#symptoms

The question is frequently asked: Why does a man become a drug addict? The answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. You don’t wake up one morning and decide to be a drug addict. It takes at least three months’ shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don’t really know what junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict. The questions, of course, could be asked: Why did you ever try narcotics? Why did you continue using it long enough to become an addict? You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in the other direction. Junk wins by default. I tried it as a matter of curiosity. I drifted along taking shots when I could score. I ended up hooked. Most addicts I have talked to report a similar experience. They did not start using drugs for any reason they can remember. They just drifted along until they got hooked. If you have never been addicted, you can have no clear idea what it means to need junk with the addict’s special need. You don’t decide to be an addict. One morning you wake up sick and you’re an addict. (Junky, Prologue, p. xxxviii) ↗

— William S. Burroughs

#addicts #drug-addiction #junk #junkie #motivations

Vertigo, it was thought at the time, could only be caused by a disease of the cerebellum. He observed this kind of patient for years and saw absolutely no symptoms of brain disease. ↗

— Robert Barany

#brain #caused #could #disease #kind

Have I given any symptoms of an avaricious disposition? Have I obtained any grants from the crown since I have been placed at the head of the treasury? Has my conduct been different from that which others in the same station would have followed? ↗

— Robert Walpole

#been #conduct #crown #different #disposition

There were symptoms that I saw, and though I went to many doctors and had many tests, no one diagnosed MS. ↗

— Teri Garr

#doctors #had #i #many #ms

For me, one of the major reasons to move beyond just the planting of trees was that I have tendency to look at the causes of a problem. We often preoccupy ourselves with the symptoms, whereas if we went to the root cause of the problems, we would be able to overcome the problems once and for all. ↗

— Wangari Maathai

#beyond #cause #causes #i #just

What we know from World War I is that some of our troops had acute symptoms of exposure to chemicals, had bad health and died because of chemical exposure in World War I. ↗

— Christopher Shays

#bad #because #chemical #chemicals #died

Newborn screening is a public health intervention that involves a simple blood test used to identify many life-threatening genetic illnesses before any symptoms begin. ↗

— Lucille Roybal-Allard

#before #begin #blood #genetic #health

Trying to suppress or eradicate symptoms on the physical level can be extremely important, but there's more to healing than that; dealing with psychological, emotional and spiritual issues involved in treating sickness is equally important. ↗

— Marianne Williamson

#emotional #equally #eradicate #extremely #healing

We've got to stop focusing solely on the symptoms of crime, and start caring about the causes as well. ↗

— Carrie P. Meek

#caring #causes #crime #focusing #got

We live in a time when the words impossible and unsolvable are no longer part of the scientific community's vocabulary. Each day we move closer to trials that will not just minimize the symptoms of disease and injury but eliminate them. ↗

— Christopher Reeve

#community #day #disease #each #eliminate