"I tried to give up drugs by drinking"
About this Quote
A perfect Lou Reed line: funny on impact, bleak on reflection. "I tried to give up drugs by drinking" is structured like a self-help confession and lands like a punchline, but the joke is the trap. It turns the language of recovery into an admission of substitution, not salvation - a swap of demons that keeps the same contract with numbness.
Reed understood that addiction isn't just a chemical problem; it's a narrative you tell yourself to keep going. The verb "tried" does a lot of work: it signals effort, even sincerity, while pre-loading the failure. "Give up" implies a clean moral gesture, the kind of neat turning point biographies love. Then "by drinking" detonates the fantasy. It's harm reduction recast as self-deception, the classic move of picking a vice that looks socially legible - alcohol as the respectable costume for craving.
Coming from Reed, the line also functions as cultural shorthand for a whole era's glamorous ruin. The Velvet Underground mythology is thick with heroin chic and downtown nihilism, but Reed's best writing always undercuts romance with bookkeeping. This is the ledger entry: no redemption arc, just lateral motion. It echoes the way people in creative scenes talk about survival - half bravado, half weary honesty, using humor to keep shame at bay. The subtext is almost tender in its bluntness: if you're listening closely, it's less a boast than a warning delivered with a smirk.
Reed understood that addiction isn't just a chemical problem; it's a narrative you tell yourself to keep going. The verb "tried" does a lot of work: it signals effort, even sincerity, while pre-loading the failure. "Give up" implies a clean moral gesture, the kind of neat turning point biographies love. Then "by drinking" detonates the fantasy. It's harm reduction recast as self-deception, the classic move of picking a vice that looks socially legible - alcohol as the respectable costume for craving.
Coming from Reed, the line also functions as cultural shorthand for a whole era's glamorous ruin. The Velvet Underground mythology is thick with heroin chic and downtown nihilism, but Reed's best writing always undercuts romance with bookkeeping. This is the ledger entry: no redemption arc, just lateral motion. It echoes the way people in creative scenes talk about survival - half bravado, half weary honesty, using humor to keep shame at bay. The subtext is almost tender in its bluntness: if you're listening closely, it's less a boast than a warning delivered with a smirk.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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