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Cornell: You know, if your counselor catches you using you could get in big trouble.
Gwen Cummings: I don't plan on discussing it with him.
Cornell: Too late.
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Gwen Cummings: Don't be someone else's slogan because you are poetry.
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Gwen Cummings: I am having a bad day! The worst damn day of my whole damn life! If it is not too much to ask will you all just back the fuck off!
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Gwen Cummings: I'm not a lesbian!
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Oliver: I'm thinkin' booze.
Gerhardt: Cocaine.
Roshanda: Pain killers.
Bobbie Jean: This is not a nice game.
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Lily: Gwen, you make it impossible to love you.
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Gwen Cummings: God, I love afternoons like this. You know what's missing in this afternoon? That I don't have a very dry vodka martini with two olives in a chilled glass. God, I miss that.
Eddie Boone: You know, lately I've been lying awake at night thinking of all the dumb-ass things I've done when i was messed up. One night last year, at dinner, I threw up all over my glazed ham. Then I was thinking, "Well, maybe nobody noticed."
Gwen Cummings: I don't think of it as a garnish.
Eddie Boone: Yeah, I'm a winner. Oh, God. You know what the worse one was? For me? My best friend in the whole world. Grew up playing ball, hunting and fishing. One Sunday morning, he walks in on me and his wife in bed. You never live that one down. Tell me one of yours.
Gwen Cummings: Excuse me?
Eddie Boone: What's the worse thing you ever did when you were messed up.
Gwen Cummings: Oh... Uh. I don't know
Eddie Boone: Oh, come on. Give me a couple, I'll pick one.
Gwen Cummings: I don't really remember any.
Eddie Boone: I just told you some stuff that's... you know.
Gwen Cummings: I'm a drunk. Drunks forget everything, you know?
Eddie Boone: Come on.
Gwen Cummings: Why? So I recount the last 15 disgusting years of my life to humilate myself? No thanks.
Eddie Boone: Why not?
Gwen Cummings: Because I don't feel like it. I don't feel like talking about it.
Eddie Boone: What's a matter? You too good for me?
Gwen Cummings: What, are you dense? Did your mom drop you on your head? I said No I don't want to talk about it, so just drop it.
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Gwen Cummings: It was the most unbelievable episode. I wish you'd seen it. Everyone was losing their minds. What are you doing?
Andrea: Packing. What does it look like?
Gwen Cummings: You're not leaving for another couple of days.
Andrea: So? I am leaving. Might as well get ready. There's no point in making this room all homey if I'm only going to be here for only, like, 42 more hours.
Gwen Cummings: Come on. There's twenty minutes left til curfew. Let's get some ice cream. Satisify those sugar cravings of yours.
Andrea: No thanks.
[Sticks out her tongue to show she's been eating chocolate]
Gwen Cummings: You don't have to do this, you know.
Andrea: Do what? How do you know what I have to do? Have you ever left rehab before?
Gwen Cummings: No but I...
Andrea: Okay, but nothing. You've never left rehab before, so you don't know what you're talking about.
Gwen Cummings: True, but I have been a part of some very emotional sing outs...
Andrea: Oh, God. I'm sorry. You sang "Lean on Me" a few times. The stupidest freaking cheesy song ever. Oh well, my mistake. You must know about leaving rehab better than anyone.
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Lily: The only thing I told you was how a pain in the ass you were.
Gwen Cummings: well I am a pain in the ass
Lily: Even a pain in the ass needs, someone, to take care of them. I didn't do that, I didn't and, I should have. I should have helped you with your homework, I should have walked you home after school. Sometimes I'd be walking with my friends and I'd see you half a block ahead, all alone. You were so little.
Gwen Cummings: Well, so were you
Lily: Yeh
Gwen Cummings: Well, I never asked for help so...
Lily: But you needed it, didn't you. I mean everybody does
Gwen Cummings: Yep... I'm sorry I make it so impossible to love me...
[crying]
Lily: You make it impossible for me not to love you
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Betty: [announcing over PA system] Tonight's lecture: "What's wrong with celebrating sobriety by getting drunk?"
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Gwen Cummings: It's a tautology... it is what it is, be cause it is what it is... Like, why is the sky blue, because it reflects off the ocean, well why is is the ocean blue, because it reflects off the sky.
Eddie Boone: WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO?
Gwen Cummings: I don't know
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Betty: Tonight's lecture: "What's wrong with celebrating sobriety by getting drunk?"
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Gwen Cummings: Yeah, I know I drink a lot, I know I do because I'm a writer and that's what I do, I drink. I'm not like those people out there, I can control myself! I can, if - that - if I wanted to, I could, if I wanted. I can! I can!
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Gerhardt: [shouts] Oh my God! Look at my package!
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Gwen Cummings: Is that available stitched on a pillow somewhere?
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Cornell: This isn't a way to live. This is a way to die.
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Cornell: Yeah, you're an individual. The only person in the world who uses drugs and alcohol.
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Gerhardt: There's a time when you can share and you hold hands and be on the same path. But there's always a fork in the road... at some point. And sometimes you have to go on one part of the fork and they gotta go on the other part of the fork. Or just down the back part of the fork while you go forward. And they're like *sigh* Or they got a salad fork and you have one of the big dinner forks and you have longer to go but they're like done because that's it, they're stuck on a piece of food, that they *sigh*. A desert fork or like one of those, you know small little shrimp forks or crab forks and you're trying to get out a crab. They're like that and you're over here jumping to the huge serving fork or something like that, or a ladle, you know.
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Gwen Cummings: [Breaking down] I'm sorry I make it impossible for you to love me.
Lily: [Consoling her] Oh, Gwen, you make it impossible for me not to love you.
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Eddie Boone: [carrying Gwen in from outside] Eddie Boone, checking in.
Night Tech: You can't bring a girl into treatment with you, Eddie.
Eddie Boone: I wasn't gonna keep her.
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[after Andrea has cut herself]
Andrea: Just so you know, I wasn't trying to off myself or anything.
Gwen Cummings: Okay.
Andrea: It's just something I do sometimes.
Gwen Cummings: Doesn't it hurt?
Andrea: Feels better.
Gwen Cummings: Than what?
Andrea: Everything else.
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Lily Cummings: Even a pain in the ass needs someone to take care of them.
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Jasper: No one adult human being is happy! People are born, they have a limited amount of time going around thinking life is dandy but then, inevitably, tragedy strikes and they realise life equals loss! The whole point of the game is to minimise the pain caused by that equation! Now some people do it by having kids, or making money, or taking up coin collecting, and others do it by getting wasted.
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Gwen Cummings: Nobody gets hurt collecting coins.
Jasper: Everybody hurts everybody it's the human condition!
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Gwen Cummings: I don't feel fine.
Jasper: Well of coursre you don't feel fine, you're in deliverance country surrounded by a bunch of sober freaks!
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Gwen Cummings: Why do you want me Jasper? I am such a mess.
Jasper: Maybe I like mess.
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Roshanda: I don't think you have niceness, you see, I don't feel niceness coming from you.
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[on telephone]
Lily Cummings: Hello?
Gwen Cummings: Hey, it's me, Gwen.
Lily Cummings: I know which me it is.
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Gwen Cummings: Andrea, does the phrase "in confidence" mean anything to you?
Andrea: You never said not to tell.
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Oliver: Well, it's not a very cool guy to bring you booze in rehab, huh?
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Betty: Tonight's lecture: Are you a blackout drunk, or don't you remember?
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Jasper: [to Gwen] I'll buy running shoes. We'll take up yoga or jogging. You know, we'll be organized. Pay our bills, floss our teeth. We won't set fire to the apartment anymore. I'll buy a goldfish, and we'll be like normal people.
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Betty: Tonight's lecture: I've walked all 12 steps; Can I go home now?
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Betty: Tonight's lecture: How many brain cells did I kill last night?
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Cornell: If that will make you happy, I will stop drinking. And then I would tell myself tonight I will not get wasted. And then something would happen. Or nothing would happen. And I'd get that feeling and you all know what that feeling is; when your skin is screaming and your hands are shaking and your stomach feels like it wants to jump through your throat. And you know that if anyone had a clue how wrong it felt to be sober, they wouldn't dream of asking you to stay that way. They would say oh geez, I didn't know. It's okay for you. Do that mound of cocaine. Have a drink. Have 20 drinks. Whatever you need to do to feel like a normal human being, you do it. And boy I did it. I drank and I snorted. I drank and snorted. I drank and snorted. And I did this day after day, day after day, night after night. I didn't care about the consequences because I knew they couldn't be half as bad as not using. And then one night something happened. I woke up. I woke up on a sidewalk and I had no idea where I was. I couldn't have told you what city I was in. And my head was pounding and I looked down and my shirt is covered in blood. And as I'm lying there wondering what happens next and I heard a voice. And it said man, this is not a way to live. This is a way to die.
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Gerhardt: [last lines - crying] What are you doing here, it's so good to see you.
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Gwen Cummings: Jasper, don't be a jerk.
Jasper: Yeah, well, Gwen, don't be a slut.
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Equine Therapist: Folks, the definition of insanity is repeating the same behaviour over and over again, expecting different results.
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Cornell: For everyone who's new here tonight, I know that this is not your year.
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Eddie Boone: He is dangerous for you.
28 Days Quotes
Extended Reading
