quotations about alcoholism
Beware of Drunkenness, lest all good men beware of you.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
The danger of "picking up" is ever-present in the alcoholic. As a child in Greenwich in south London, I grew up next to a teetotal elderly neighbour who, in gratitude to his recovery with AA, called his dog Sober. His public confession of addiction ("Here, Sober, good boy!") was unusual then, back in the early Seventies, but not so unusual today, when we talk openly of our addictions.
IAN THOMSON
"Amy Liptrot's The Outrun: how Orkney saved a girl from alcoholism", The Telegraph, February 19, 2016
Alcohol "works" for the alcoholic until it doesn't. It promises and delivers what we seek from it for years, until it stops working. Still, we want to drink like everybody else. Drinking is fun, right? It goes with culinary delights, correct? It enhances life, isn't that so? Yes, and no. Certainly "No" if you have the malady, which quietly marches on and in time takes our joy, even our will to live and carry on and pretend we're OK.
JO ANN TOWLE
"Can we talk about alcoholism and Anthony Bourdain?", Miami Herald, June 22, 2018
What if you pretended that this couch were a bar? Then you could spend more nights at home with us. Huh?
MARGE SIMPSON
"Fear of Flying", The Simpsons
I'm not a drinker -- my body will not tolerate spirits. I had two Martinis on New Year's Eve and I tried to hijack an elevator and fly it to Cuba.
WOODY ALLEN
Standup Comic
When there's a history of alcoholism in families there's automatically rules set up, and those rules are don't talk, don't trust and don't feel.
DONLON WADE
attributed, "How to talk to your kids about family addiction", Columbia Daily Tribune, February 10, 2017
If a man rejoice not in his drinking, he is mad; for in drinking it's possible ... to fondle breasts, and to caress well tended locks, and there is dancing withal, and oblivion of woe.
EURIPIDES
The Cyclops
To approach all alcohol problems through the lens of alcoholism may be akin to labelling anyone experiencing a period of low mood as clinically depressed. Whenever we choose the language of alcoholism outside of specific recovery contexts, we tar those people with assumptions that may have counter-productive effects.
JAMES MORRIS
"The media has a problem with alcoholism -- and it's stopping people getting help", The Guardian, November 22, 2017
Alcoholism is not a symptom of underlying problems. It is an illness in and by itself, producing its own symptoms. Before the onset of the disease alcoholism, the excessive drinking of alcoholic liquor generally is symptomatic of underlying problems. Once the line has been crossed and the drinker has become an alcoholic drinker, his drinking is then symptomatic of that illness.
MAURICE GELINAS
How to Overcome Alcoholism
She marched into the street, found a liquor store and bought a bottle; and the weight of the bottle in her straw handbag somehow made everything real; as the purchase of a railroad ticket proves the imminence of a journey.
JAMES BALDWIN
Another Country
In addition to an increased susceptibility for the disease themselves, children who are exposed to alcoholism at a young age are also at a higher risk for committing their lives to a person who suffers from it as well. Reasoning behind this is vague, but I'd venture to guess it goes hand in hand with sufferers of abuse who gravitate toward toxic relationships. Familiarity can periodically provide people with an intrinsic sense of comfort, no matter how sick.
MELANIE LINDSAY
"6 Ways Growing Up With An Alcoholic Parent Shapes You In Adulthood", Elite Daily, February 23, 2016
The funeral is next Monday. Family, friends old and new, and many work colleagues will be there. They have been phoning, writing and emailing about what a wonderful man he was, how proud he was of Kay and me, what a difference he made to them. A man they still remember as he was. They did not see the Greg that was left behind once the whisky had done with him. They did not know what a slave to alcohol he had become and how it sucked him in and spat him out on an intensive care bed.
ADDY
"The lump", Alcoholic Daze, March 26, 2010
Part of alcoholism is lying. When you're an addict, you know you can't be honest with people. You say what you want them to hear.
DANNY BONADUCE
"David Cassidy drank to his death to cover up the sadness", The Washington Post, June 6, 2018
You may tell yourself and your friends that you're only going to be at the bar for a couple glasses of wine. Next thing you know, it's 4 a.m. and you have no idea how you even got yourself home onto the couch. If this sounds pretty typical, you're facing the most common sign of alcoholism.
GINA M. FLORIO
"11 Signs You're An Alcoholic (Or At Least Need Help)", Bustle, February 9, 2016
Alcoholism is the disease of more.
CAROLINE KNAPP
Drinking: A Love Story
Alcohol is a pervasive fact of life, but an extraordinary fact--pleasurable and destructive, anathematized and adulated, and deeply ambiguous ... the genie in the bottle.
GRIFFITH EDWARDS
Alcohol: The World's Favorite Drug
Be kind to drunk people, for every one of them is fighting an enormous battle.
SARAH HEPOLA
Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget
Bacchus ever fair and young, Drinking joys did first ordain. Bachus's blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure, Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure-- Sweet is pleasure after pain.
JOHN DRYDEN
Alexander's Feast
Alcoholism is never "cured." You manage the urge and your quality of life until the end.
DENNIS DODD
"Steve Sarkisian leaving Alabama just the latest blip for Nick Saban", CBS Sports, February 7, 2017
Alcoholism is a three-fold illness: The physical component is the inability to stop drinking once one starts on any given night (or afternoon or morning). The mental aspect is an obsession with alcohol -- the belief that it can solve our problems, although it ends up that our solutions are even worse than our problems were. These two parts lead to a third: the spiritual loss of values. We all have values we gained from our parents, from older siblings, from teachers, coaches and religious leaders. But alcoholism is the "great eraser." It wipes out all those values and replaces them with one quest: the need to kill emotional pain.
MICHAEL LEVIN
"Twenty-five years on the wagon, and holding on tight", Fox News, February 1, 2017