It's so easy to say "Do it" .... it's a little harder to actually do it with the current economic environment. Period. Please tell me more about my lack of effort has anything to do with my wage.

Jade, I am trying really hard here to make my own way in life. I am terrified, but I have had some success.

I just quit a job I had for 19 years because I believe I am better and that my own efforts are worth more than what "the man" can do for me.

There are many who have come into money in life because they were born with it, and many who started from scratch.

If you work you butt off, so can you and so can I.

Life is what YOU put into it and so are jobs. So put something in, be creative my friend and do not toss in the towel.

I need to pay my mortgage too and just took money out of savings to do it. But I believe in me, my work, work, work my butt off, same as you and in the end, I take leap of faith here and so can you.

If you are someone who can DO something, than do it. Walk into the light and don't look back.

I have no advice, just want to say I'm sorry you are feeling so low. I too live in Ohio, it's very cold here now. I'm glad you have a partner so you are not alone.

I don't know what to say... I don't think your responses to patient people who are trying to help, would be much different if you were making 8 dollars an hour, 8 cents an hour, or 8,000 dollars a hour.

Maybe if you could change your attitude........

Oh why do I bother wasting my breath?...

Gibbons, my grandmother supported myself and my two younger brothers from our birth to our adulthood, because my mother and the men she had sex with wouldn't. Two of our fathers died without giving any child support, and she was stuck with "the bill" - our food, clothing, schooling, etc... All I have had in my life are poor women providing us with what we need.

That is why at my age, I will NEVER ask my grandmother for anything. My father died 8 years ago (I'm 29) and my mother is a literal ***** in the city I live in.

I have worked since I was 15. I have already told my work experience before --- I have made AMAZING money even since I was 19.

NO - I put INCREDIBLE effort into my jobs right now, and I get paid BARELY ABOVE minimum wage, so what you are saying is a lie. If I got paid what I put out, I could pay my rent.

Please tell me more lies.

Gillan - My entire problem is that I work my ass off and I can't pay my bills, when in the past I have worked pretty good jobs with actual mental capacity involved and I could survive. What the fukk is your problem?

*my mother is a literal prostituuute ... sorry the website starred out the word whure.

Let's all be cool guys.

It's a tense time of year, especially with no money - been there done that - but turning on each other is not gonna help.

If you have anything that may help Jade or others in similar positions please do.

If this thread is getting you wound up, it's just as ok to breathe out, turn the stereo up and go and help someone else :)

What exactly is it you'd like us to help you with tonight Jade. We cannot change the economy or corporate america. We also cant change your past, either can you for that matter. We are here to help, but you have to let us know exactly what it is you would like help with.

best of luck friend, you can work it out.

thanks Dee I was speaking out of my ass :)

Hi Jade.

I'm very sorry to read about your ongoing struggles.

Following my three-year relapse (my God, I'm sooo tired of typing that, but there are people here who don't know or don't need to know my story), I had to go on public assistance due to all the physical and psychological damage I'd done to myself. I didn't have anyone to lean on for material support, and I'd rather have done it on my own anyway.

In New York, we're fortunate to have what's called "community housing"...a program in which people who have at least six months of sobriety documented by being in outpatient care, also for six months, are given free housing in clean and safe houses and apartment buildings. DSS pays your rent, gives you a bit of cash, and also gives you food stamps every month. Some people work off-the-books to make ends meet, or even to save money. When you get a legitimate job, they take 30% of your gross monthly income for rent. Ideally, you're then making enough that you'll move out of CH, and get your own place. But you can stay as long as you want, as long as you don't break the rules of any conventional lease, and you stay sober. It's worth it to investigate whether or not there is anything similar to this in Ohio.

I burned a lot of professional bridges when I relapsed, and it took a very long time for me to get back to work. I'm one of those people who actually did look for work each and every day, and it was extremely discouraging, to say the least. The hardest thing to do was to start off each day, inviting further despair and rejection.

The job market sucks and the state of health insurance sucks even more. This is a reality. People are out of work for months and years at a time, and the available jobs typically do not pay the rent. People have lost their homes, their pensions, their futures. It's impossible for me to overstate the magnitude of these things, if only because I know so many people whose lives have changed much for for the worse because of this reality.

This is not a matter of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps...most people who work hard have already been doing that for a long time. And my counseling you that you'd be better off were you not to drink doesn't pay the rent or fill your stomach. Plus you already know this.

If I could snap my fingers and make everything better for you, even just bearable, I wouldn't need to read and comment on a recovery Web site. I can't give you peace of mind, I can't give you a better job, and I certainly can't give you sobriety. What I can do is offer my support and let you know that you are not alone in this.

By the time I finally got a job in my field, everything else in life had gotten better for me, all due to my sobriety. I learned to live with less, and was happy with what I had. And soon after I started working, I began receiving offers to do consulting work, psychotherapy, teaching and more. The God's-honest truth about my story is that none of these things ever would have happened had I not been sober. Take that any way you want.

It may be an unpopular view, and I'm not recommending that you drink to get your moment of peace each day, but I choose not to see your plight -- one that many people simply buckle under -- as an excuse for your drinking. I don't know many people capable of bearing up while their lives are falling apart all around them. We have to stay alive, to survive our trips through hell in order to come to a better place...one that is neither guaranteed nor readily accessible. The choice of how you get there is yours and yours alone.

Jade,
I went through the whole thread and I call say is PRAY. Please pray. I hear you. I understand all that you are saying. I know that your life is not what you want right now, in fact it sounds really really hard. I am sorry that you are going through this. Pray. I will pray for you. It does not matter what you believe or do not. I am not coming from a place of religion.... I am just saying that you have to ask the Universe for what you want. Pray for it. Manifest it. It will happen.
This life will turn around. I know it will.
This does not sound all eloquent, or even how I want it to come across, but I hear you and I do understand where you are at. Keep walking forward and keep your head up. There is a light at the end of this tunnel.

(DO not regret becoming educated. Never)

Jade, just wanted to say hi, sorry things suck for you now. I agree that hard work doesn't always pay off. Occasionally some change just because it doesn't has jostled some better circumstances out of life for me.

Jade, your post caught my eye. I've been creeping around here for about a year. Did you say you are only 23? I'll be 59 tomorrow, I've been a drinker for more years than you have been alive & I've paid for my own insurance for 30 years, it's not the end of the world.