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.
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."