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Opiates Quotes

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Opiates Quotes

“Government agencies are trying to get doctors to cut back on prescribing opioids. I understand that they need to do something about the epidemic of overdoses. However, labeling everyone as addicts, including those who responsibly take opioids for chronic pain, is not the answer. If the proposed changes take effect, they would force physicians to neglect their patients. Moreover, legitimate pain patients, like myself, would be left in agony on a daily basis.”

AddictionChronic PainOpiatesAddictsOpioidsChronic Pain StigmaOpioid UseOpioid AbuseLabellingMedical NeglectPain Patients
Author:Alison Moore
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“We have a genuine and devastating epidemic of opiate abuse in this country, and it is of critical importance that this problem be addressed. But we must do so in a way that doesn’t cut off an effective (and often the only) treatment for the chronically ill, many of whom are able to function in this world at all only because of the small respite that responsible opiate use provides.”

AddictionStigmaChronic IllnessChronic PainEpidemicOpiatesChronic Pain StigmaPain ReliefOpioid UseOpioid AbusePain ManagementMedical NeglectChronically Ill
Author:Michael Bihovsky
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“People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I’ve been living ten years in Paris and the answer seems simple to me: because it’s the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain.. or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris.”

WritingIdeasInspirationCreativityTravelFranceParisAsiaOpiumPoppiesBurmaOpiatesWriter S BlockSaffronExpatriateExpatsParisiansOpiateExpatriot
Book:Crepuscule
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“perhaps he thought the subject of too delicate a nature to be made common: and as many people might then indiscriminately use it, it would take from that necessary fear and caution, which should prevent their experiencing the extensive power of this drug: for there are many properties in itm if universally known, that would habituate the use, and make it more in request with us than the Turks themselves: the result of which my knowledge,' he adds, 'must prove a general misfortune.' In the necessity of this conclusion I do not altogether concur”

OpiatesMorphineValiumThomas De QuinceyHistory Of AlkaloidsOpium Effect
Book:Confessions of an English Opium Eater
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“the media, at least in the U.S., tends to focus on pain pill use, abuse, and addiction by people who do not have chronic pain. Even if these stories offhandedly mention that these pills are used to treat pain in people whose physical pain does not go away, however, the stories of those who use pain medicine responsibly -- or, worse, accused of drug-seeking behavior because they need certain types of pills for chronic pain -- are usually overshadowed by the “How can we prevent pain pill addiction?” concern, instead of asking, “How can we treat chronic pain more effectively?”

AddictionChronic PainOpiatesSubstance AbuseMedia BiasMedia DistortionChronic Pain StigmaPain ReliefOpioid UsePain ManagementPain Killer PillsPain Killers
Author:Anna Hamilton
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“The addiction crisis is terrifying, and many people don’t comprehend appropriate opioid use. When I first started taking pain medication, I remember a family member saying, “Dianne, you’re going to become an addict!” We need to help people understand that taking pain medicine to maximize one’s ability to be productive and to sustain enriching relationships is very different than the disease of addiction, which limits one’s ability to contribute to society and maintain healthy habits.”

AddictionChronic PainOpiatesPainkillersChronic Pain StigmaPain ReliefOpioid UseOpioid Abuse
Author:Dianne Bourque
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“My doctors, who are not cavalier with prescriptions, give me this medication because I have earned their trust. And yet, with mounting government and public pressure, my doctors’ hands are becoming increasingly tied. They apologetically explain to me why they are required to make the medication even harder for me to get, against their own medical judgment. If the day ever comes when they aren’t allowed to prescribe Percocet to me at all, it may well be the end of the minimal quality of life I fight so hard to achieve.”

AddictionChronic PainOpiatesChronic Pain StigmaOpioid UseOpioid AbusePublic PressureMedical JudgementPain RefliefPerscriptions
Author:Michael Bihovsky
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“Since my symptoms began 13 years ago, I’ve tried every form of pain management I could access — NSAIDS, nonopioid analgesics, neurologic medications, acupuncture, laser therapy, physical therapy, prolotherapy, massage, and trigger-point injections. Most of these have been unhelpful; others provide temporary relief, often at great expense. At the end of the day, when my body is fully depleted of its resources and in the most pain, a single dose of Percocet is the only tool that silences the pain enough for me to fall asleep. I honestly don’t know what I’d do if Percocet became unavailable to me, and the very thought scares me. I’ve been taking it for five years. To avoid any chance of addiction, I only take it at night and have stayed on a consistently low dose.”

AddictionChronic PainOpiatesPainkillersAcupunctureChronic Pain StigmaPain ReliefPain ManagementPain Killer PillsAlternative TreatmentsOpiod Abuse
Author:Michael Bihovsky
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“I currently take Lortab, which is a combination of acetaminophen and hydrocodone. I’d rather not take this medication, or any medication for that matter, but it is the only one that controls my pain adequately enough to allow me to function on a daily basis... I take the smallest dose possible to enable me to remain as clear-headed as possible to do what I need to do each day... Even with the minimal opioids I take, I still have pain all the time, 24 hours a day; without opioids, life would be torture.”

Chronic PainOpiatesPainkillersOpioidsChronic Pain StigmaPain ReliefOpioid UseOpioid AbusePain ManagementPain Killer PillsPain Patients
Author:Alison Moore
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“There’s a saying that goes something like: ‘We are all one drink or pill away from addiction,’ and I know this is meant to destigmatize what addicts go through, but I feel like I’ve been seeing variations on this ‘common knowledge’ more and more lately being used (on social media) as a cudgel to remind patients to not overdo it,” Anna says, speaking to the dual-edged sword of awareness. A motto designed to humanize the experience of addiction has been turned into a weapon that targets people who rely on opioids for pain management, and that translates to real-world stigma.”

AddictionChronic PainOpiatesOpioidsChronic Pain StigmaStigmatizationOpioid UsePain ManagementStigmatizedPain Killer PillsPainkillerAnti Stigma
Author:S. E. Smith
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“Freneuse is an oddball, an idler, without any aim in life! If you ask me, he has smoked too much opium in the East, and that explains his somnolence, his morbid lethargies. It's the hazardous legacy of bad habits! He has been comprehensively undone; the heavy influence of poisonous opiates never ceases to oppress him. Besides which, his steel-blue eyes are surely the eyes of a smoker of opium. He carries the drunken burden of hemp in his veins. Opium is like syphilis' - le Mazel released the word carelessly - 'it is a thing which stays for years and years in the blood, because the body is unable to purge itself. It must be absorbed, in the long run, by iodide.”

DecadenceMorbidOpiumHempOpiatesLethargySyphilisDecadentDecadentsSomnolence
Book:Monsieur de Phocas
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“For unknown reasons, rare depressed patients even today will respond to no medicine except opiates, and a few researchers into depression have become newly interested in these substances. Fifty years ago, most patients who felt better on opium probably valued it for its ability to ameliorate scattered symptoms, such as sleeplessness, anxiety, and a general sense of malaise. Perhaps for mistaken reasons, Kuhn took the occasional success of opium to set the standard in the search for antidepressants. The hallmark of opium was that it restored energy in the depressed without being inherently energizing. Kuhn set our "to find a drug acting in some specific manner against melancholy that is better than opium"- that is, a nonstimulating antidepressant.”

DepressionOpiumNarcoticsOpiatesAnti Depressants
Book:Listening to Prozac
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“Thou silent power, whose welcome sway charms every anxious thought away; in whose divine oblivion drown'd, sore pain and weary toil grow mild, love is with kinder looks beguiled, and Grief forgets her fondly cherish'd wound; oh, whither hast thou flown, indulgent god? God of kind shadows and of healing dews, whom dost thou touch with thy Lethaean rod? Around whose temples now thy opiate airs diffuse?”

LooksKindPainGrowsForgetLove IsGriefHealingAirDivineShadowSilentWoundsWelcomeCharmTemplesCherishAnxiousWearyToilOblivionDewKinderOpiatesAnxious ThoughtsSilent Power
Book:Poetical Works of Akenside
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“Mystery fiction is, after all, a substitute for tranquilizers, strong drink, and bad, if diverting, companions. One slips into bed ... onto the train ... into the chair in the sickroom ... and is suddenly transported to a place where light fights dark and wins. When the story's over, one is left without a hangover, without remorse. Can any other opiate make that claim?”

IfsStoriesLightFightingWinningLeftStrongDarkFictionMysteryDrinkBedClaimsTrainChairsCompanionSubstitutesSlipsRemorseHangoverOpiatesStrong Drink
Author:Mary Cantwell
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“Socialists do not merely want a welfare state, they absolutely must have one. They must have a grovelling dependent class from which to obtain their daily opiate: an hallucinogenic euphoria which comes from the delusion of being superior to and more altruistic than all others. They must have 'the poor, huddled masses' in much the same manner as vampires must have the blood of their victims.”

WantStatesPoorClassBloodMassVictimSuperiorsVampireWelfareDependentDelusionWelfare StateEuphoriaOpiates
Author:Edward Britton
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“I will take no more physick, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.”

MaySoulReligionDyingMy SoulOpiates
Book:The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
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“Used with due abstinence, hope acts as a healthful tonic; intemperately indulged, as an enervating opiate. The visions of future triumph, which at first animate exertion, if dwelt upon too intently, will usurp the place of the stern reality; and, noble objects will be contemplated, not for their own inherent worth, but on account of the day-dreams they engender. Thus hope, aided by imagination, makes one man a hero, another a somnambulist, and a third a lunatic; while it renders them all enthusiasts.”

IfsMenFirstsDreamRealityUsedHopeImaginationVisionObjectsHeroThirdsAccountsDuesNobleTriumphOne ManInherentLunaticExertionAbstinenceOpiates
Author:James Fitzjames Stephen
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“God's justice stands forever against the sinner in utter severity. The vague and tenuous hope that God is 'too kind' to punish the ungodly has become deadly opiate for the consciences of millions. It hushes their fears and allows them to practice all pleasant forms of iniquity while death draws everyday nearer and the command to repent goes unregarded. As responsible moral beings, we dare not so trifle with our eternal future.”

KindFormJusticeMoralPracticeMillionsForeverEternalDrawsConscienceResponsibleEverydayDareCommandPleasantSinnerVagueRepentTriflesSeverityIniquityOpiates
Book:The Knowledge of the Holy
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“The status quo is a very powerful opiate and when you have a system that seems to be working and producing profits by the conventional way of accounting for profits. It's very hard to make yourself change. But we all know that change is an inevitable part of business. Once you have ridden a wave just so far, you have to get another wave. We all know that. For us, becoming restorative has been that new wave and we have been riding it for 13 years now. It's been incredibly good for business.”

KnowsWayYearsHas BeensHardSeemsPowerfulBusinessResponsibilityBecomingWaveProfitInevitableCorporateRidingConventionalSocial ResponsibilityStatus QuoVery PowerfulAccountingOpiatesConventional Ways
Author:Ray Anderson
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“As I spoke with scientists about the way fat behaves, I couldn't resist drawing an analogy to the realm of narcotics. If sugar is the methamphetamine of processed food ingredients, with its high-speed, blunt assault on our brains, then fat is the opiate, a smooth operator whose effects are less obvious but no less powerful.”

IfsWayPowerfulBrainEffectsScientistObviousSpeedDrawingFatsBehaveRealmsSpokesIngredientsSugarSmoothAssaultAnalogiesBluntOperatorsNarcoticsHigh SpeedOpiatesProcessed FoodMethamphetamine
Author:Michael Moss
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“A solitary ascetic is a symbol of the most cowardly egotism; a hermit who flees from his brothers instead of helping them to carry the burden of life, to work for others, and to put their shoulders to the wheel of social life, is a coward who hides himself when the battle is on, and goes to sleep drunk on an opiate.”

HelpingLife IsSocialSleepBrotherBattleBurdenShouldersDrunkSymbolsWheelsCowardSolitaryEgotismSocial LifeCowardlyHermitsOpiatesBurdens Of Life
Author:H. P. Blavatsky
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“I’m too young and ridiculous a person to speak for my generation, but I’d be happy to talk about my own experiences as a generation Y writer. I was raised by a generation of hippies. Throughout my childhood, teachers urged me to fight the establishment. My English teacher assigned Ginsberg and Kerouac and declared Bob Dylan “a genius.” My science teacher told me that television was “the new opiate of the masses” and bragged about never having owned one. My drama teacher made us perform Beckett.”

PersonsMadeYoungFightingSpeakMy OwnTeacherGenerationsChildhoodTelevisionGeniusDramaMassRaisedRidiculousEstablishmentBobDylanHippieMy GenerationEnglish TeacherBeckettOpiatesGinsbergScience TeacherGeneration Y
Author:Simon Rich
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“For instance, they [The Federal Narcotics Bureau ] give out that marijuana is a harmful and habit-forming drug, and it simply isn't. They claim that you can get addicted to opiates with one shot, and you can't. They over-estimate the physical bad effects, and so forth.”

GivingEffectsHabitDrugShotsClaimsInstanceMarijuanaNarcoticsOpiates
Book:Burroughs Live: The Collected Interviews of William S. Burroughs, 1960-1997
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“I meant that people will take anything that gives them a lift, whether it's alcohol or cocaine or the consciousness-expanding drugs or opiates. In Iran, until recently, they sold opium in shops legally, and they had 3,000,000 addicts in a population of 15,000,000. I don't believe that all those people were escaping from "complexes" or anything of the sort. They were simply exposed to it.”

PeopleGivingBelieveConsciousnessDrugComplexesDon't BelievePopulationAlcoholLiftsShopsIranExposedAddictExpandingCocaineEscapingOpiumOpiatesConsciousness Expanding
Author:William S. Burroughs
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