A Quote by Pete Hamill

If you ask me, I think 12-step programs are perfectly valid, can be an enormous help. But it depends on the individual. — © Pete Hamill
If you ask me, I think 12-step programs are perfectly valid, can be an enormous help. But it depends on the individual.
I used to think, "I can't go to these meetings because they'll make me believe in God. Make me go to church." I knew it wasn't right for me before I ever tried it. I was suspicious of anything outside my realm of experience. That same kind of attitude carries over into 12-step programs, because they are programs. There's this feeling that you don't need this bullshit, you can quit on your own. People that don't know anything about it seem to have a better idea. They haven't even been.
Non-mainstream people seem to balk at the idea of 12-step. A lot of us think 12-step recovery means sitting in a church basement full of Republicans and Christians who drink to much.
My spiritual system is 12-step programs. That's the only one I've ever had. I didn't have one before that.
At the moment, in Britain we're facing such enormous cutbacks in education programs and music programs and art programs that you feel you are knocking your head against a brick wall.
You know, there's a real irony in U.S. assistance programs. First of all, I think it's misnamed. We're not so much trying to help people as we're trying to help ourselves. So let's be clear about this. So these are - in my view, they're cold calculations of national security and not aid programs.
My movie now, to me, is going to help so many people to realize that it is okay to ask for help. It took me so long to be able to ask for somebody to help me.
My father was very methodical about life. He'd always ask me, 'Now, what's your system? What's your schedule like?' I have no big system, no rigid schedule. When he would ask, 'How do you do this? Give it to me step by step,' I'd try to convince him that there were no step-by-steps.
I do think that there is a big difference between family farms and agri-business, and one of the distressing things that I think has occurred is with consolidation of farm lands. You've seen large agri-businesses benefit from enormous profits from existing farm programs, and I think we should be focusing most of those programs on those family farmers.
How you ask for help is secondary to the fact that you ask for help. Some people say, "I am going to command God for help." Some people say, "I want to affirm that God help." Other people prefer prayers of supplication, in which they implore, "Please, God, help me." It all works. It doesn't matter whether you say the prayer out loud, think it, yell it, scream it, write it, sing it - it's all the same.
But the proclamation, as law, either is valid, or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it can not be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life.
Let us awake to a sense of the perilous state of many professing Christians. 'Without holiness no man shall see the Lord'; without sanctification there is no salvation (Hebrews 12:14). Then what an enormous amount of so-called religion there is which is perfectly useless!
I had the inability to ask for help when I needed it. People offered to help me, but I refused. They'd ask 'How are you?' and I'd answer, 'Better than you.'
I think 12-step programs really work, rehab really works, certain types of therapies and talking to other addicts really work. There are a lot of things that work - that isn't the problem. The problem is getting the addicts to say they're addicts. The problem is admitting it.
Do you always ask me the same questions you ask him?" "It depends on whether or not I get an answer.
I don't think my parents would have let me go straight into acting full time when I was 12. I do like to have balance, naturally, as an individual.
If what is best in mankind, and what its progress depends on, manifests itself primarily in the individual and only secondarily in the mass, then our objectives should be to maintain such freedom as allows the individual to think and speak for himself.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!