SO GOOD QUOTES

  • Drinking blurred my edges and made me feel physically part of the world, entwined with everything around me: his body, the salt air, the rush and hiss of the water. This was the opposite of what I’d felt most of my life, that fervent desire to disappear from whatever moment I’d found myself inhabiting, so that I could fast-forward to another moment in the future, once my real life had begun.

    —Leslie Jamison, For Leslie Jamison, Running and Drinking Were The Two Quickest Ways to Escape

  • People, who wish to discipline the sexual organs should avoid drinking those artificial concoctions which are called ‘aperitifs’ – presumably because they open a way to the stomach for the vast meal which is to follow. Not only are they harmful to our bodies, but their fraudulent and artificial character greatly offends the conscience wherein God dwells. For what does wine lack that we should sap its healthy vigor by adulterating it with a variety of condiments? 

    —St. Diadochos of Photiki

  • “Desire for indulgence and special feelings remains, yet it feels distant to you now, a familiar call you know not to answer. You find yourself taking measures to maintain this distance. This makes you necessarily a teetotaler, because after a single glass of wine the higher faculties start to erode and accountability fails. Naturally, you believe it is best if others do not drink either.”

    —David Cain, On Getting Good at Being Good

  • The Bible tells us not to indulge in lusts of the flesh, because God knows how difficult it will be for us to recognize the truth about life if we do.  When people in the Land of Flesh look around, they see nothing but death.  But when people in the Land of the Spirit look around, they see only life—nothing ever dies in the Land of the Spirit.  Then what a foolish thing it is, really, to debate about whether unnecessary physical indulgences are harmful—to wonder whether a little marijuana will do any damage, or whether regular smoking and a little drinking binge now and then is going to matter much.  Every physical indulgence we add to ourselves—and especially the ones that serve mostly to calm our nerves or lift our spirits (things that should never be done by anything material, but only by God)—will just root us all the more inescapably in the Land of Flesh, where there is no life, no kingdom of heaven, no hope in God.

    —Dee Pennock,Who is God? Who Am I? Who Are You?

  • “You’re either creative or you’re not. Drugs won’t help with that.”

    — Aron Bow, “Old enough to know better, too young to care”, Saskatoon, Canada

  • “I have such an addictive personality.  I know that if I were to try some wine tonight, you probably would never see me again.”

    —Joshua Fields Millburn

  • “What is my peak state?  If my peak state is without alcohol, then of course I should abstain from that altogether.”

    —Rebecca Shern

  • “I don’t know a single alcoholic that is not also lonely.”

    — Anne Bainbridge

  • After years of striving to “not be so hard on myself”, I am now enjoying the freeing, empowering effect of keeping personal rules that I never negotiate with other people, or even with my own bad moods. Clear rules reduce the need for approval, the stress of trying to have everything both ways, and the necessity of constantly explaining yourself. Since I began to recognize the freeing effect of personal rules, I’ve never felt more independent, and I’ve never worried so little about what others think.

    Instead of going by mood or whim, you already know what you will do and what you won’t. You know which side of the fence you want to live on—on this side lies prosperity, consistency, and health, and on that side lies remorse, ambivalence and excuse-making, and other varieties of pain you’ve finally decided to be done with.

    And you’re still free. You can always hop the fence and get burned again, which will only remind you why drew a line in the first place.

    Wise People Have Rules For Themselves
    David Cain

  • “Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you’re allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It’s like killing yourself, and then you’re reborn. I guess I’ve lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.”

    —Charles Bukowski