Rehab Quotes

“Karl Marx: "Religion is the opiate of the masses."

Carrie Fisher: "I did masses of opiates religiously.”
― Carrie Fisher, Postcards from the Edge

“Whether I or anyone else accepted the concept of alcoholism as a disease didn't matter; what mattered was that when treated as a disease, those who suffered from it were most likely to recover.”
― Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot

“I told her that I didn't want to take any drugs. That I had come here not to take drugs.

"Listen," she said, not unkindly, "up until now I would say that ninety-nine percent of all the narcotics you have taken in your life you bought from guys you didn't know, in bathrooms or on street corners, something like that. Correct?"

I nodded.

"Well these guys could have been selling you salt or strychnine. They didn't care. They wanted your money. I don't care about your money, and, unlike your previous suppliers, I went to college to study just the right drugs to give to people like you in order to help you get better. So, bearing all that in mind ... Take the fucking drugs!"

I took the drugs.”
― Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot

“My daughter, Carly, has been in and out of drug treatment facilities since she was thirteen. Every time she goes away, I have a routine: I go through her room and search for drugs she may have left behind. We have a laugh these days because Carly says, “So you were lookingfor drugs I might have left behind? I’m a drug addict, Mother. We don’t leave drugs behind, especially if we’re going into treatment. We do all the drugs. We don’t save drugs back for later. If I have drugs, I do them. All of them. If I had my way, we would stop for more drugs on the way to rehab, and I would do them in the parking lot of the treatment center.”
― Dina Kucera, Everything I Never Wanted to Be: A Memoir of Alcoholism and Addiction, Faith and Family, Hope and Humor

“The worst gift I was given is when I got out of rehab that Christmas; a bottle of wine. It was delicious.”
― Craig Ferguson

“Gillette--The best a man can get."

I stared at the screen. What happened to me? I was meant to be one of those guys, vigorous and athletic and successful and, most of all, American. I was going to walk on the moon, be a movie star or a rock got or a comedian. I was going to have an amazing life and kids with Helen and die like Chaplin a thousand years from now in my Beverly Hills mansion surrounded by my adoring family, with the grieving world media standing by. Instead, I was just another show-business mediocrity. A drunk who shat his pants and ran for help.

My life had been careless and selfish. Pleasure in the moment was my only thought, my solitary motivation. I had disappointed whoever had been foolish enough to love me, and left them scarred.

I was a very long way from being the best a man can get.”
― Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot

“I found the prospect daunting, but somehow comforting, too, because the counselors insisted it could be done, and, after all, many of them were recovering alcoholics themselves.”
― Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot

“SIMONE: I was getting a lot of phone calls from Daisy at all hours of the day. I’d say, “Let me come get you.” And she’d refuse. I thought about trying to force her into rehab. But you can’t do that. You can’t control another person. It doesn’t matter how much you love them. You can’t love someone back to health and you can’t hate someone back to health and no matter how right you are about something, it doesn’t mean they will change their mind.

I used to rehearse speeches and interventions and consider flying to where she was and dragging her off that stage—as if, if I could just get the words right, I could convince her to get sober. You drive yourself crazy, trying to put words in some magical order that will unlock their sanity. And when it doesn’t work, you think, I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t talk to her clearly enough.

But at some point, you have to recognize that you have no control over anybody and you have to step back and be ready to catch them when they fall and that’s all you can do. It feels like throwing yourself to sea. Or, maybe not that. Maybe it’s more like throwing someone you love out to sea and then praying they float on their own, knowing they might well drown and you’ll have to watch.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones & The Six

“So are you an inmate or a rubbernecker?" she asks.

"Rubbernecker," I answer without hesitation. "You?"

"I'm a screw. Or on staff, anyway. Used to be an inmate. Repeat offender. Crimes against my body. Puking sickness followed by heroin, which led to more puking sickness." I'd be surprised at her forthrightness, but that's addicts for you. The twelve steps crack 'em open and then they can't shut up.”
― Lauren Beukes, Zoo City

“Drunkards have a problem, not with sobriety, but with reality.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Jimmy put in a word and told them that if I made it, I wouldn't be able to live with myself without paying them back. That I'd sooner die than owe anyone money for helping me.

Apparently Jimmy knew more about me at that point than I knew about myself.”
― Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot

“Addiction denied is recovery delayed.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“And it hits me, the reason for all the metaphors in recovery. Because the bald truth would be too terrifying. What she's saying is I may need an all-new career and all-new friends.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“Each body is different
Therefore each rehabilitation must be different”
― Joerg Teichmann

“Many people would love to change others, or they wished they can change their spouses. How do you know it's not them but you who needs a change?”
― Beta Metani'Marashi

“We get addicted, not to the substance, but to the effect.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The thought that usually accompanied these words was, *Because I need a drink.* Now it's because I need to go *talk* about needing a drink. It's like alcohol gets in the way even when it's out of the way.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“Alcohol is some people’s pillar of weakness.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“A positive approach gives you control over any circumstances.
Be positive to start your rehab. The results won't let you down.
Be positive to overcome your fear and you will win.”
― Joerg Teichmann

“It almost never takes a pleasant state of mind to desire to be high or drunk.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“It is way less foolish to throw your money away than it is to use it to buy and then consume things such as cigarettes.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Some people would not be nearly as creative or hardworking as they are, if they were not working to feed their addictions.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“How are you feeling?' [Rae, rehab therapist] asks. … I tell her about how reading [my letter] in front of people upset me. That I'm realizing I don't like to feel things, don't want to feel pain or fear. … I tell her my most recent observation of rehab, in terms of how it works. How it sort of sneaks up on you. They way somebody will say some dumb affirmation and then later in group, somebody will say, 'I didn't buy that affirmation you said at all,' and there will be a heated argument and somebody will be reduced to tears. And how all of this will bring something up inside of you, wake something up. And you have some insight you wouldn't have had otherwise. It's very odd and nonlinear and organic. And yet it's real.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“And it hits me, the reason for all the metaphors in recovery. Because the bald truth would too terrifying. What she's saying is I may need an all-new career and all-new friends. p 85”
― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“In rehabilitation there is no elevator. You have to take every step meaning one step at a time.”
― Joerg Teichmann

“The gaining, or maintaining, of some reputations was, or is, made possible by the loss of sobriety.”
― @Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“I suppose that’s what I finally learned from this whole mess—that you need other people to move forward. You can’t do it on your own, and there are always people around who want to help, including people that have been through much worse.”
― Caleb Pinkerton, The Suicide Journal

“I needed someone to look me in the face and tell me
that the people who win, succeed, and excel at this lifestyle end up in jail, in rehab, homeless, or dead, and these are the only four options for those who follow this path to its end. I needed more than that, though. I needed someone to offer me a way out, a better path forward, a more meaningful life.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I needed someone to look me in the face and tell me that the people who win, succeed, and excel at this lifestyle end up in jail, in rehab, homeless, or dead, and these are the only four options for those who follow this path to its end. I needed more than that, though. I needed someone to offer me a way out, a better path forward, a more meaningful life.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“Love is the ultimate rehab for those who have known nothing else but pain.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, These Words Pour Like Rain