You have to realize there is nothing more you can do to convince someone you love to turn their life around. You simply have to say, "Look. I love you, but I cannot stand by and watch you kill yourself slowly. When you want help I'm here. Until then, goodbye." That may sound cruel, but self-preservation is paramount to helping someone else. If you're a wreck, you're useless to them, anyway. And if they refuse help, despite knowing the likely outcome, they will head down that path anyway.

Sometimes the little things in life mean the most.

THE BAD THING ABOUT FEAR Is it requires a reaction. Some hide. Some cry. But, like a dog condemned to a walled yard with no hope of escape or affection, some learn to bite.

As the old saying goes, "sometimes loving someone means letting them go.

Not even Carol knows firsthand how it feels to be hurt in such a way by someone who's supposed to protect you

empty and closed, hovering in some frozen netherworld neither sun nor rain could thaw.

Coyotes hunt in packs, and so do assholes.