Eerily Relatable 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

“It’s the kind of thing that teenagers do, but I do not need to be an adolescent to behave like one. I’m kind of late in life on everything: most people who become addicts seem to do it when they are still in high school or college, and most people who become kleptomaniacs seem to get started about the same time, but I’ve waited until my mid-twenties to get going on all these juvenile habits.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel

“But I’m on strike from life. Until conditions improve, I will sit in my emptiness, fill myself with drugs, and wait for word about negotiations, because I can’t negotiate for myself anymore.
Fix it. That’s what I wish someone would do. Fix life, and I will live again.”
― 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

“And it’s not just that you’re afraid of your bad feelings,” she says. “You’re afraid of good ones too. Because what if things go wrong? Instead of just enjoying, you worry. You just worry. You can’t keep an open mind and see what happens, and enjoy it as it goes, because you are just trying to manage all your emotions, good or bad.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction

“I remember thinking: I know what life is for. For once I know what life is for. I don’t have all the answers, don’t know what will happen next, but just at this moment I understand that my life matters, that there are good things ahead. I don’t know what they are, but maybe it will be all right. I felt peace. I understood that corny thing people say: I am at peace with myself. And I wanted to think of better words for it, wanted to think of a way to say it that was less trite, more apposite and writerly. And then I remembered: sometimes these simple words that everyone uses are just right, are just good.

God in heaven, if I got to that place, how did I lose it? It’s like I was hijacked, mugged, like someone just ran off with all of my stuff. Peace of mind is no better than four years of high school French: if you never have occasion to speak a foreign language ever again, you forget it; if you don’t live in Paris or Provence, sooner or later there’s nothing left but that certain je ne sais quoi and this is what tout le monde is saying and, when all else fails, Parlez-vous anglais? I forgot to remember that feeling, and now it’s gone.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction