> This belief is baseless and unhelpful, and needs to be discarded. Based on what? I’m not saying that every addicted person is a helpless automaton, but peopl

> This belief is baseless and unhelpful, and needs to be discarded. Based on what? I’m not saying that every addicted person is a helpless automaton, but people are often subject to factors over which they have no control, and some instances of addiction are indeed close to someone being stuck in a loop until someone from the outside can intervene. This is why criminalization or ignoring the problem is so problematic. Many of these people need psychological help and supportive treatment. I’d also suggest that many of these people have fallen into a form of learned helplessness. In this state, they don’t actually believe they can do anything to change the situation, and so their brains never muster the will to do so. This is a well studied phenomena and I’d recommend the book “Learned Optimism” by Martin Seligman which explores the original research and discovery of Learned Helplessness. It’s a phenomena that is highly relevant to addiction, and “they should just try harder” isn’t a realistic stance.