To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings — all in the same relationship. - Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Substance abuse is a very real trap. Drugs and alcohol are very much like an abusive lover who treats you well at first and then beats you up, apologizes, gives you nice treatment for a while, and then beats you up again. The trap is in trying to hang in there for the good while trying to overlook the bad. Wrong. This can never work.

...stories that rise from deep suffering can provide the most potent remedies for past, present, and even future ills.

When a creature is exposed to violence, it will tend to adapt to that disturbance, so that when the violence ceases or the creature is allowed its freedom, the healthy instinct to flee is hugely diminished, and the creature stays put instead.