If your friend is willing to open up......& they don't have professional help....sometimes it's important when it does get to this point to have professional help as there may be some really deep things that are causing this that you aren't trained to handle.......

But even with professionals, it's important to have a good friend who is WILLING TO LISTEN & hear what they have to say.

The problem that we all had with one person....is that she kept saying the same thing over & over & complaining about the same thing over & over but wasn't willing to take any actions that would change her situation. She had very poor professional help & mostly had none....but was encouraged to get that help......her problems went way back to her childhood & not something that any of us as her friends were trained or capable of helping her with.......so don't take the I'll save you approach....just take the "I'm here to listen & that's all I'm capable of doing" approach. One of my friends got so involved in her problems that it ended up really messing up her life......so one has to have defined boundaries also while being as much help as possible.