Relapse is very dangerous. However, relapse can be a symptom of the disease. Sometimes there are multiple relapses before you get sober and stay sober.
David SheffRead
Like most people I knew, I thought drug addicts were the kinds of people we see in doorways in neighbourhoods most of us try to avoid - people obviously strung out, often homeless and possibly psychotic. I didn't think my son could become addicted, but he had.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the misconception people have about drug addiction and its potential to affect anyone, including loved ones.
In this quote, David Sheff expresses the common stereotype surrounding drug addiction, which is often associated with marginalized individuals. He confronts the painful reality that addiction can affect anyone, including his own son, emphasizing the need for a broader understanding of the issue and a shift in perception regarding those who struggle with addiction.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the hidden struggles of addiction within families.
Relapse is very dangerous. However, relapse can be a symptom of the disease. Sometimes there are multiple relapses before you get sober and stay sober.
If you subscribe to the idea that # addiction is a disease, it is startling to see how many of these children - paranoid, anxious, bruised, tremulous, withered, in some cases psychotic - are seriously ill, slowly dying. We'd never allow such a scene if these kids had any other disease. They would be in a hospital, not on the streets.
If you love someone who's an addict and their use is life-threatening, you don't wait until they hit bottom because that can mean that they're going to die. You have to do everything you can to get them in treatment.
This stigma associated with drug use--the belief that bad kids use, good kids don't, and those with full-blown addiction are weak, dissolute, and pathetic--has contributed to the escalation of use and has hampered treatment more than any single other factor.
Anyone who has lived through it, or those who are now living through it, knows that caring about an addict is as complex and fraught and debilitating as addiction itself.
Through Nic's drug addiction, I have learned that parents can bear almost anything....I shock myself with my ability to rationalize and tolerate things once unthinkable. The rationalizations escalate....It's only marijuana. He gets high only on weekends. At least he's not using hard drugs.
Disguise our bondage as we will, 'Tis woman, woman, rules us still.
I know what it's like when you are a refugee, living on the mercy of others and having to adjust.
I saw that it was all over, put away in a box like a doll no longer cared for, the magical intimacy of our childhood together
The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.
The one joy that has kept me going through life has been the fact that stories unite us. To see you as you listen to me now, as you have always listened to me, is to know this: what I can believe, you can believe. And the way we all see our story-not just as Irish people but as flesh and blood individuals and not the way people tell us to see it-that's what we own, no matter who we are and where we come from.
Why do we feel jealousy? Therapists often regard the demon as a scar of childhood trauma or a symptom of a psychological problem. And it's true that people who feel inadequate, insecure, or overly dependent tend to be more jealous than others.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.