It’s strange how what drives us may abandon us midstream, how what tickles our ears with lies one moment may tell us truths that knock us on our emotional ass the next. After all, it is an unbelievably real world, with Darwin scribbling his thoughts into books and telling us what monkeys we are. Each of us explores possibility, hungry for sustaining adoration, yet we know enough to render ourselves helpless. We strive and strain, bellow and believe, we learn, and everything we learn tells us the same thing: life is one great meaningful experience in a meaningless world. Brilliance has many parts, yet each part is incomplete. We live, heal and attempt to piece together a picture worth the price of our very lives. The picture I saw presented demonic executioners, who crippled those daring to look and consumed souls without defense. They’re everywhere. Some are people we know. Others are the great fears and addictions of our lives.

Cutting down a wall, the wall sawyer could feel the tension in a home ease and something windy rush in circles round her feet. It was addictive, each a sweet victory of art. The tumbling motion of a falling wall was like a volcanic eruption fading into a mountain of roses. The wall sawyer felt a loving animosity toward walls. “You must pay attention to your obsessions, where life and love intersect,” she told the little queen.

She had her addictions and one of them was reading.

You don't have to live with whatever life throws you--or whatever you've gotten yourself into...You can choose to Change Your Story!

Men are a compilation of every experience and relationship they have ever lived through. Some experiences have bettered your man while others have battered him. The man standing before you is the result of a lifetime of surviving.

In the beginning, the taste of power is sweet, savored on the tongue, like fine wine. It whispers promises in your ear and pretends to be your friend. It is easy to become addicted to this feeling.

Entering the foyer, Royale already decided that he would thank Shake once more for being by his side at Keena’s recital. But she stunned him by eagerly waiting for him just like old times—on her knees wearing only a collar and a leash.

Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the centre of all addictive behaviours. It is present in the gambler, the Internet addict, the compulsive shopper and the workaholic. The wound may not be as deep and the ache not as excruciating, and it may even be entirely hidden—but it’s there. As we’ll see, the effects of early stress or adverse experiences directly shape both the psychology and the neurobiology of addiction in the brain.

We are not consumers. For most of humanity’s existence, we were makers, not consumers: we made our clothes, shelter, and education, we hunted and gathered our food.We are not addicts. “I propose that most addictions come from our surrendering our real powers, that is, our powers of creativity.” We are not passive couch potatoes either. “It is not the essence of humans to be passive. We are players. We are actors on many stages…. We are curious, we are yearning to wonder, we are longing to be amazed… to be excited, to be enthusiastic, to be expressive. In short to be alive.” We are also not cogs in a machine. To be so would be to give up our personal freedoms so as to not upset The Machine, whatever that machine is. Creativity keeps us creating the life we wish to live and advancing humanity’s purpose as well.

A hand-rolled cigarette to smoke,Another one bought from the store.If he lights one, his mind's lit upAnother one burns a hole..

Victoria was so wrong about me. I expected them to put me first, above everyone else.I am selfish. I am weak. I am bad.And I need Jasper. I need him like I need air to breathe. No—somehow, that cliché doesn’t seem quite right. He’s more like a shot of whiskey after a hard day. A burst of heroin in my burning veins.He is my drug. My ambrosia.I can’t live without him.

You know how some people develop addictions to manage their overwhelming emotions? Some people become alcoholics, coke fiends, potheads, pill-poppers, over-eaters, sex addicts or meth-heads. Well, Ann seemed to have a similar addiction to anger, he concluded. Feeling angry served the dual purpose of keeping others at a safe distance while drowning out all other competing and overwhelming emotions.

How could I have never told anyone what He had done for me? Nothing else had worked. Nothing had been able to break the chains that kept me living on the edge. Nothing....except the gentleness of His touch.

What American would not want truthful and complete information about every product sold in the United States so that we can be more capable of making wise decisions concerning our lives and the lives of our loved ones? These are our friends and our family members suffering from so many forms of cancer, several diseases of the heart, emphysema, poor circulation, blindness, strokes, various skin disorders, bad breath, asthma, poverty, clogged arteries, disfigurement, rotting teeth and gums, birth defects, infertility, sexual dysfunction, high blood pressure, aneurysms, complications during pregnancies, and all too often a slow and painful death. These suffering people are also many of us.

It's the soul that's starving, not the body

The easiest thing is to say no. What's not so easy is telling yourself to stop.

Most of our addictions [shopping, food, bad relationships] as women flare up when we feel that we are not loved or sought after.

The idea of sin being able to deceive us, suppressing truth so that we believe a lie, should send shivers down our spines. It is one thing to deceive other people. That is scary enough. It is even more frightening when we realize that each lie we tell leaves us more self-deceived. All practiced sin teaches us to believe lies. WE don't often consider the boomerang effect of our deception. In the end it will get us.

Promises from Lo are like bars at 2 a.m.--empty.

There are casualties in war. Those who don’t make it back to a place of sound hopes and dreams. Some take on their demons alone. They are deceived into fearlessness and trampled by the hooves of their oppressor. Besides intervention, there is little justice for the thousands-upon-thousands hacked to pieces all around us. How dare we try to take life to the next level. Instead of merely protecting ourselves or scrounging up our next meal, we have the audacity to hope for something more—a witness for our lives who will survive alongside us.

Altitude sickness, unregulated drugs and medical gas enabled workers to become drug abusers/addicts

Over-the-counter ‪‎drug‬ ‪‎abuse‬ or addiction was a problem that I observed at Mauna Kea

Doing something once can be addicting. Doing it twice is admitting it.

You mean something like ‘truth or dare’? I haven’t played that in a long time.” She didn’t think he would ever get himself entangled in a game like that, but it was addictive, a compromising icebreaker featuring all the strategy of Poker, minus the cards, mixed with a dash of danger from Russian Roulette, without the revolver.

Vassily cleared his throat, probably impatient with Gabriel's bookshelf manners. 'You'll have to excuse me,' Gabriel said, putting back the booklet, 'I have a severe addiction to ink.''Don't we all?' Vassily nodded. 'Thank God we have other addictions to assuage it a little.

I recovered from recovering so no longer celebrate not doing bad things to defend myself as good. I added new bad for good measure.

No one is entitled to anything. Everything we get in this life we have worked for. And sometimes we take on baggage we never even signed up for, but that dosen't mean you deserve it. I wake up everyday wishing I could change things, but I can't change past. All I can do is change the future.

It is impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the addict finds, or hopes to find, in the drug or the addictive behaviour.

Unfortunately, the escape became the trap.