Chris Prentiss > Quotes

“You are not an alcoholic or an addict. You are not incurably diseased. You have merely become dependent on substances or addictive behavior to cope with underlying conditions that you are now going to heal, at which time your dependency will cease completely and forever.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“At the bottom of every person's dependency, there is always pain, Discovering the pain and healing it is an essential step in ending dependency.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“When people who believe themselves to be addicts or alcoholics come under great stress or trauma, they mentally give themselves permission to drink or use drugs as a remedy.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“People who believe they have bad luck create bad luck. Those who believe they are very fortunate, that the world is a generous place filled with trustworthy people, live in exactly that kind of world.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“Not only is the Universe aware of us, but it also communicates with us. We, in turn, are constantly in communication with the Universe through our words, thoughts, and actions. The Universe responds with events. Events are the language of the Universe. The most obvious of those events are what we call coincidence.”
― chris prentiss

“How do you change what you believe when your experience has convinced you othervise? By creating a new experience. The best way for you to get that new experience is to change your response to what happens. By the natural law of cause and effect, that new response will create new results, which you will then experience as a new reality. To reach the goal of happiness, act as though the following statement is already true: Everything that happens to me is the best thing that can happen to me.”
― chris prentiss

“If you examine your motive for doing anything, you'll soon discover that your reason is that you believe it will make you happy.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“The best way for you to get that new experience is to change your response to what happens.”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness

“Who you allow into the circle of your life will make the difference in the quality of your life.”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness

“Your life today is the result of a series of decisions you made that have caused you to arrive where you are.”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness

“The Universe continues to be perfect at every moment and never permits even the first imperfect event to occur. It goes from perfect to perfect to perfect.”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness

“Every person in the AA program who's successful is living proof that he or she does have power over addictive drugs and alcohol- the power to stop.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“Each river is different, but they all eventually lead to the ocean. No matter what we’re doing or when, or whether it brings us happiness or remorse, gain or loss, we’re all on our individual paths to enlightenment. Even when we’ve done something we consider wrong, we’re still on our path to enlightenment.”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness

“If you can stop using substance or stop your addictive behavior for extended periods of time without craving, you are not dependent. You are dependent only if you can't stop without physical or psychological distress (you have unpleasant physical and/or psychological withdrawal symptoms) or if you stop and then relapse.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“What determines each person's state of happiness or unhappiness is not the event itself, but what the event means to that person.”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness

“AA purports to be open to anyone, as it is stated in Tradition Tree, "The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking," but it isn't open to everyone. It's open only to those who are willing to publicly declare themselves to be alcoholics or addicts and who are willing to give up their inherent right of independence by declaring themselves powerless over addictive drugs and alcohol, as stated in Step One, "We admitted we are powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“It's the causes, not the dependent person, that must be corrected. That's why I see the United States' War on Drugs as being fought in an unrealistic manner. This war is focused on fighting drug dealers and the use of drugs here and abroad, when the effort should be primarily aimed at treating and curing that causes that compel people to reach for drugs.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“Treatment for dependency at substance abuse treatment centers must change if alcoholism and addiction are to be overcome in our society.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“Again, all of life presents us with two basic ways to treat events. We can either label them "god for us" or "bad for us." The event is only an event. It's how we treat the event that determines what it becomes in our lives. The event doesn't make that determination- we do.”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness

“The answers are never "out there." All the answers are "in there," inside you, waiting to be discovered.”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness

“The more you engage in any type of emotion or behavior, the greater your desire for it will become.”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness

“Alcohol and drugs are not the problems; they are what people are using to help themselves cope with the problems. Those problems always have both physical and psychological components- anything from anemia, hypoglycemia, or a sluggish thyroid to attention deficient disorder, brain-wave pattern imbalances, or deep emotional pain.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“Don't be concerned if you haven't been aware of these natural laws before. Once you begin to incorporate a philosophy into your life that is in accordance with Universal law, your life will bring you such joy, that you'll laugh in amazement. It will be as if you've spent your life driving a car in reverse and you've sudenly discovered that there are gears to make it go forward - and fast!”
― chris Prentiss

“Every belief that you hold manifests itself in some manner by either causing you to take some form of action or by preventing you from taking action. If you don't believe something is possible, you won't even attempt it.”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness

“When you need an idea about how to do anything, get quiet and relaxed and think about what it is you need to know. Then the flow of ideas will come. Be patient and let it happen. Sometimes it takes a little while, but it always works.”
― Chris Prentiss, Be Who You Want, Have What You Want: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

“If you feel depressed for an hour, you've produced approximately eighteen billion new cells that have more receptors calling out for depressed-type peptides and fewer calling out for feel-good peptides.”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness

“Stress comes from the way you relate to events or situations.”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness

“You don't need to be a scientist to know how powerful your imagination is.”
― Chris Prentiss, Be Who You Want, Have What You Want: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

“There is no cell culture for depression. You can't see it on a bone scan or an x-ray. Not everyone with depression will show the same behavioral symptoms.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“The true source of happiness is within each of us.”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness