"I admire anyone who rids himself of an addiction"
About this Quote
The phrasing matters. “Rids himself” frames addiction as an occupying force, something invasive that must be expelled, not a cute vice or a moral quirk. It also makes agency central: the hero is the person doing the ridding, not the public cheering them on. That subtle emphasis reads like a corrective to an era when women’s pain was either romanticized or concealed, and when Hollywood’s machinery often treated dependency as scandal to hush up, not illness to face.
Tierney’s own life gives the line its quiet voltage. She endured severe mental health crises, institutionalization, and the kind of tabloid scrutiny that turned suffering into spectacle. In that light, “admire” becomes a disciplined choice: not pity, not judgment, not fascination - respect. It’s a sentence that refuses melodrama while acknowledging how brutal change can be, especially when your identity is being managed by studios, doctors, and headlines.
The subtext is a rebuke: if you can celebrate a star’s beauty, you can also respect the invisible work of surviving yourself.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Discipline |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Tierney, Gene. (2026, January 15). I admire anyone who rids himself of an addiction. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-admire-anyone-who-rids-himself-of-an-addiction-146455/
Chicago Style
Tierney, Gene. "I admire anyone who rids himself of an addiction." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-admire-anyone-who-rids-himself-of-an-addiction-146455/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I admire anyone who rids himself of an addiction." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-admire-anyone-who-rids-himself-of-an-addiction-146455/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.








