Addiction Ed Parallels Quotes

“Most people will say, We had no idea she was on drugs. And it’s not because they’re stupid. It’s because the changes are subtle, the universe is parallel, you speak a little too quickly, your voice is more shrieky, you seem not to be paying attention, you stare too long and too hard at the wall or some detail in the Persian rug. Most people can’t tell that’s a problem. Most people have their own problems.
 
It’s the people you are close to, the ones who love you, the ones who have seen your heart, who have touched your soul—to them, it is obvious that something is wrong or missing. Your heart and soul are missing. They feel it. It hurts them. It kills them.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction

“really they can do whatever they want. I can’t fight back, I can’t run away, and if they decide they don’t feel like letting me use the phone, what am I going to do? I’m at their mercy.
I have never thought of this before, but I have never been at anyone’s mercy in my entire life. For all my complaints about my life, I am completely free.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction

“I don’t look well; my degeneration is obvious. For a while, only friends who know me would be able to tell that I just don’t look like myself any longer. But at this point, even strangers can see that I am pale, that my eyes are droopy and, at the same time, wide open and a bit astonished”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction

“I can’t stand people’s disapproving eyes. I hate the way they look disgusted. And they do, they always do.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction

“Shit. I don’t want to hear one more person tell me how great I used to be, and how horrible I am now. I know they think that’s a compliment, I know they think they’re telling me something about my native character that I ought to be happy about, but it just breaks my heart. What’s wrong with me? Even when I was the person I used to be, I was not very happy. If anything, I am happier now, and everyone else is displeased. I can’t win.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction

“They used to worry that I might get sad enough to kill myself, but no one ever believed I’d really do it, not even me. But now they are scared that I am just going to end up dead. They’re afraid that they will find me dead. And they mean it. I see the way they look at me. I see fear.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction

“You can always wake up feeling better; that’s always the hope with a depressive. But no one around me harbors that hope any longer. They are petrified. They are disgusted. At long last, my pain is a serious matter.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction

“And I have to act as if. That’s a big recovery term: act as if. Act as if you believe you will stay sober. Act as if you like meetings. Act as if you believe in God. Act as if you like getting on your knees and praying each morning and night. Act as if there is a lot of wisdom in the Big Book and the Twelve Steps. Act as if there is a point to making your bed each day, even if you are just going to get back into it that night. Act as if everyone around you is not an idiot, and treat others with respect. They like to say: “You can’t think your way into acting, but you can act your way into thinking.” The idea is that if you do what you are supposed to, your mind might catch up with your body. If I stop acting as if therapy is one big useless joke that I have been in for twenty years only to land in a mental institution at long last, if I act as if this time it’s for real and this time it will work, it just might. It just might.
And I have to count on those mights, all of them. They’re all I’ve got right now.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction