The idea that the creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time. ... Substance abusing writers are just substance abusers — common garden variety drunks and druggies, in other words. Any claims that the drugs and alcohol are necessary to dull a finer sensibility are just the usual self-serving bullshit. I've heard alcoholic snowplow drivers make the same claim, that they drink to still the demons.

In the one-treatment-fits-all approach, clients sit in group meetings all day and all evening and listen to each other stories. At the end of the first week, everyone in the room knows everyone's story. That goes on for three more weeks, and then most people go home with the same problems they brought with them when they arrived.

In the debate over opioid addiction, there’s one group we aren’t hearing from: chronic pain patients, many of whom need to use the drugs on a long-term basis.

If he were any other man, I might have suspected him of substance abuse, of being coked up or something. But Barrons was too much a purist for that; his drugs were money, power, and control

Some things you jes' know Doll, and that's one I'd bet the farm on.

and tonight we held each other, one last time,like a dance to aslow songon an empty floor, underneath a singledisco ballin front of no oneat all

They got drunk and high on a regular basis, but this is a vestige of youth that you either quit while you're young or you become an addict if you don't die. If you are the Old Guy In The Punk House, move out. You have a substance abuse problem.

Doctors and health care institutions are complicit in the medicalization of poverty that encourages the creation of professional patients.

Procrastination has been a boon to my sobriety. I keep thinking I'd like to go out and get really trashed some night--but not tonight. It's really a variant of "One Step at a Time.

Mom and dad probably told you I've been arrested. I'm innocent. I want you to know that.