Chris Prentiss Quotes

I wrote this book to show you that a cure is entirely possible because I've seen it happen over and over again.

~ Chris Prentiss

When you change the way you see and interpret events, suddenly everything will be different for you. Everything will make sense.

~ Chris Prentiss

What we call coincidences, accidental and remarkable events occurring at the same time, are actually circumstances and events that have come into your life to serve a purpose- and that purpose is to benefit you.

~ Chris Prentiss

In 1935, when there were no other programs, the founders of AA, Bill Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith, stepped up to the plate and took action to help a crippled population. All credit for the establishment of their wonderful, life-saving group goes to them and to those who came after them who have continued the tradition. However, there are hundreds of millions of people who still need help who are not among the estimated two or three million who attend twelve-step meetings.

~ Chris Prentiss

When a problem or a difficult situation arises, say to yourself, as if you already believe it: This is for my benefit.

~ Chris Prentiss

We have the best chance of communicating our thoughts if we are sincere and speak from the heart, without hidden intent.

~ Wu Wei

You don't need to be a scientist to know how powerful your imagination is.

~ Chris Prentiss

Times change and discoveries are made that render earlier techniques and approaches less effective. Change is inevitable. To remain rigid when the whole world is changing and advancing is to invite misfortune. The AA program in particular is challenged with an opportunity of unprecedented magnitude.

~ Chris Prentiss

You are not alone in your quest to be who you want and have what you want.

~ Chris Prentiss

Your perception of the world and the way you see yourself in it has created within your mind a concept, a philosophy, of the way you believe things to be.

~ Chris Prentiss

By changing how you perceive things and how you act upon those perceptions, you will change your life.

~ Chris Prentiss

Rest is essential, but during our periods of rest, we must think to ourselves that in resting we are renewing our energy to fulfill our commitment.

~ Wu Wei

Every person in the AA program who's successful is living proof that he or she does have power over addictive drugs and alcohol- the power to stop.

~ Chris Prentiss

A computer cannot manufacture new information. That's the difference between our brain and a computer.

~ Chris Prentiss

We like to take credit when we get a new idea, as if we originated the idea in our brain, but what we actually did was no less extraordinary: we channeled the idea.

~ Chris Prentiss

You use your brain much as you would use a radio crystal, you tune in different frequencies.

~ Chris Prentiss

Every belief that you hold manifests itself in some manner by either causing you to take some form of action or by preventing you from taking action. If you don't believe something is possible, you won't even attempt it.

~ Chris Prentiss

Your actions create an energy vortex that draws in the necessary ingredients for your venture.

~ Chris Prentiss

Even the worst outcome we can imagine will ultimately benefit us. It is because of that law of favor-ability that the Universe is able to continue and we are able to bring about the fruition of our plans.

~ Wu Wei

You can take the entire world of physics with all of its macrocosm and microcosm, its quantum mechanics and nuclear physics and reduce it to one word: energy. It's all energy. Scientists say that if you can't measure it, weight it, or see it, it doesn't exist. Well, no one has ever seen energy. We can see its effects, but not it.

~ Chris Prentiss

The energy everything is made of is conscious. It's alive.

~ Chris Prentiss

When people who believe themselves to be addicts or alcoholics come under great stress or trauma, they mentally give themselves permission to drink or use drugs as a remedy.

~ Chris Prentiss

Alcohol and drugs are not the problems; they are what people are using to help themselves cope with the problems. Those problems always have both physical and psychological components- anything from anemia, hypoglycemia, or a sluggish thyroid to attention deficient disorder, brain-wave pattern imbalances, or deep emotional pain.

~ Chris Prentiss

When nothing else worked, we created a holistic, hand-tailored program that saved Pax's life. At Passages, he and I use what we learned in curing him to help others discover the roots of their addiction or alcoholism and break free.

~ Chris Prentiss

If you can stop using substance or stop your addictive behavior for extended periods of time without craving, you are not dependent. You are dependent only if you can't stop without physical or psychological distress (you have unpleasant physical and/or psychological withdrawal symptoms) or if you stop and then relapse.

~ Chris Prentiss

The advertise their products in such a fashion as to make it seem wonderful to drink their ethanol products. It does not matter if they give their products fancy name like Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir, or if they put bubbles in an ethanol product and call it champagne or beer- everyone is selling ethanol.

~ Chris Prentiss

If those underlying conditions aren't treated, the return of those symptoms may cause us so much discomfort that we'll go back to using addictive drugs or alcohol to obtain relief. That's the primary reason there is such a high rate of relapse among people who have become dependent of alcohol and addictive drugs. It has little to do with alcohol and addiction themselves and almost everything to do with the original causes that created the dependency.

~ Chris Prentiss

If I were to create a word that more accurately describes alcoholism and addiction, I would say it was dependencyism. Sounds silly, doesn't it? Yet it's no sillier than the word alcoholism. The reason alcoholism no longer sounds silly to you is because you're used to hearing it, reading it, and thinking about it.

~ Chris Prentiss

How do you think your body and mind would respond if you were surrounded by psychologists, psychiatrists, or drug and alcohol counselors who subscribed to the belief that once an alcoholic or addict, always an alcoholic or addict and who believed that your current stay in rehab would be one of many?

~ Chris Prentiss

Whatever you now do, whatever you now believe, whatever your current circumstances may be, you are perfectly equipped and fully capable of fulfilling your needs and desires.

~ Chris Prentiss

We know that you don't want to be a drunk and you don't want to be hooked on addictive drugs. You do it because you can't cope with your life without some sort of support, even if that support is damaging.

~ Chris Prentiss

...there is a saying used in twelve-step programs and in most treatment centers that Relapse is part of recovery. It's another dangerous slogan that is based on a myth, and it only gives people permission to relapse because that think that when they do, they are on the road to recovery.

~ Chris Prentiss

Alcohol is the drug ethanol. They are one and the same. Alcohol is also called ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol. It is a chemical compound. Ethanol is often added to the gasoline we use to run our cars.

~ Chris Prentiss