David Sheff Quotes

United States, Author
December 23, 1955

David Sheff is an American author of the books Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America's Greatest Tragedy and Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction. In 2009, Sheff was included in Time Magazine's Time 100, The World's Most Influential People, and Beautiful Boy was named the best nonfiction book of the year by Entertainment Weekly. The book also won the Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers Award" for nonfiction and was an Amazon Best Book of the Year (2008). He was awarded the 2013 College of Problems on Drug Dependence (CPDD) Media Award, and 2017 American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) Media Award.

How can both Nics, the loving and considerate and generous one, and the self-obsessed and self-destructive one, be the same person?

David Sheff
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.

David Sheff
- Kids
- Addiction
- Treatment

An alcoholic will steal your wallet and lie to you. A drug addict will steal your wallet and then help you look for it.

David Sheff
- Help
- Addict
- Alcoholic
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.

David Sheff
- Kids
- Scene
- Streets
At my worst, I even resented Nic because an addict, at least when high, has a momentary respite from his suffering. There is no similar relief for parents or children or husbands or wives or others who love them.

David Sheff
- Children
- Worst
- Husbands
I didn't cause it. I can't control it. I can't cure it.

David Sheff
- Control
- Cause
- Cure
I am becoming used to an overwhelming, grinding mixture of anger and worry.

David Sheff
- Worry
- Becoming
- Mixture
Anyone who has lived through it, or those who are now living through it, knows that caring about an addict is as complex and fraught and debilitating as addiction itself.

David Sheff
- Addiction
- Through
- Lived

How innocent we are of our mistakes and how we responsible we are for them.

David Sheff
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.

David Sheff