Citations:hopium

English citations of hopium

Noun: "(informal, derogatory) irrational or unwarranted optimism"

						1988	2008 2009 2010 2011
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• 1988 — David Chidester, Salvation and Suicide: An Interpretation of Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown, Indiana University Press (1988), →ISBN, page 57:

  This was the practical God in distinction to Sky Gods, Buzzard Gods, and the unknown God worshipped by those who were addicted to the "hopium" of myth.

• 2008 — John Kass, "Favre and bribe talk sound right for Illinois pay-to-play", Chicago Tribune, 1 August 2008:

  It's the last time I ever want to hear McCain whining about the liberal media loving Barack Obama more. He knows it. And I know that many reporters are helpless Obama hopium addicts. But somebody lofted him a perfect pass and he fumbled it.

• 2010 — W. C. Augustine, Atlas Rising, Tate Publishing & Enterprises, LLC (2010), →ISBN, page 206:

  "I think you are unconsciously smoking hopium. I'm putting the odds less than twenty percent. […]

• 2011 — Carolyn Baker, Navigating the Coming Chaos: A Handbook for Inner Transition, iUniverse (2011), →ISBN, page 105:

  About one year after Barack Obama became President, I noticed on one radical left website the words "the hopium is wearing off."

• 2011 — Chris Lytle, The Accidental Sales Manager: How to Take Control and Lead Your Sales Team to Record Profits, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (2011), →ISBN, unnumbered page:

  Salespeople like Michael are hooked on hopium. They present and pray hoping they have done enough to win the business. And their sales process ends there.

• 2013, Kimberly Foss, Wealthy by Design: A 5-Step Plan for Financial Security, Greenleaf Book Group (→ISBN), page 34:

  To sit back and wait for somebody else to solve your problem requires an attitude I refer to as “hopium”—foolish hope. Hopium allows individuals to ignore new and sometimes unpleasant financial realities, and hopium is what keeps ...

• 2016, Tracy Schorn, Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life: The Chump Lady's Survival Guide, Running Press Adult (→ISBN), page 114:

  Spackle is the gateway drug to hopium. When you can't spackle any longer, you have to hit the harder stuff—delusional hope, or “hopium.” It's a powerful hallucinogenic. Hopium can make you see potential in the grimmest set of ...

• 2020, Jack Adam Weber, Carolyn Baker, Climate Cure: Heal Yourself to Heal the Planet, Llewellyn Worldwide (→ISBN)

  In response to the doomsayers's pattern of rejecting hopeful evidence, I coined the term reverse hopium. I define the term hopium as "unrealistic positive hope to make us feel better in the face of bad news; a cognitive opiate to reduce existential angst."