Addiction Stigma Quotes

Sometimes, when I hear people without experience of addiction blame addicts for their behaviour, I feel like saying to them: 'You simply don't understand - how can a child be held responsible for doing such a dreadful thing to himself?' But then again, at other times I have to acknowledge: it was done wilfully.

Stoners are cute; junkies are sad.

I had to sit down and explain to [her friend] that AA was for quitters

I know lots of people that take cocaine three nights a week and get up and go to work every day, no problem. But we never hear that side of the story.

I'm calling for a cultural change in how we think about addiction. For far too long people have thought about addiction as a character flaw or a moral failing.

Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you are a millionaire conservative radio jock, which makes it an illness and needs our prayers for your recovery.

Every article I see is dope this, junkie that, whiskey this - that ain't my title.

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.

Addiction is not just for bad people or scumbags - it's a universal disease.

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.

Dear Anyone Who Finds This, Do not blame the drugs.

If a child had another disease, we'd be open about what we were going through, but addiction is stigmatised and comes with shame and guilt.

Christopher Kennedy Lawford's new book Recover to Live will be a force with the power to educate as well as motivate transformational personal change. Recover to Live may alter the way broader society looks at the disease of addiction and those who are suffering from it.

Vicodin, I got addicted to that little pill. The reason I don't talk about it too much in the press is because it isn't funny, and I love to be funny in interviews. If you joke about that period in your life, it doesn't seem right.

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.

Gambling is the only addiction that the government promotes.

Addiction is a disease of exposure. Doctors and nurses, for instance, have a high addiction rate.

It is difficult to feel sympathy for these people. It is difficult to regard some bawdy drunk and see them as sick and powerless. It is difficult to suffer the selfishness of a drug addict who will lie to you and steal from you and forgive them and offer them help. Can there be any other disease that renders its victims so unappealing?

Addiction should never be treated as a crime. It has to be treated as a health problem. We do not send alcoholics to jail in this country. Over 500,000 people are in our jails who are nonviolent drug users.

Many doctors are stuck in the idea that addiction is a choice, and they don't treat that.

Openness is the first step toward recovery... addiction remains a secret because of the overwhelming shame associated with it.

Addiction has had such an impact on my life and the people I love, and there really is not a lot about it that is funny. So the last thing I wanted was to give the impression that it’s all fun and games, and isn’t it funny what she gets away with.

The Nazis spoke of having a Jewish problem. We now speak of having a drug-abuse problem. Actually, "Jewish problem" was the name the Germans gave to their persecution of the Jews; "drug-abuse problem" is the name we give to the persecution of people who use certain drugs.

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.

I took more hell for being fat than I did for being an absolute raging drug addict. I will never understand that.