If I had to offer up a one sentence definition of addiction, I'd call it a form of mourning for the irrecoverable glories of the first time...addiction can show us what is deeply suspect about nostalgia. That drive to return to the past isn't an innocent one. It's about stopping your passage to the future, it's a symptom of fear of death, and the love of predictable experience. And the love of predictable experience, not the drug itself, is the major damage done to users.

— Ann Marlowe

If I were to create a word that more accurately describes alcoholism and addiction, I would say it was dependencyism. Sounds silly, doesn't it? Yet it's not sillier than the word alcoholism. The reason alcoholism no longer sounds silly to you is because you're used to hearing it, reading it, and thinking about it.

— Chris Prentiss

If those underlying conditions aren't treated, the return of those symptoms may cause us so much discomfort that we'll go back to using addictive drugs or alcohol to obtain relief. That's the primary reason there is such a high rate of relapse among people who have become dependent of alcohol and addictive drugs. It has little to do with alcohol and addiction themselves and almost everything to do with the original causes that created the dependency.

— Chris Prentiss

If we are continuing to attract partners that are emotionally unavailable, then it’s essential that we observe our own addictive patterns rather than focusing on theirs.

— Christopher Dines

If you can stop using substance or stop your addictive behavior for extended periods of time without craving, you are not dependent. You are dependent only if you can't stop without physical or psychological distress (you have unpleasant physical and/or psychological withdrawal symptoms) or if you stop and then relapse.

— Chris Prentiss

In my view, compassion takes empathy to another level. With compassion, there is an internal calling to move empathy into action. Compassion is love in action.

— Christopher Dines

In the addiction recovery community, we recognize that addicts can starve themselves of receiving social, sexual or emotional nourishment. Sex and love addicts starve themselves of a healthy, personal relationship and, consequently, deliberately avoid wholesome relationships with other human beings. We’re getting quite deep now, but there are many papers and books published on sexual and emotional anorexia. I have also suffered from emotional anorexia. It’s no myth!

— Christopher Dines

I recovered from recovering so no longer celebrate not doing bad things to defend myself as good. I added new bad for good measure.

— Brian Spellman

Isms’ are described as transference of addictive patterns of dysfunctional behavior, passed down from generation to generation. For instance, if a mother was an alcoholic who never made it into recovery, her behavior would leave a mark on her children, husband, etc. Unless her adult children join some sort of recovery program and adopt the mindfulness practice, they will have very similar behavior traits to their mother but minus the alcohol abuse. There is a strong possibility that they will become codependent and form relationships with other codependents or alcoholics.

— Christopher Dines

It is ethanol that everyone is after when they drink alcoholic beverages. That is what gives us the euphoric feeling, and that is what all vendors of alcoholic drinks are selling.

— Chris Prentiss