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81 " Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. "
― David Sheff , Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
82 " changes.” And then we start again. It’s like Groundhog Day. It may seem like you’ve made no progress and are starting over, but you aren’t. Every repetition is different; the lessons are different because you are. "
― David Sheff , The Buddhist on Death Row: How One Man Found Light in the Darkest Place
83 " I keep a box in which I store his artwork and writings, like his response to an assignment in which he has been asked if you should always try your best. “I don’t think you should always try your best all the time,” he writes, “because, let’s say a drug atick asks you for drugs you should not try your best to find him some drugs.” Another assignment that goes into the box is "
84 " But you know, I don’t think I will be so scared to die. I think it’s like today: the end of a vacation when you are ready to go home. "
85 " Even as all the experts kindly tell the parents of addicts, 'You didn't cause it,' I have not let myself off the hook. I often feel as if I completely failed my son. In admitting this, I am not looking for sympathy or absolution, but instead stating a truth that will be recognized by most parents who have been through this. "
86 " For heroin users with a five-year history of addiction, it may take ten or fifteen years to help them come out of it, but if you start when they’re twenty-five, by the time they’re forty they’re pretty much rehabbed. If you don’t, most of them burn out by forty. "
87 " Nonetheless: if only and if only and if only. "
88 " Love cannot exist for long without the dimension of justice. "
89 " I felt the same way about my son until I realized that he couldn't get to school or work or a therapy appointment but he could get to pawn shops, get to his dealers, get whatever drug he wanted, get alcohol, break into houses, get needles — whatever was required. It's a fairly sophisticated process to cook a batch of methamphetamine, but I felt so sorry for him, thinking, He's depressed. He's fragile. He's incapable. Of course I should pay his bill if he winds up in the hospital. Of course I should pay his rent or he'll be on the streets. So for about a year I paid for a comfortable place for him to get high. "
90 " Meth users include men and women of every class, race, and background. Though the current epidemic has its roots in motorcycle gangs and lower-class rural and suburban neighborhoods, meth, as Newsweek reported in a 2005 cover story, has “marched across the country and up the socioeconomic ladder.” Now, “the most likely people and the most unlikely people take methamphetamine,” according to Frank Vocci, director of the Division of Pharmacotherapies and Medical Consequences of Drug Abuse at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). "
91 " our children live or die with or without us. No matter what we do, no matter how we agonize or obsess, we cannot choose for our children whether they live or die. It is a devastating realization, but also liberating. I finally chose life for myself. I chose the perilous but essential path that allows me to accept that Nic will decide for himself how—and whether—he will live his life. "
92 " I wish someone had shaken me and said, “Intervene while you can before it’s too late.” It may not have made a difference, but I don’t know. "
93 " I also know that parents have discretionary recall, blocking out everything that contradicts our carefully edited recollections - an understandable attempt to dodge blame. Conversely, children often fixate on the indelibly painful memories, because they have made a stronger impression "
94 " The constellation of these impulses that we call love feels like a miracle. The miracles do not cancel out evil, but I accept evil in order to participate in the miraculous. "
95 " You didn’t cause it, you can’t control it, and you can’t cure it. "
96 " The kanji characters he chose to make up the name of his new company—nin-ten-do—could be understood as “Leave luck to heaven,” or “Deep in the mind we have to do whatever we have to do. "
― David Sheff , Game Over, Press Start to Continue: How Nintendo Conquered the World
97 " But you know, I don’t think I would be so scared to die. I think it’s like today—the end of a vacation, when you are ready to go home. "
98 " I accept evil in order to participate in the miraculous. "
99 " In my first group, a counselor asked me why i'm here. he said, 'What's your problem? I said ' i'm a drug addict and an alcoholic.' he shook his head. 'no.' he said, 'that's how you've been treating your problem. what is your problem? "
100 " I pray even as the news in the papers makes my prayer seem insignificant in scale and wholly selfish. There is a devastating hurricane and flooding and suicide bombers and crashes and tsunamis and terrorism and cancer and war—endless and brutal war—disease and famine and earthquakes and everywhere there is addiction, and today the heavens must be overwhelmed with the noise of all the prayers. Here is one more. Please God heal Nic. Please God heal Nic. The "