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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Loving someone with an addiction requires urgent action to help them before it's too late.
David Sheff emphasizes that loving someone who struggles with addiction is not about waiting for them to hit rock bottom but rather taking proactive steps to ensure their safety and encourage them to seek treatment. Addiction can be life-threatening, and timely intervention can be the difference between life and death, making it crucial to act decisively out of love.
Themes
AddictionLoveTreatmentLife-ThreateningHelp
In practice
Example use cases
During a support group meeting about addiction, you might share this quote to highlight the importance of taking action.
More from David Sheff
All quotes →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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Along with the joy of parenthood, with every child comes a piercing vulnerability. It is at once sublime and terrifying
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