Quotes by David Sheff - Page 2

The hopeful part about that is when you do have that help, you will feel better. It still doesn't make this easy. Nothing makes this easy, but you can make better decisions.
David Sheff / Author
Feel Better
Hopeful
Recovery
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The war on drugs is a joke. We spend $40 billion a year, and the proof that it's a failure is that any kid can get almost any drug they want in any city in America within half an hour.
David Sheff / Author
Failure
War
America
Half
Proof
War On Drugs
Within
Almost
Billion
Joke
Spend
Hour
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Reading Bukowski and Burroughs and Henry Miller doesn't necessarily mean that a kid is going to try to emulate their debauchery to the point that Nic did, but he really was fascinated by it.
David Sheff / Author
Emulate
Fascinated
Henry
Miller
Nic
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This idea that some kids have now in some communities that if they haven't filled out their college resumes by the time they're 12, they are going to fail in life, it's a lot of stress on kids.
David Sheff / Author
Filled
Stress
By The Time
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I totally believe parents should talk to their kids about drugs. I totally believe that educating them in every way is really important. But on the other hand, I've learned it's not as simple as that.
David Sheff / Author
Totally
Educating
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When I transformed my random and raw words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into chapters, a semblance of order and sanity appeared where there had been only chaos and insanity.
David Sheff / Author
Chaos
Insanity
Order
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Your children live or die without you. No matter what we do, no matter how we agonize or obsess, we cannot choose for our children whether they live or die. It's a devastating realization, but liberating.
David Sheff / Author
Liberating
Realization
Agonize
Devastating
Obsess
We Cannot
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Why does it help to read others' stories? It is not only that misery loves company, because (I learned) misery is too self-absorbed to want much company. Others' experiences did help with my emotional struggle.
David Sheff / Author
Emotional
Self
Struggle
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Since his breakout role in 'Call Me By Your Name,' Chalamet has been described as a young Leonardo DeCaprio and James Dean. Not only does Chalamet resemble my son when he was younger, but he embodies his spirit.
David Sheff / Author
Dean
Leonardo
Your Me Name
Breakout
Embodies
James
Resemble
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At my worst, I even resented Nic because an addict, at least when high, has a momentary respite from his suffering. There is no similar relief for parents or children or husbands or wives or others who love them.
David Sheff / Author
Children
Husband
Wife
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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.
David Sheff / Author
Addict
Bottom
If You Love Someone
Treatment
Die
Hit
Wait
Life-Threatening
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The rest of the world may devour Japanese hardware - from Honda Civics to Sony Walkmans - but Japanese software, such as books, movies and recordings, has had little impact outside Japan. The exception is video games.
David Sheff / Author
Exception
Games
Hardware
Honda
Impact
Japan
Software
Video
Devour
Recordings
Video Games
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Drugs shift the way that we think. So, yeah, the logical thing would be to get help, but that's not the way addicts operate, which is why it's really, really hard to get someone to understand that they need treatment.
David Sheff / Author
Addict
Logical
Treatment
Yeah
Logical Thing
Operate
Shift
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Certain people are more likely to use drugs because of whatever it is: They've suffered some trauma in their life. They have risk factors like mental illness, people with learning disabilities, with attention problems.
David Sheff / Author
Factors
Illness
Mental Illness
Suffered
Disabilities
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I came home one day and Nick was in his bedroom reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' and the tears were just flowing down his cheeks, at the terrible injustice that was being described in that book and the bravery of fighting against it.
David Sheff / Author
Bedroom
Bravery
Cheeks
Injustice
Mockingbird
Tears
Flowing
Nick
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Twelve-step programs require people to accept their powerlessness and turn their lives over to God or another higher power. Many adolescents question religion, and in general teenagers aren't going to turn their lives over to anyone.
David Sheff / Author
Higher Power
Powerlessness
Adolescent
Programs
Require
Teenagers
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After writing about addiction in a pair of books, I frequently hear from addicts and their family members about serial relapses followed by treatments followed by more relapses. It's not uncommon for addicts to go through a dozen treatment programs.
David Sheff / Author
Addict
Addiction
Dozen
Family Members
Treatment
Uncommon
Followed
Frequently
Programs
Pair
Serial
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Nick spent his first years on walks in his stroller and Snugli, playing in Berkeley parks and baby gyms and visiting zoos and aquariums. His mother and I divorced when he was 4. No child benefits from the bitterness and savagery of a divorce like ours.
David Sheff / Author
Benefits
Bitterness
Divorce
Parks
Savagery
Visiting
Walks
Child
Nick
Ours
Spent
Zoo
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I'd heard about rehab, where you send people with drug problems, but I soon learned that there's no standard definition of it; instead it's a generic word for a wide variety of treatments, including some that are outrageous. Past-life therapy? Exorcism?
David Sheff / Author
Exorcism
Generic
Including
Outrageous
Rehab
Therapy
Variety
Wide
Definition
Standard
Send
Soon
Treatments
Wide Variety
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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.
David Sheff / Author
Kids
Addiction
Drug Use
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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.
David Sheff / Author
Addict
Homeless
Psychotic
Strung
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It's hard to find someone who did as many drugs for as long and in such dangerous combinations as Nic - spending years going to Oakland and finding abandoned warehouses, getting beaten up, getting threatened by a guy with a crossbow. By all accounts, he shouldn't have made it, but he did.
David Sheff / Author
Abandoned
Accounts
Beaten
Oakland
Threatened
Combinations
Nic
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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.
David Sheff / Author
Addiction
Marijuana
Weekend
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Having been hit by drug addiction, knowing how many are hit by it and what a big problem it is in our neighborhoods and our culture, I feel a responsibility to do something. I can see what's wrong with the system - that we have to recognize mental illness as we do cancer or broken bones - and how we need to make it better.
David Sheff / Author
Addiction
Bones
Illness
Mental Illness
Big Problem
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I chose a rehab center for Nic that was recommended by a friend who had sent her son there. The program lasted 28 days, after which he relapsed. Over the next six years, he was admitted to six residential treatment programs and four outpatient programs. He would do better for a while, but then relapse. Each relapse was crushing.
David Sheff / Author
Program
Rehab
Relapse
Six
Son
Treatment
Admitted
Center
Chose
Crushing
Programs
Lasted
Nic
Recommended
Residential
Sent
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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.
David Sheff / Author
Kids
Children
Ideas
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But I sent letters to people in the music business. And one day I got a phone call from somebody and he asked me when I was born and where I was born. And, you know, three or four days later I got a call. Someone said, you know, Yoko Ono wanted to meet me in New York. I got on a plane. And the next day I was having coffee with John Lennon.
David Sheff / Author
New York
Coffee
Lennon
Letters
Music Business
One Day
Business Music Me
Asked
Days
Phone
John
Meet
Phone Call
Plane
Sent
York
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When, you know, when Nic became addicted, I was completely uneducated, and basically everything I assumed at the time turned out to be wrong. I guess the main thing is that I was so blindsided, that I had this idea of, you know, what an addict looks like, and it didn't look like Nic. And I realized that, you know, anybody can become addicted.
David Sheff / Author
Addict
Looks
Uneducated
Anybody
Assumed
Basically
Became
Guess
Main
Main Thing
Nic
Realized
Turned
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Once and for all, people must understand that addiction is a disease. It’s critical if we’re going to effectively prevent and treat addiction. Accepting that addiction is an illness will transform our approach to public policy, research, insurance, and criminality; it will change how we feel about addicts, and how they feel about themselves. There’s another essential reason why we must understand that addiction is an illness and not just bad behavior: We punish bad behavior. We treat illness.
David Sheff / Author
Addiction
Essentials
People
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David Sheff Quotes - Page 2

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