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More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction

Book by Elizabeth Wurtzel · 18 quotes · Addiction Ed Parallels, I Can, Eerily Relatable

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More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction Quotes

“Whenever I talk to anyone I care about, I am always seeking approval. There is always a pleading lilt in my voice that demands love. Even the people I work with, the ones I am supposed to have a professional relationship with, all business, get pulled into my need. I can't help it. I want to be adored.”

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“I can see that I imagine all kinds of rejection that never happens. I can see that I beg and plead for love that is freely offered because I somehow believe that if I don't ask for it, everyone will forget about me: I will be a little kid sent off to sleep-away camp whose parents forget to meet her at the bus when she comes back in August. Or else I think people are nice to me only to be nice to me, that they feel sorry for me because I am such a loser- as if anyone could possibly be that generous.”

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“And it’s not just that you’re afraid of your bad feelings,” she says. “You’re afraid of good ones too. Because what if things go wrong? Instead of just enjoying, you worry. You just worry. You can’t keep an open mind and see what happens, and enjoy it as it goes, because you are just trying to manage all your emotions, good or bad.”

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“really they can do whatever they want. I can’t fight back, I can’t run away, and if they decide they don’t feel like letting me use the phone, what am I going to do? I’m at their mercy. I have never thought of this before, but I have never been at anyone’s mercy in my entire life. For all my complaints about my life, I am completely free.”

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“When she walks in that first Monday, of course I am awake - I am always up these days - I decide to lay it down. “Look”, I say, “I snort Ritalin. That’s what I do. I snort it all day long. I crush up the pills and inhale them like cocaine. I’m up to about forty a day. I can’t stop. I am planning to get help, to check into rehab or something like that, as soon as this book is finished. In the meantime, I can’t stop, and I am not going to.” She looks at me impassively. “I don’t care what you think about it. So you have a choice. I can sit here and do it in front of you, or I can keep running into the bathroom so you don’t have to see. Either way, it’s going to happen, so it’s just about how bad it’s going to make you feel to watch.” She doesn’t seem to know what to say. She stares. I think she is going to cry. I think she wants to give me a hug, maybe, but there is an invisible cage, a delicate netting of glass, an ice sculpture surrounding me that no one can walk through. I’m cold. I’ve frozen into someone who just can’t be touched. I dare you to try.”

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“Shit. I don’t want to hear one more person tell me how great I used to be, and how horrible I am now. I know they think that’s a compliment, I know they think they’re telling me something about my native character that I ought to be happy about, but it just breaks my heart. What’s wrong with me? Even when I was the person I used to be, I was not very happy. If anything, I am happier now, and everyone else is displeased. I can’t win.”

Addiction Ed Parallels
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“And I have to act as if. That’s a big recovery term: act as if. Act as if you believe you will stay sober. Act as if you like meetings. Act as if you believe in God. Act as if you like getting on your knees and praying each morning and night. Act as if there is a lot of wisdom in the Big Book and the Twelve Steps. Act as if there is a point to making your bed each day, even if you are just going to get back into it that night. Act as if everyone around you is not an idiot, and treat others with respect. They like to say: “You can’t think your way into acting, but you can act your way into thinking.” The idea is that if you do what you are supposed to, your mind might catch up with your body. If I stop acting as if therapy is one big useless joke that I have been in for twenty years only to land in a mental institution at long last, if I act as if this time it’s for real and this time it will work, it just might. It just might. And I have to count on those mights, all of them. They’re all I’ve got right now.”

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“Most people will say, We had no idea she was on drugs. And it’s not because they’re stupid. It’s because the changes are subtle, the universe is parallel, you speak a little too quickly, your voice is more shrieky, you seem not to be paying attention, you stare too long and too hard at the wall or some detail in the Persian rug. Most people can’t tell that’s a problem. Most people have their own problems. It’s the people you are close to, the ones who love you, the ones who have seen your heart, who have touched your soul—to them, it is obvious that something is wrong or missing. Your heart and soul are missing. They feel it. It hurts them. It kills them.”

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