A Quote by Vivek Murthy

I'm calling for a cultural change in how we think about addiction. For far too long people have thought about addiction as a character flaw or a moral failing.

Vivek Murthy

Quote Topics

About Addiction Calling Change Character Cultural Cultural Change Failing Far Flaw How Long Moral People Think Thought Too

Quote Author

Vivek Murthy
American - Public Servant
Born: July 10, 1977

When I talk about drugs and alcohol, I'm talking about sex addiction, gambling addiction, eating addiction, throwing-up addiction. I'm not talking about mental illness.

Abel Ferrara

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

I think stress is an addiction. It can be tied to work addiction or busyness addiction or success addiction.

Gabrielle Bernstein

Addiction is a brain disease. This is not a moral failing. This is not about bad people who are choosing to continue to use drugs because they lack willpower.

Michael Botticelli

Addiction is more malleable than you know. When people come to me for therapy, they often ask me whether their behavior constitutes a real addiction (or whether they are really alcoholic, etc.). My answer is that this is not the important question. The important questions are how many problems is the involvement causing you, how much do you want to change it, and how can we go about change?

Stanton Peele

This is our most dangerous addiction - our addiction to things. For it is this addiction that underlies the materialism of our age. And nowhere is this addiction more apparent than in our addiction to money.

Russell Peters

Everybody has some kind of addiction. It's about how you get around that addiction. First, you have to break the habit like anything. You have to define the hurdle or the objective.

Diamond Dallas Page

I hope 'Warning: This Drug May Kill You' documentary helps to show the humanity of the people who are struggling with the brain disease of addiction because that is what this is - this isn't about bad people, this is about good people who became addiction oftentimes in the process of being prescribed medication for pain.

Perri Peltz

I too searched far and wide for the cure to addiction, but my medical and psychiatric background did not lead me to the cure because the source of addiction does not lie here,.

Abraham J. Twerski

Addiction is a brain disease - this isn't a moral failing - and we have got to stop looking at it that way.

Perri Peltz

It seemed that the problem of Americans overdosing and dying from drug addiction was being described as bad people, particularly kids, who were abusing good drugs. But Sheila Nevins, the president of HBO Documentary Films, and I were particularly interested in finding out the stories of people and families who had been ravaged by this disease of addiction and understanding what really was happening. What we found was that, and let's not make any mistake about it, this is an epidemic of addiction.

Perri Peltz

The first several scenes are about sexual addiction. They're not specifically political at all... I didn't sit down and think, ''I am going to write something about the religious right.'' I started out by writing something about sexual addiction, and it evolved... I don't look at a calendar and say: ''Oh! There's going to be an election in 1996. I think now, in 1993, I'll start writing a play that'll be ready for it.''

Christopher Durang

I think the scariest addiction on this planet is to alcohol. Because alcohol is a very addictive drug, and it ruins families, it ruins relationships. And it is socially acceptable, and it is easy to find. Controlled substances, other drugs are more difficult to get, and it's a crime to... to buy them. But alcohol is everywhere. And if you are unfortunate enough to become addicted to it, it can be disastrous. And there is still a stigma attached to alcohol addiction, or addiction in general. It is perceived as... an addict is perceived as somebody of weak moral fiber

Brian Molko

'Moonlight' isn't an issue film. It's not about addiction, it's not about sexuality, it's not about identity. It's about all these different layers, because they are all a part of the character.

Barry Jenkins

You could almost say that throughout human history there are people who can either foresee consequences or who are capable of looking for information and predicting the consequences will happen, but the vast majority of people won't respond to climate change until their city is underwater, food supply is disrupted or everyone around them is dying of zoonotic disease. It's almost like someone dealing with an addiction, like you hope that the person can overcome the addiction before the addiction kills them.