I knew there was never anyone to blame when people get into drugs. They're always responsible for their own behavior, and it's not the dealer, and it's not the friend, it's not the childhood. (Scar Tissue, 2004).

If somehow we could snap our fingers and there would no longer be any drugs in the world whatsoever, would there be no more addiction? Would there be no more suffering? Or is it possible that addiction is not really about drugs, that addiction is really about the relationships that human beings form with one another and all sorts of things? That it's about the difference between establishing good relationships and bad relationships? Who is going to be in control? Who is going to say what this relationship should be between ourselves and these plants and chemicals and substances?... Is this a decision that we just put in the hands of government? Is this a decision we put just in the hands of doctors? Just in the hands of the pharmaceutical companies, the tobacco companies, the alcohol companies and all the other corporations that profit off of the production and sale of these things? The true challenge is how do we learn to live with these substances in such a way that they cause the least possible harm and the greatest possible good. What will cause people to wake up and say "Stop?" What will cause people to say, "Enough is enough?" What will cause people to say, "I value my freedom even if that freedom involves a measure of risk?"

we're responsible for our own lives.

We are responsible for ourselves. We are responsible for our own luck... what an empowering thought. If you see responsibility as a bum deal, you are not seeing it for what it really is: a great opportunity. What will separate you from the complaining crowd will be how you choose to look at your own situation.

We are responsible for experiences that aren’t our fault all the time. This is part of life. Here’s

It is not only others who are to blame for all our evils. Nor will in any circumstances only others shape our destiny. And for the present situation we all bear part of the responsibility in our own way. And especially for the future: our personal, our vocation and our people.

WE ALL create the person we become by our choices as we go through life. In a very real sense, by the time we are adult, we are the sum total of the choices we have made. This is not pleasant hearing for the person who wishes to place the responsibility for what he has become on someone else or on that blanket alibi, circumstances beyond his control. To such a person the circumstances always seem to be beyond his control. But I believe most firmly that in the long run every single one of us must be responsible for himself and for his actions.

We are responsible for experiences that aren’t our fault all the time. This is part of life.

It is impossible for anyone to be responsible for another person's behavior. The most you or any leader can do is to encourage each one to be responsible for himself.

Being responsible is taking ownership of your life. It means you have taken the first radical step to becoming a complete human being — fully conscious and fully human. In taking responsibility and beginning the journey toward conscious living, you are putting an end to the age-old patterns of assigning blame outward or heavenward. You have begun the greatest adventure life has to offer: the voyage inward.

In sober truth no person can ever be truly responsible for another human being. Each one of us faces up to the universe alone, and the universe is what it is and it doesn’t soften the rules for any of us—and eventually, in the long run, the universe always wins and takes all. But that doesn’t make it any easier when we try to be responsible for one another—as you have, as I have—and then look back and see how we could have done it better.

It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.

You cannot blame anyone else for What you do. You cannot blame your past for who you are. You are responsible for you. You make your own choices.

The difficulty we have in accepting responsibility for our behavior lies in the desire to avoid the pain of the consequences of that behavior.