And you know what the worst thing was? The worst thing was that nobody ever believed how hard we tried.

— Jack McCarthy

Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it, or you will be like the graduated gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be like the laughing peasant of Italy. Never drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell. But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world.

— G.K. Chesterton

Find someone you care enough about to help you control your drinking. Preferably yourself.

— Robert Black

God has broken me in every way possible. I spent a year not caring, a year trying to figure out what I'd done to deserve it. And a year trying to make it right.

— Cassandra Giovanni

I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.

— Edgar Allan Poe

I have spent so many nights out under the stars Euphoria running through my veins and alcohol coursing through my bloody mind would race along with my hearty vision drawn to the stars and all the possibilities of what is out there Suddenly the world and all its problems seems so infinitesimal My mind leaves this plane And a smile is drawn across my face know this isn’t reality, but I absorb it with all my being find it better to be lost out here then found in my real life Amongst the stars now I can live And it’s beautiful For the moments it lasts, it’s beautiful Its heaven on earth

— Morris R. Gates

In IRENA’s head the alcohol plays a double role: it frees her fantasy, encourages her boldness, makes her sensual, and at the same time it dims her memory. She makes love wildly, lasciviously, and at the same time the curtain of oblivion wraps her lewdness in an all-concealing darkness. As if a poet were writing his greatest poem with ink that instantly disappears.

— Milan Kundera

She poured us some more Scotch. It didn't seem to affect her any more than water affects Boulder Dam.

— Raymond Chandler

Who's Johnnie Walker?"" It's a drink. For grown-ups."" Is it nice?"" Makes you drunk."" What's it like being drunk?" "Like being awake and asleep at the same time."" Sounds nice." "It was meant to sound terrible," he said looking down his glasses at her. "You get sick and stagger around. People actually vomit sometimes.

— Tom Rachman