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.
I accept evil in order to participate in the miraculous.
Substance abusers lie about everything, and usually do an awesome job of it.” Stephen King once wrote. “It’s the liar’s disease.” Nic once told me, quoting an AA platitude, “An alcoholic will steal your wallet and lie about it. A drug addict will steal your wallet and then help you look for it.” Part of me is convinced that he actually believes that he will find it for you.
Why do I want to meet him? No matter how unrealistic, I retain a sliver of hope that I can get through to him. That’s not quite accurate. I know I can’t, but at least I can put my fingertips on his cheek.
Thomas Lynch showed me that it is possible to love a child who is lost, possibly forever.
Since reason and love, the forces I had come to rely on in my life, have betrayed me, I am in unknown territory.
No matter what we do, no matter how we agonize or obsess, we cannot choose for our children whether they live or die.
O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts.
My drawing – now there are drops, tears, from the two branches of the tributary and six circles above it. Then I know – I have drawn the opening up of my brain and all that is in there – tears pain blood rage terror. The broken suitcase with the circles, its contents – me, former me – spilling out.
Nic is writing ‘I am sorry’, and I want to cry. No, I think, don’t let him in again. No don’t let him in again. No don’t let him in again.
But it conveys the message that addiction is as biological a condition as multiple sclerosis. True brain diseases have no volitional component.
Fortunately there is a beautiful boy, unfortunately he has a terrible disease. Fortunately there is love and joy, unfortunately there is pain and misery. Fortunately this story is not over.
Parents are suckers.
Giving cash to a using addict is like handing a loaded gun to someone on the verge of suicide.
Everything will be all right.
Drugs pervade every college campus in America, and every city, so a young adult must learn to live among them.
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.
Nonetheless: if only and if only and if only.
Love cannot exist for long without the dimension of justice.
We are still nearer the winter edge of spring on this cool and misty May afternoon, the scent of wood smoke in the air – a remnant of the afternoon fire.