Hopefully the last in a series of posts about this sort of thing

Isn't it interesting that the times you want drugs or alcohol the most are the times you need them least?

That unless you stay stone-cold sober, you'll never get out of whatever hole you've stepped into?
It's not how a man takes the good times that counts, not in the end. It's how he takes the bad times. Does he crawl into a bottle and drink the mortgage payment, or does he cut back on his own indulgence first, so the people he loves don't have to? Does he face the challenge, or does he ignore it, run away to the next one?

No matter how dark times get, they can always get darker. Things don't get better on their own. You have to make them get better. Whether it's unfair wages or a dead-end relationship, it's up to you to fix it. Sometimes that means getting out of the situation. Other times that means fixing the situation. Most of the time you just need to fix your own perspective. But it always means doing something.

Not everything you can do helps. You can grab a shovel and help your own gravediggers twice as easy as you can pull yourself up out of that grave. But you can't change anyone but you. That's all you really need, really. Nobody can make you think or feel or believe anything if you don't let them. If you aren't content with "almost" or "could have," if you are willing to try that much harder instead of just complaining, you can overcome anything. Even if the objective hazard is too great and death is certain, there is a certain dignity in facing your own death with integrity.