Quotes on Drug Addiction

I was hell bent on destruction... it was like being possessed by a demon.

The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

Do not let your fire go out ... Do not let the Hero in your soul perish ... Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

One thing that the white man can never give the black man is self respect. The black man in the ghettos, have to start self correcting his own material moral, and spiritual defects, and evil. The black man need to start his own program to get rid of drunkenness, drug addiction and prostitution. The black man in America has to lift up his own sense of values.

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.

It was a slow process. You gotta remember I hadn't recorded a song sober in seven years. So it took me awhile to even feel like I could record a song sober.

My recovery is the single greatest accomplishment of my life. Without that, the rest of my life would have fallen apart.

Prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.

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.

[T]he truth is that drug addicts have a disease. It only takes a short time in the streets to realize that out-of-control addiction is a medical problem, not a form of recreational or criminal behavior. And the more society treats drug addiction as a crime, the more money drug dealers will make "relieving" the suffering of the addicts.

Even as a junkie I stayed true [to vegetarianism] - 'I shall have heroin, but I shan't have a hamburger.' What a sexy little paradox.

I guess the worst day I have had was when I had to stand up in rehab in front of my wife and daughter and say 'Hi, my name is Sam and I am an addict.'

I grew up in traditional black patriarchal culture and there is no doubt that I’m going to take a great many unconscious, but present, patriarchal complicities to the grave because it so deeply ensconced in how I look at the world. Therefore, very much like alcoholism, drug addiction, or racism patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it.

Whether you sniff it smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result is the same: addiction.

All drugs of any interest to any moderately intelligent person in America are now illegal.

Addiction should never be treated as a crime. It has to be treated as a health problem. We do not send alcoholics to jail in this country. Over 500,000 people are in our jails who are nonviolent drug users.

Life is very interesting... in the end, some of your greatest pains, become your greatest strengths.

Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach.

Do not let the hero in your soul perish.

There was an uncommon array of people in there [rehab] with me, and I became friends with all of them. You recognize the possibility of your own demise in the lives of these other people. You're doing the same thing they are, but you can't see it in yourself. However, you start seeing all of these tragedies and potential miracles in other people. It's a real eye- and heart-opening situation.

Cocaine is God's way of telling you you are making too much money.