laugh and remember, which also gives good perspective.
”
”
Art Rios (Let's Talk: ...About Making Your Life Exciting, Easier, And Exceptional)
“
The process of miraculous change is twofold. One: I see my error or dysfunctional pattern. Two: I ask God to take it from me. The first principle without the second is impotent. As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, your best thinking got you here. You're the problem but you're not the answer. The second principle isn't enough to change us either. The Holy Spirit can't take from us what we will not release to him. He won't work without our consent. He cannot remove our character defects without our willingness, because that would be violating our free will. We chose those patterns, however mistakenly, and he will not force us to give them up. In asking God to heal us, we're committing to the choice to be healed.
”
”
Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles")
“
Yesterday it was sun outside. The sky was blue and people were lying under blooming cherry trees in the park. It was Friday, so records were released, that people have been working on for years. Friends around me find success and level up, do fancy photo shoots and get featured on big, white, movie screens. There were parties and lovers, hand in hand, laughing perfectly loud,
but I walked numbly through the park, round and round,
40 times for 4 hours
just wanting to make it through the day.
There's a weight that inhabits my chest some times. Like a lock in my throat, making it hard to breathe. A little less air got through
and the sky was so blue I couldn’t look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories,
but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desk
tick tick tick
me not making a sound
and some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind,
but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine.
This is not beautiful. This is not useful. You can not do anything with it and it tries to control you, throw you off your balance and lovely ways
but you can not let it.
I cleaned up. Took myself for a walk. Tried to keep my eyes on the sky. Stayed away from the alcohol, stayed away from the destructive tools we learn to use.
the smoking and the starving, the running, the madness,
thinking it will help but it only feeds the fire
and I don't want to hurt myself anymore.
I made it through and today I woke up, lighter and proud because I'm still here. There are flowers growing outside my window. The coffee is warm, the air is pure. In a few hours I'll be on a train on my way to sing for people who invited me to come, to sing, for them. My own songs, that I created. Me—little me. From nowhere at all.
And I have people around that I like and can laugh with, and it's spring again.
It will always be spring again.
And there will always be a new day.
”
”
Charlotte Eriksson
“
Where else can we find happiness for a day other than from something that can offer momentary relief, something like the booze?
”
”
Janvier Chouteu-Chando
“
YOU AND YOU ALONE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN HAPPINESS, NOT ANYONE ELSE
”
”
Sondra A. Torres (Signing with a Heavy Hand and Heart, Love Mommy: A Journey Through Fetal Alcohol Syndrome)
“
The medicine is in the eye of the beholder and right now you be-holding a big ass glass of it. So, shut up and drink your whiskey.
”
”
Jessie Pinkman (xxx)
“
He had never found that more than five whiskeys and soda were beneficial to law-practice.
”
”
Sinclair Lewis (Mantrap)
“
Fruit fly scientists, God bless ‘em, are the big exceptions. Morgan’s team always picked sensibly descriptive names for mutant genes, like ‘speck,’ ‘beaded,’ ‘rudimentary,’ ‘white,’ and ‘abnormal.’ And this tradition continues today, as the names of most fruit fly genes eschew jargon and even shade whimsical… The ‘turnip’ gene makes flies stupid. ‘Tudor’ leaves males (as with Henry VIII) childless. ‘Cleopatra’ can kill flies when it interacts with another gene, ‘asp.’ ‘Cheap date’ leaves flies exceptionally tipsy after a sip of alcohol… And thankfully, this whimsy with names has inspired the occasional zinger in other areas of genetics… The backronym for the “POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic” gene in mice—‘pokemon’—nearly provoked a lawsuit, since the ‘pokemon’ gene (now known, sigh, as ‘zbtb7’) contributes to the spread of cancer, and the lawyers for the Pokemon media empire didn’t want their cute little pocket monsters confused with tumors.
”
”
Sam Kean (The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code)
“
Remember my friend, uncontrolled alcohol, uncontrolled casual sex and mindless indoctrination are not signs of progress, they are signs of drowning into the abyss of mental and physical degradation.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Wise Mating: A Treatise on Monogamy (Humanism Series))
“
Men are taught over and over when they are boys that a wound that hurts is shameful. A wound that stops you from continuing to play is a girlish wound. He who is truly a man keeps walking, dragging his guts behind.
Our story gives a teaching diametrically opposite. It says that where a man's wound is, that is where his genius will be. Wherever the wound appears in our psyches, whether from alcoholic father, shaming mother, shaming father, abusing mother, whether it stems from isolation, disability, or disease, that is precisely the place for which we will give our major gift to the community.
”
”
Robert Bly (Iron John: A Book About Men)
“
It is the inability to bear dark emotions that causes many of our most significant problems, in other words, not the emotions themselves. When we cannot tolerate the dark, we try all kinds of artificial lights, including but not limited to drugs, alcohol, shopping, shallow sex, and hours in front of the television set or computer. There are no dark emotions, Greenspan says – just unskillful ways of coping with emotions we cannot bear. The emotions themselves are conduits of pure energy that want something from us: to wake us up, to tell us something we need to know, to break the ice around our hearts, to move us to act.
”
”
Barbara Brown Taylor
“
On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives. In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it. We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.
”
”
Alcoholics Anonymous (Alcoholics Anonymous)
“
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 (The Nurture Effect: How the Science of Human Behavior Can Improve Our Lives and Our World)
“
Saying no to people who want you to say yes, and upholding your boundaries with people who were used to having none, will at first feel terrible. Like a death. And it is a death of sorts. The death of the part of you that thinks you have to violate yourself to make it in life or be valued. You most likely will surrounded by people who are used to being accommodating or passive. At first, they feel threatened by you asserting your boundaries. This is ok. And in time they will get used to it. Just like in time you'll get used to understanding, that when people act like assholes when you say now, isn't about you. It's about them.
”
”
Holly Whitaker (Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol)
“
I used to fear things like not having enough alcohol and drugs, or the money to get them. Now I fear someone holding me down and physically forcing me to take drugs and drink alcohol. I fear that for some reason I wouldn't be allowed or wouldn't be able to read anymore.
”
”
Phil Volatile
“
A flash of inspiration struck him with all the force and brilliance that ideas have when they’re traveling through beer.
”
”
Terry Pratchett
“
I spent so much time at “rock bottom” that I was charged rent for staying there.
”
”
D.C. Hyden (The Sober Addict)
“
When we stop seeing ourselves as broken We can lift up our eyes and see the world.
”
”
Amie Gabriel (KINTSUKUROI HEART: More Beautiful For Having Been Broken)
“
Fighting demons isn’t for the faint of heart, but neither is surviving the ones that got us here in the first place; it is how we became warriors, you and I.
”
”
Amie Gabriel (KINTSUKUROI HEART: More Beautiful For Having Been Broken)
“
The real Ray-Bans $100 here comes some bum right here who is this f* walking right towards me black guy hold on
”
”
Nicholas John Stabile III
“
Politicians like the effect of alcohol because it makes them feel important.
”
”
Janvier Chouteu-Chando (The Union Moujik: Janvier Chando &)
“
I am here for readers to see parts of themselves during my dark days, but also for a better way of living in my triumphs and gained wisdom.
”
”
Theia Mey (Ohana: One Woman's Battle With Love, Death, & Destiny)
“
Believe that is cure is possible for you. Discover and heal the underlying causes with a holistic recovery program. Adopt a philosophy based on what is true in the Universe.
”
”
Chris Prentiss (The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery)
“
Alcoholics don't have unopened bottles of wine in the house. They have empty wine bottles
”
”
Fredrik Backman (Anxious People)
“
The secret, the alcoholics said, was God.
”
”
Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business)
“
Catfish always drink alcoholic ether if begged, for every catfish enjoys heightened intoxication; gross indulgence can be calamitous, however; duly, garfish babysit for dirty catfish children, helping catfish babies get instructional education just because garfish get delight assisting infants’ growth and famously inspire confidence in immature catfish, giving experience (and joy even); however, blowfish jeer insightful garfish, disparaging inappropriately, doing damage, even insulting benevolent, charming, jovial garfish, hurting and frustrating deeply; joy fades but hurt feelings bring just grief; inevitable irritation hastens feeling blue; however, jovial children declare happiness, blowfishes’ evil causes dejection, blues; accordingly, always glorift jolly, friendly garfish!
”
”
John Green
“
Sponsor said relationships are fertilizer for character defects. I thought about it, prayed about it, and agreed. I guess it's better to minimize damage, adopt a sane and sound ideal, and buy pussy from now on.
”
”
Dmitry Dyatlov
“
Instead of trotting out the usual bland platitudes about the secrets of success and happiness, he provided an inspired illustration of how to apply the principle of inversion. He gave the students a series of “prescriptions for guaranteed misery in life,” recommending that they should be unreliable, avoid compromise, harbor resentments, seek revenge, indulge in envy, “ingest chemicals,” become addicted to alcohol, neglect to “learn vicariously from the good and bad experience of others,” cling defiantly to their existing beliefs, and “stay down” when struck by the “first, second, or third severe reverse in the battle of life.
”
”
William Green (Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life)
“
Each of us has a vulnerability like Edmund's that Satan is eager to exploit. It may be something addictive like drugs or alcohol, or it may be something seemingly harmless and perhaps even good like food, friendship, or work.
”
”
Discovery House Publishers
“
The Catholic faith gives such hope and solace to its followers as they seek salvation through a litany of shalts and shalt nots, but compassion for our fellows is a quality that requires little knowledge and is, I thin, the true redemption, after all.
”
”
Mary Tyler Moore (After All)
“
The Catholic faith gives such hope and solace to its followers as they seek salvation through a litany of shalts and shalt nots, but compassion for our fellows is a quality that requires little knowledge and is, I think, the true redemption, after all.
”
”
Mary Tyler Moore (After All)
“
We are supposed to consume alcohol and enjoy it, but we're not supposed to become alcoholics. Imagine if this were the same with cocaine. Imagine we grew up watching our parents snort lines at dinner, celebrations, sporting events, brunches, and funerals. We'd sometimes (or often) see our parents coked out of our minds the way we sometimes (or often) see them drunk. We'd witness them coming down after a cocaine binge the way we see them recovering from a hangover. Kiosks at Disneyland would see it so our parents could make it through a day of fun, our mom's book club would be one big blow-fest and instead of "mommy juice" it would be called "mommy powder" There'd be coke-tasting parties in Napa and cocaine cellars in fancy people's homes, and everyone we know (including our pastors, nurses, teachers, coaches, bosses) would snort it. The message we'd pick up as kids could be Cocaine is great, and one day you'll get to try it, too! Just don't become addicted to it or take it too far. Try it; use it responsibly. Don't become a cocaine-oholic though. Now, I'm sure you're thinking. That's insane, everyone knows cocaine is far more addicting than alcohol and far more dangerous. Except, it's not...The point is not that alcohol is worse than cocaine. The point is that we have a really clear understanding that cocaine is toxic and addictive. We know there's no safe amount of it, no such thing as "moderate" cocaine use; we know it can hook us and rob us of everything we care about...We know we are better off not tangling with it at all.
”
”
Holly Whitaker (Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol)
“
The fact of the matter is that when I drink, I am 100 percent certifiably insane. Hopelessly, utterly, undeniably bat shit crazy. I do things that are abhorrent to me; anathema to my nature, my morals, and my upbringing. And once I start, I cannot stop the craziness. It just spirals on and on, ever downward, until I die or hit rock bottom. And even at rock bottom, despite all evidence that I should stop, I will grab a cold beer and a pick ax and keep digging deeper. It's insane. The only way I know to not be crazy is just not to drink.
”
”
D. Randall Blythe (Dark Days: A Memoir)
“
And yet the king and his people did not love McAllister. In truth, they hated him horribly, and, to my knowledge, the whole population, with the priests at the head, tried vainly for three months to pray him to death. The devil-devils they sent after him were awe-inspiring, but since McAllister did not believe in devil-devils, they were without power over him. With drunken Scotchmen all signs fail. They gathered up scraps of food which had touched his lips, an empty whiskey bottle, a cocoanut from which he had drunk, and even his spittle, and performed all kinds of deviltries over them. But McAllister lived on. His health was superb. He never caught fever; nor coughs nor colds; dysentery passed him by; and the malignant ulcers and vile skin diseases that attack blacks and whites alike in that climate never fastened upon him. He must have been so saturated with alcohol as to defy the lodgment of germs. I used to imagine them falling to the ground in showers of microscopic cinders as fast as they entered his whiskey-sodden aura. No one loved him, not even germs, while he loved only whiskey, and still he lived.
”
”
Jack London (South Sea Tales (Modern Library Classics))
“
On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives. In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it. We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends.
”
”
Alcoholics Anonymous (Alcoholics Anonymous)
“
The genius craves inspiration: she craves altered states and fresh perceptions. She will have them either through evolving closer to the divine or through devolving lower into the world. This is how some people with great genius come to die of drug and alcohol addiction: they seek inspiration by intoxication and are thereby ruined.
”
”
Carolyn Elliott (Awaken Your Genius: A Seven-Step Path to Freeing Your Creativity and Manifesting Your Dreams)
“
Fourteenth Amendment. When they looked at the wording of this amendment they saw that it granted rights to “all persons.” And so, in one of those inspired flights of human imagination that suggest the involvement of alcohol, lawyers stepped into court and argued that those rights also applied to corporations, because a corporation was really a person.
”
”
John Higgs (Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century)
“
Sure, genetics do play a role in alcholism. 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 of your family history, then just don't get started, and you'll never find yourself on that path.
Same with any other type of 'family curse.' If you parents smoke, don't pick up a cigarette. If your parents are obese, work hard to exercise and eat right so you don't follow in their foosteps. But some people find it easier to play the victim. They do whatever bad habits they want to because they think they have a built-in defense - "I grew up this way.
”
”
Gaby Rodriguez (The Pregnancy Project)
“
Man knows himself as body, and what he knows of spirit comes through grace. The poet would call it inspiration. But the spirit bloweth where it listeth. Man has no control over his inspiration. If a piece of music or a poem has moved him once, he can never be certain that it will happen again. But man hates to think that he has no control over the spirit. It would discourage him too much. He likes to believe that he can summon the spirit by some ordinary act. Instead of striving to prepare himself for it through discipline and prayer, he tries to summon it arbitrarily through some physical act—drinking Düsseldorf beer, for instance. . .
Stein said, chuckling:
Which is the way all good Düsseldorfers summon the spirit, since our Dunkelbier is the best in Germany.
The priest laughed with him, and for a moment Sorme had a curious impression that he was listening to an argument between two undergraduates instead of two men in their late sixties. He shrank deeper into his armchair, wanting them to forget his presence. The priest stopped laughing first, and Sorme had a glimpse of the tiredness that always lay behind his eyes. Stein also became grave again. He said:
Very well. But what has this to do with the murderer?
It has to do with sex. For sex is the favourite human device for summoning the spirit. And since it is also God's gift of procreation, it nearly always works. . . unlike music and poetry.
Or beer, Stein said.
Quite. But even sex is not infallible. And man hates to think that he has no power over the spirit. The more his physical methods fail him, the more voraciously he pursues them. His attempts to summon the spirit become more and more frenzied. If he is a drinker, he drinks more, until he has more alcohol than blood in his veins. If he is a sensualist, he invents sexual perversions.
Ah, Stein said.
There are many other ways, of course—the lust for money and power, for instance. All depend upon man's refusal to face the fact that the spirit bloweth where it listeth, that no physical act can be guaranteed to summon it. . .
”
”
Colin Wilson (Ritual in the Dark (Visions))
“
I come from the heart land of New Zealand. A place where men are men and there is no such thing as a latte. Where a day’s work is only done one way. THE HARD WAY. Where the vehicle you drive doesn’t symbolize who you are. A place where a beer is a beer and it comes only one way, ICE COLD. Yes the great land I like to call home the Waikato but yes all this beauty comes at a price obviously where men actually act like men not knob head; makeup wearing, tight jean wearing homos there will always be a shortage of real women. So just as the last generation of real men, almost every weekend we head into every bar, club, party or music festival we can in the hopes of finding a real women. Don’t get me wrong, bars clubs a music fests are the best fun ever. And I drink alcohol like it’s going out of fashion not that we care about fashion round here. See you in the heart land
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”
Daniel Anderson
“
In 1934, Bill W., cofounder of AA [Alcoholics Anonymous], was treated for his alcoholism with a hallucinogenic belladonna alkaloid. The resulting mystical experience led him to become sober and inspired him to write the book and cofound the organization that have changed the lives of so many millions around the world. In the 1950's Bill W underwent LSD therapy, and found his experience so inspiring that the sought to have the drug made part of the AA program.
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Ayelet Waldman (A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life)
“
We live in a largely addictive society that continues to reinforce the defenses we learned as children; this reinforcement comes in the form of a negative social pressure to soothe ourselves, to try to obtain instant gratification. . . Many people who suffered deprivation in childhood continue to accept substitute gratifications in the forms of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, television, video games, overwork, and other activities that distract them from experiencing their real lives.
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Lisa Firestone (Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice: A Revolutionary Program to Counter Negative Thoughts and Live Free from Imagined Limitations)
“
I’ve lived on both sides of the abuse. I wear bruises on both sides of my fist. I have wept “what am I doing” and I have cried “why did they do that”. The child of an alcoholic and the alcoholic of a child. It’s strange how broken spirits, broken hearts, and broken homes walk hand-in-hand. How they leave a clear trail of shattered to follow.
We are all picking out sins of the father like shrapnel left over from the day we were born. Bang. Welcome to life. Try not to step on a landmine before you get to twenty. Here are your parents. They hate you. Sorry that you won the race.
Me? I’ve got a piece of broken mirror lodged dangerously close to my heart. I never know which twist in the story will be the one to open up my insides and help me drown in my own soul.
People asked me where I picked up the wisdom. I don’t know that any of this actually is made of wisdom. There’s just too much fluff and well-meaning for my taste.
For me, the path was always made of pain. I haven’t found feel better or act right yet... not for myself. I’m not the best one to help anybody else find it... that’s for certain... but I know every road that leads to resentment. I’ve walked them more times than I can count. I can’t tell you how to get where you’re going, but I can give you a roadmap that highlights the places I wish I never went.
The first place on the list sits pretty damn close to home.
There’s a town called Grief & Regret
just north of Salvation, USA.
I’m putting do not enter signs
on every road that goes there.
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Kalen Dion
“
Berlin is to electronic music what Florence was to Renaissance art: crucible, arbiter, patron. Credit for this could go as far back as Bismarck; the city owes its peculiar fertility as much to the follies of statesmen and generals as to any generation of ardent youth. Citizens have spoken and sung for many years of the “Berliner Luft”—“the nervous, endlessly quivering Berlin air,” as Conrad Alberti wrote in 1889, “which works upon people like alcohol, morphine, cocaine, exciting, inspiring, relaxing, deadly.
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Andrew McCarthy (The Best American Travel Writing 2015 (The Best American Series))
“
Walking was a habit he'd been unwilling to give up. He couldn't see the point in shutting himself up in a vehivle any more often than he had to, doing damage to the earth and the air in order to avoid using his body.
People did just that all the time, though. Most claimed they needed to save time. It was true they had little enough of that-- their lives were so soon ended. But Nathan didn't see them treating time as precious otherwise. They'd sit in their cars at a fast-food place for fifteen minutes when it would be quicker to park and go inside.
No, he blamed the modern culture of urgency. Only the most urgent sensations, emotions, and situations were considered important. They called it living life to the fullest. Not surprisingly, many sought numbness in alcohol or the pervasive voyeurism of reality TV while others tried to live a perpetual peak experience through drugs, sex, or celebrity. Ordinary lives, ordinary living had little value.
Nathan thought people needed to wash dishes by hand sometimes. Prepare their own meals more often. And take walks.
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Eileen Wilks
“
That new middle class soon grew concerned about the unruliness of workers, and especially about their drinking. Inspired by a temperance crusade led by the revivalist Lyman Beecher, a group of mill owners formed the Rochester Society for the Promotion of Temperance. Its members pledged to give up all liquor and to stop paying their workers in alcohol. Swept up in the spirit of evangelical revival, they began to insist that their workers join their churches; and they ultimately fired those who did not. In this effort, they were led, principally, by their wives.
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Jill Lepore (These Truths: A History of the United States)
“
As the scholar of English literature Marty Roth notes, while modern writers from Eugene O’Neill to Hemingway have explicitly denied the role of alcohol in their art, “this disclaimer, when it comes from a heavy drinker, is more likely to be part of an alcoholic alibi system than a statement of fact.”14 In any case, it is impossible to ignore the fact that an inordinate proportion of writers, poets, artists, and musicians are also heavy users of liquid inspiration, willing to put up with the physical and sometimes financial and personal costs in return for an unleashed mind.
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Edward Slingerland (Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization)
“
A late arrival had the impression of lots of loud people unnecessarily grouped within a smoke-blue space between two mirrors gorged with reflections. Because, I suppose, Cynthia wished to be the youngest in the room, the women she used to invite, married or single, were, at the best, in their precarious forties; some of them would bring from their homes, in dark taxis, intact vestiges of good looks, which, however, they lost as the party progressed. It has always amazed me - the capacity sociable weekend revelers have of finding almost at once, by a purely empiric but very precise method, a common denominator of drunkenness, to which everybody loyally sticks before descending, all together, to the next level. The rich friendliness of the matrons was marked by tomboyish overtones, while the fixed inward look of amiably tight men was like a sacrilegious parody of pregnancy. Although some of the guests were connected in one way or another with the arts, there was no inspired talk, no wreathed, elbow-propped heads, and of course no flute girls. From some vantage point where she had been sitting in a stranded mermaid pose on the pale carpet with one or two younger fellows, Cynthia, her face varnished with a film of beaming sweat, would creep up on her knees, a proffered plate of nuts in one hand, and crisply tap with the other the athletic leg of Cochran or Corcoran, an art dealer, ensconced, on a pearl-grey sofa, between two flushed, happily disintegrating ladies.
At a further stage there would come spurts of more riotous gaiety. Corcoran or Coransky would grab Cynthia or some other wandering woman by the shoulder and lead her into a corner to confront her with a grinning imbroglio of private jokes and rumors, whereupon, with a laugh and a toss of her head, he would break away. And still later there would be flurries of intersexual chumminess, jocular reconciliations, a bare fleshy arm flung around another woman's husband (he standing very upright in the midst of a swaying room), or a sudden rush of flirtatious anger, of clumsy pursuit-and the quiet half smile of Bob Wheeler picking up glasses that grew like mushrooms in the shade of chairs. ("The Vane Sisters")
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Vladimir Nabokov (American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now)
“
at first, it was the sotry of a dead woman walking, of all the women in this world who try to conform to a life they are told they should want- one that looks good on paper. I drank green juice and I made the right sounds when I fucked men I didn't really like and I crushed it in the boardroom and traveled to Central America all by myself and my ass was yoga tight. I did all the right things until all the right things became so suffocating I would up prostrate, drunk, on the floor of my apartment. It then became the journey of a woman waking up to the world and all its possibilities and wonder, her own power and voice and unique identity, the bigness that a life can be when we center it on ourtrue desires, compared to the smallness of one we accept when we center it on the desires we're supposed to have.
”
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Holly Whitaker (Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol)
“
Yet our world of abundance, with seas of wine and alps of bread, has hardly turned out to be the ebullient place dreamt of by our ancestors in the famine-stricken years of the Middle Ages. The brightest minds spend their working lives simplifying or accelerating functions of unreasonable banality. Engineers write theses on the velocities of scanning machines and consultants devote their careers to implementing minor economies in the movements of shelf-stackers and forklift operators. The alcohol-inspired fights that break out in market towns on Saturday evenings are predictable symptoms of fury at our incarceration. They are a reminder of the price we pay for our daily submission at the altars of prudence and order - and of the rage that silently accumulates beneath a uniquely law-abiding and compliant surface.
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Alain de Botton (The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work)
“
The unfortunate truth is that right now men's voices dominate and we see the results. Popular products from the tech boom - including violent and sexist video games that a generation of children has become addicted to - are designed with little to no input from women. Apple's first version of its highly touted health application could track your blood-alcohol level but not menstruation. Everything from plus-sized smart phones to artificial hearts have been build at a size better suited to male anatomy. As of late 2016, if you told one of the virtual assistants like Siri, S Voice, and Google Now, 'I'm having a heart attack,' you'd immediately get valuable information about what to do next. If you were to say, 'I'm being raped,' or 'I'm being abused by my husband,' the attractive (usually) female voice would say, 'I don't understand what this is.
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Emily Chang
“
To anyone who knows me well enough, I'm not a practitioner of incest. I don't even drink, smoke, or do any form of street-drugs. And yet, here, online, are a couple of NT [neurotypical] cattle, flapping their yaps about a self-published Indie-author they know NOTHING about. You see, I think the problem with today's NT-cattle society and most of their cohorts can effectively be boiled down to three things... too many street drugs, alcohol, and/or tobacco products, too much technology, smart or not, and lastly, too much incest. Just in case I wasn't being clear about the subject of KARMA before, then all you haters better WATCH OUT!!!!! Because if you feel so content to do or say something bad about or to someone else, then sooner or later, your Karma WILL bounce back to you. And it will bite you REAL HARD in the backside. And if this doesn't happen to any haters of ME, PERSONALLY, then I will be the harbinger of YOUR KARMA!!!
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Ross Eberle
“
The opposite of fear is faith' is an adage I heard often when I quit drinking. The thinking is that fear is paralyzing or even regressive, causing you to retreat in defense, while faith inspires forward progress. So why, I always wondered, does fear feature so prominently in our discussions and practice of faith? We talk about fear of God as a good thing - and being God-fearing as a desirable state. I know I'm not the first to say this, and smarter people have given it more thorough examination and more eloquent expression, but that just makes no sense to me. It's counterintuitive and, I think, confuses fear with respect. As a way of motivating people, cultivating fear is easier than investing the time and effort necessary to engender respect. Respect requires greater knowledge, and in my experience, the more you know, the less you fear.
In the year or so between my Parkinson's diagnosis and my quitting drinking, I had considered getting sober but feared life without the perceived buffer of alcohol. What I came to realize after a few months of disciplined sobriety was that my fear had nothing to do with alcohol or a lack thereof. It had to do with a lack of self-understanding. As I gained more intimate knowledge of myself, why I did the things I did, what my resentments were, and how I could address them, my fear began to subside.
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”
Michael J. Fox
“
Once you get people addicted to alcohol in college, you make it almost impossible for them to stop drinking - Milton Friedman. Just kidding. I said it. But inspired by Milton. hehe.
”
”
Dmitry Dyatlov
“
Parasites means that which does not have its own independent life, but gets empowered, comes alive by the nearness or the existence sitting on you willingly or unwillingly. Whether you like it or not, it catches, it sits in you and gets empowered.
Your muscle memories have parasites. The parasites sitting in your muscle memory is responsible for all your addictions and tiredness.These parasite can just trigger you, it can trigger the muscle memory of certain food or certain drug, alcohol, smoking, marijuana; it can trigger any of these memories and force you to consume them again.
Addictions related to eating, drugs, sex, pornography or any type of addictions, is because of the parasites sitting in your muscle memory.
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Paramahamsa Nithyananda
“
The alcohol-inspired fights that break out in market towns on Saturday evenings are predictable symptoms of fury at our incarceration. They are a reminder of the price we pay for our daily submission at the altars of prudence and order — and of the rage that silently accumulates beneath a uniquely law-abiding and compliant surface.
”
”
Alain de Botton (The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work)
“
As women, like all forces of nature and works of art, our beauty is formed through refraction, revealed in dimension and contrast, shadow and light, our benevolence becoming both the result and the salve, the subject and lens. The road may be beastly but the result, if allowed, can be spectacular.
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”
Amie Gabriel (KINTSUKUROI HEART: More Beautiful For Having Been Broken)
“
Las tres adicciones más perjudiciales son el alcohol, los carbohidratos y un sueldo mensual.
”
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Juan Gómez-Jurado (Todo vuelve (Todo arde, #2))
“
I was cursed with the inability to ever sleep in late, a habit inherited from years of working on fishing boats. Being drunk and/or being hungover has never been nor ever will be an acceptable reason for not being at work and doing your job on time. In some sick way, there’s even a sense of pride from being able to party all night and work all day. Throughout my entire career, I and others alike in the industry were praised for this attribute. A talent that I often secretly wore like a scarlet letter of shame, I was blessed with an extremely high tolerance for alcohol, particularly whiskey. The problem with this is that it got me into a lot of shitty situations. I often found myself in questionable locations, with even more questionable company, doing even more questionable activities. It was a direct portal to a darkness that had haunted me since my teenage years.
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Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
I went to the bathroom and put each hand forcefully down on opposite sides of the sink. I looked straight into the mirror before me and stared at the person I’d been ignoring for some time now. I didn’t have to say much. I already knew all this person’s demons. I shook my head in disapproval. The alcohol and hate were killing me. What they missed, the depression whittled at unrelentingly. My whole life I had been told that I didn’t look like a fisherman. All the while the only thing I wished to be was a fisherman. I screamed at the mirror in pure rage.
“Do I look like a fisherman now?”
“Dooooo IIIIIIIIII looook like a fucking fisherman now!!!” “Do I?
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Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
Believe more deeply. Hold your face up to the Light, even though for the moment you do not see.
”
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Alcoholics Anonymous (As Bill Sees It: Unique compilation of insightful and inspiring short contributions from A.A. co-founder Bill W.)
“
I think drugs and alcohol saved my life until I could get the help I desperately need.
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Patrick Harrington (Recreating Patrick: An Inside Job)
“
Hildy resisted the urge to suck on the end of her braid. "Look. I know. Paul crossed the line and --"
Xiu raised her hand. "Stop. For starters, don't call him Paul."
"Why? That's his name."
"Too confusing. Pauls are potentially datable. Bobs are retired gym teachers and alcoholic great-uncles and, thus, are not. Stick to Bob. Or Douchebag. Your choice.
”
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Vicki Grant (36 Questions That Changed My Mind About You)
“
My darling “mum” perhaps, I will never be as happy as I was in the old days of my childhood, precisely there were no ghosts, no fears! I have never felt like I belonged anywhere, I tried the countries, the books, and the drugs.
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Qamar Rafiq
“
Honor He Wrote Sonnet 11
You wanna get laid?
Get laid, but with consent.
You wanna jump off a cliff?
Just jump, with an active brain.
You wanna try booze?
Try it, but with moderation.
You wanna smoke weed?
Do it, but with self-regulation.
Try out everything you wanna try,
Figure out right 'n wrong for yourself.
It is your life, test it to its limits, but,
Be sure not to harm others in the process.
Get it all over with, for plenty work remains.
Live to build a world, not to pamper shallow tenets.
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Abhijit Naskar (Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables)
“
Soy una jarra llena de agua viva y agua muerta., basta que me incline un poco para que me rebosen los más bellos pensamientos, soy culto a pesar de mí mismo y ya no sé qué ideas son mías, surgidas propiamente de mí, y cuáles he adquirido leyendo, y es que durante estos treinta y cinco años me he amalgamado con el mundo que me rodea porque yo, cuando leo, de hecho no leo, sino que tomo una frase bella en el pico y la chupo como un caramelo, la sorbo como una copita de licor, la saboreo hasta que, como el alcohol, se disuelve en mí, la saboreo durate tanto tiempo que acaba no solo penetrando mi cerebro y mi corazón, sino que circula por mis venas hasta las raices mismas de los vasos sanguíneos.
”
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Bohumil Hrabal (Příliš hlučná samota)
“
Worries don't drown in alcohol. They can swim." -Heinz Rühmann
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Oliver Gaspirtz (German Wisdom: Funny, Inspirational and Thought-Provoking Quotes by Famous Germans)
“
We make an altar on the base of what was once one of the columns within the temple. We bring grain, seeds, fruits, and flowers. A beautiful pattern emerges as each woman places her offerings on the altar. Someone brings honey and then everything is wet and glistening. We join hands again, this time around the altar we have created. We breathe deeply and draw the beauty, the nourishing power the earth has given and we have brought to the site, into ourselves. Then we reenact the story. Our telling, inspired by Charlene Spretnak, rejects the rape of Persephone as a patriarchal addition. We speak of season and cycle, mother and daughter. As one of us tells the story, two move to the center of the circle and enact the drama.
Here at the place of the separation of mother and daughter, we begin to tell our own stories. Our stories of separation between mother and daughter. We speak of daughters taken away from their mothers by angry husbands. We speak of times when our mothers did not understand our lives. We speak of times when we did not understand our mothers. We speak of alcoholic mothers. We speak of daughters who made their mothers fear. We speak of loss. We speak of separation. We speak of anger. We cry. We cry together. We embrace one another. We embrace each other as mother and as daughter. The healing begins.
From "Eleusinian Mysteries" featured in The Goddess Celebrates: an Anthology of Women's Rituals, Edited by Diane Stein, published in 1991.
The quotes from this ritual excerpt, which are not included here due to length restrictions credit Charlene Spretnak and her book, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, published in 1978.
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Carol P. Christ, Ph.D.
“
You can't get drunk if you are friends with alcohol.
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Tiger Woods
“
I’d like to share with you a parable: the parable of Bob the Angel.
A girl was walking down a darkly lit city street late at night. A man jumped out from the shadows and attacked her, suddenly she was suffocating and disoriented as hands clasped around her neck and the force of his attack started to push her down. She tried to yell as she struggled to pull his arms from her neck while she crumpled backwards to the ground, “God . . . help me!”
The next thing she remembers—just as the fear consumed her, and right as she disappeared into the misery and despair of helplessness—was a loud crash and an explosion of glass which rained down upon her and her attacker. The assailant’s lifeless body was suspended above her, held from collapsing on her by an unknown force, and then pulled away from hovering over her and dropped onto the pavement beside her.
She opened her eyes in the faint shadowy light, to see black matted hair and a long, black beard framing the eyes of a man. The smell of alcohol on his breath would have knocked her out if the adrenaline was not still trilling through her veins.
There he stood, God’s angel, off-kilter and drunk, with a broken whiskey bottle in his hand.
“You probably shouldn’t be walking through here this late at night,” was all he said as he turned away.
“Wait! What’s your name?” she asked, still stunned half sitting up on the ground.
All she heard as he walked away was his trailing voice calling, “Bob’s as good as any. . . .”
An angel is a messenger, and sometimes we only want letters sent in white envelopes with beautiful gold print, when sometimes a simple “no” on the back of a gum wrapper is what we are offered.
Every postcard from heaven does not come with a picture of the sunset there, nor should it. If it is an answer we want, an answer we will get. As far as pretty postcards, there are many others willing to send us that.
If not harps and gold-tipped wings, what then is the mark of an angel? An answer which pierces your soul, and which inspires a question that invites you to look outside of yourself and up to God.
God is very objective; He wants to make us think, to engage the faculties we have been given, and to learn from the messengers he sends us. He wants us in the ark before the flood; he could come himself—or send a Noah—but most of the time he sends Bob.
Bob is in you, Bob is in me, Bob is in the emotionalized, sarcastic, mocking, patronizing, proud or foolish person which points out meaningful things to us in the worst possible moments, or in the worst possible way.
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Michael Brent Jones (Dinner Party: Part 2)
“
Their compliments were almost universal, their warnings few, if dire. Wine was a force for good, a substance that enabled people to relax while simultaneously elevating their minds, inspiring drinkers to “laughter and wisdom and prudence and learning.
”
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Iain Gately (Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol)
“
Why defile your body with a drink?
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Lailah Gifty Akita
“
We have evolved psychologically indeed and through this evolution we have gained extraordinary psychological capacities, that basically are not possessed by any other species on earth, yet those capacities are not utilized at their fullest and most productive potential. It’s like having money and yet wasting it on unhealthy non-sense like alcohol and expensive cigars, while your neighbor is starving in front of your eyes.
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Abhijit Naskar
“
An officer pulled over a driver
Officer: This man is drunk
Man: Officer, I have had no wine or alcohol
Officer: So why are you speaking like that?
Man: Cuz, I have been praying in the spirit
Officer: You drank some spirit
Man: Am filled with it, Officer
Officer: Bastard
Officer performed breath analyzer test
Officer: Spirit was not detected. Did you camouflage it?
Man: Oh no, Officer. You cannot hide the Holy Spirit.
Officer: Jesus
Man: It's contagious
Officer: Jesus
Ephesians 5:18
And be not drunk with alcohol or wine, wherein in excess; but be filled with the Holy Spirit.
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Maisie Aletha Smikle
“
From the moment of birth, folks suddenly wanted what others said they could not have. Kids craved the most sugary sweets how alcoholics thirsted for one more drink with the most impactful punch.
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Jermaine Watkins (The Heart Train (The Hartford Series Singles) (Episode 1): Jack and Jill)
“
Post-Rehab Advice: 5 Things to Do After Getting Out of Rehab
Getting yourself into rehab is not the easiest thing to do, but it is certainly one of the most important things you can ever do for your well-being. However, your journey to self-healing does not simply end on your last day at rehab. Now that you have committed your self to sobriety and wellness, the next step is maintaining the new life you have built.
To make sure that you are on the right track, here are some tips on what you should do as soon as you get back home from treatment.
1. Have a Game Plan
Most people are encouraged to leave rehab with a proper recovery plan. What’s next for you? Envision how you want yourself to be after the inpatient treatment. This is a crucial part of the entire recovery process since it will be easier to determine the next phase of treatment you need.
2. Build Your New Social Life
Finishing rehab opens endless opportunities for you. Use it to put yourself out in the world and maybe even pursue a new passion in life. Keep in mind that there are a lot of alcohol- and drug-free activities that offer a social and mental outlet. Meet new friends by playing sports, taking a class or volunteering. It is also a good opportunity for you to have sober friends who can help you through your recovery.
3. Keep Yourself Busy
One of the struggles after rehab is finding purpose. Your life in recovery will obviously center on trying to stay sober. To remain sober in the long term, you must have a life that’s worth living. What drives you? Begin finding your purpose by trying out things that make you productive and satisfied at the same time. Get a new job, do volunteer work or go back to school. Try whatever is interesting for you.
4. Pay It Forward
As a person who has gone through rehab, you are in the perfect place to help those who are in the early stages of recovery. Join a support group and do not be afraid to tell your story. Reaching out to other recovering individuals will also help keep your mind off your own struggles, while being an inspiration to others.
5. Get Help If You’re Still Struggling
Research proves that about half of those in recovery will relapse, usually within the treatment’s first few months. However, these numbers do not necessarily mean that rehab is a waste of time. Similar to those with physical disabilities who need continuous therapy, individuals recovering from addiction also require ongoing support to stay clean and sober.
Are you slipping back to your old ways? Do not let pride or shame take control of your mind. Life throws you a curveball sometimes, and slipping back to old patterns does not mean you are hopeless. Be sure to have a sober friend, family, therapist or sponsor you could trust and call in case you are struggling. Remember that building a drug- and alcohol-free life is no walk in the park, but you will likely get through it with the help of those who are dear to you.
”
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coastline
“
I don’t have an inspiring story of spiraling into a drug or alcohol addiction just for God to swoop in and save me. Instead, I self-medicated my depression by shopping. I’d spend to forget the pain, get the bill, freak out, then would subsequently go shop some more. At one point, my bill got too high, and I snapped. As I fought to get out from under the debt, I prayed for God to deliver me from the crushing anxiety I felt, which was brought on by the debt and which had added to the debt.
One morning God said to me, “Get help. Get well. Be healed.
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Hew J. La France
“
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.
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Chris Prentiss (The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery)
“
Catfish always drink alcoholic ether if begged, for every catfish enjoys heightened intoxication; gross indulgence can be calamitous, however; duly, garfish babysit for dirty catfish children, helping catfish babies get instructional education just because garfish get delight assisting infants’ growth and famously inspire confidence in immature catfish, giving experience (and joy even); however, blowfish jeer insightful garfish, disparaging inappropriately, doing damage, even insulting benevolent, charming, jovial garfish, hurting and frustrating deeply; joy fades but hurt feelings bring just grief; inevitable irritation hastens feeling blue; however, jovial children declare happiness, blowfishes’ evil causes dejection, blues; accordingly, always glorify jolly, friendly garfish!
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Anonymous