quotations about alcoholism
Men to whom wine had brought death long before lay by springs of wine and drank still, too stupefied to know their lives were past.
GENE WOLFE
The Book of the New Sun
To a drinker the sensation is real and pure and akin to something spiritual: you seek; in the bottle, you find.
CAROLINE KNAPP
Drinking: A Love Story
Alcoholism isn't always what you think it is. It's not just the Bowery bum or the squeegee guy or that uncle of yours who gets roaring drunk at Thanksgiving. Sometimes it's the person with the college degree and the good job and the nice family and the bright future. Sometimes, in other words, it's us.
MICHAEL LEVIN
"Twenty-five years on the wagon, and holding on tight", FOX News, February 1, 2017
Because it is eternal, alcoholism is the closest thing I have to religion. Relapse can leap from the pantry in a bottle of vanilla extract or ambush from a crowded picnic table where a red plastic Solo cup of chardonnay sits beside a cup of ginger ale. There can be no happily ever after for a recovering drunk like me. Relapse could hide in the promise of anonymity I might find in the looks strangers give me on the streets of a foreign city. Have a drink, they say, you are not accountable to us.
GREGORY PARDLO
Air Traffic
I consider myself blessed that I haven't inherited my family's alcoholism, but that doesn't mean my children will escape the devastating disease. Knowledge is power, and I chose to discuss alcohol addiction in our family with my children in a casual, matter-of-fact way because I wanted them to be armed with the facts. When they were young I explained that alcoholism is like diabetes, and that those who have it can't drink wine or alcohol, just as diabetics have to avoid sugar. My approach was to remove the taboo and stigma; I also wanted to plant the seeds for open and honest discussions as they grew older.
JAIMIE SEATON
"How to talk to your kids about family addiction", Columbia Daily Tribune, February 10, 2017
Alcoholism is the last taboo in British public life.
LIAM BYRNE
Belfast Telegraph, September 15, 2016
Alcoholism is both a disease and a legally-protected disability under state and federal law. When an employee is struggling with a disabling medical condition, we expect their employer ... to reasonably accommodate that employee's disability as the law requires.
ACEVEDO DANIELS
attributed, "Disabled with Alcoholism or Drunk on the Job?", The Fix, January 27, 2017
The first time my mom returned from rehab, she was sober for maybe two weeks, the second time one week and the final time I am pretty sure she was drunk before she even arrived home. Every time the heartbreak was greater than the last.
NICOLE PHILLIPS
"I lost my mother to alcoholism and it made me realize the major problem surrounding addiction", Insider, April 25, 2018
The disease of alcoholism is a piece of me. It doesn't define me.
STEVE SARKISIAN
"Sarkisian refuses to be defined by alcoholism", Pro Football Talk, February 9, 2017
Alcoholism is so deeply entwined with our culture that Civilization could rightly be called "Alcohol Culture." If you doubt this, I recommend a Discovery Channel documentary titled "How Beer Saved the World." In the video, they assume that civilization is a great thing, but they outline the hard evidence for beer's role in it pretty well.
JOHN HARDIN
"Three Facts That Prove Everything We Know is Wrong", Lost Coast Outpost, January 23, 2017
Candy Is dandy But liquor Is quicker.
OGDEN NASH
Hard Lines
As for asking me have I ever felt remorse after drinking, I have been living with remorse for years now. She wakes me up every morning. She puts me to bed at night and yea though I run through the valley of Oxford St to the Coach & Horses she is by my side.
JEFFREY BERNARD
The Spectator, April 10, 1986
A priest's alcoholism is deemed a severe transgression, while a senator's alcoholism is more of an inconvenience.
MATTHEW MACKE
"The Young Pope has everything you want--and don't", Observer Online , February 12, 2017
If we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall in to this vice. The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and generosity.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
address to the Washington Temperance Society in Springfield, Illinois, Feb. 22, 1842
I gasped when I suddenly realized that EVERY one of my hangovers was a small death--a little death, but a death all the same ... we, as alcoholics, put ourselves through a death every single day, for months, years, decades. How cruel we are to ourselves! Our bodies, minds, and souls deserve so much more.
DRUNKY DRUNK GIRL
"Our bear passed on...", Drunky Drunk Girl, March 21, 2018
I have taken more good from alcohol than alcohol has taken from me.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
attributed, The Quotable Drunkard
The drink made past happy things contemporary with the present, as if they were still going on, contemporary even with the future as if they were about to happen again.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Tender Is the Night
The stigma that alcoholics and addicts push onto one another is one that angers and saddens me. I have seen this in the rooms and online. I have been guilty of it myself, something that I am not proud of. We see the man or woman who is always relapsing, and we tend to tire of them. They are relegated to third class, as we focus all our attention on the new shiny newcomer. We start to look at the relapser as a hopeless case. We stop caring about them as much. And that is more damaging than any stigma that a non-alcoholic or non-addict can dish out. I recall someone in a meeting being horrified when they witnessed someone coming into the room drunk. If an active alcoholic can't be welcomed to a 12-step meeting while they are at their worst, then where would they ever be welcome? It's like making fun of an overweight person at the gym, or a homeless person in line at the job clinic. Where would you have these folks be that would make you comfortable?
PAUL S.
"Breaking The Stigma Of Alcoholism And Addiction From Within", Message in a Bottle, September 28, 2017
Alcohol alters our brain's physiological functions, rearranging the natural balance of various neurotransmitters and chemical production, such as the pleasure-seeking dopamine. A genetic component has also been widely accepted, as it has been found that children of alcoholics are generally four times more likely to develop the addiction themselves. It's true we must factor in environmental conditions and acknowledge that individuals, as well as their unique upbringings, can fluctuate extensively. On the flip side, consistent characteristics have been identified, and they continue to make their mark on empirical studies. The contradictory nature of those who were raised in an alcohol-induced home tends to trickle into adulthood, evading those closest to us. These destructive proclivities ensured survival, but at a price.
MELANIE LINDSAY
"6 Ways Growing Up With An Alcoholic Parent Shapes You In Adulthood", Elite Daily, February 23, 2016
Alcoholism is a self-diagnosis. Science offers no biopsy, no home kit to purchase at CVS. Doctors and friends can offer opinions, and you can take a hundred online quizzes, but alcoholism is something you must know in your gut.
SARAH HEPOLA
Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget