Michael Botticelli quotes:

Blunt force didn't knock out the drug epidemic. 21 million Americans are addicted to drugs or alcohol. And half of all federal inmates are in for drug crimes.

Addiction is a brain disease. This is not a moral failing. This is not about bad people who are choosing to continue to use drugs because they lack willpower.

I'm one of 23 million Americans in recovery who have gone on to live productive lives.

Prescription drugs and heroin act in very similar ways on the brain. And, unfortunately, heroin, because of its widespread availability is a lot cheaper.

The hallmark of addiction is that it changes your brain chemistry. It actually affects that part of your brain that's responsible for judgment.

Addiction is such an isolating incident in your life. You feel alone. And when you admit, when you come into a fellowship and people just surround you and say, "We will help you, that you're not alone, that we've been through it before, and you will get through it," just gives you such great hope.

I think it's overly simplistic to say that any one single strategy is going to really change the focus and change the trajectory of drug use.

I would say that I probably had an unhealthy love affair with drinking. I grew up as this kind of insecure kid, you know, kind of making my way. And drinking took all of that away.

One of the drivers of heroin has been the misuse of pain medication. If we're gonna deal with heroin and heroin use in the United States, we really have to focus on reducing the magnitude of the prescription drug use issue.

People drink and do drugs for a reason. Cause it makes them feel good - until it doesn't anymore.

We can't arrest and incarcerate addiction out of people. Not only do I think it's really inhumane, but it's ineffective and it cost us billions upon billions of dollars to keep doing this.

If I, in some small way can help people to see that there is this huge, incredible life on the other side of addiction, you know, I will feel accomplished in my job.