@jca having been elbow deep involved with addiction in my family, I can tell you one thing for certain. Therapeutic services and even psychiatric help only work if the person wants them to work. And those therapeutic services are out there now to be used. I’m more thinking of providing a lifetime of welfare, housing, food stamps and the like. I am a big believer that those things have a place in our society. But I also am a big believer that we too often provide social services without asking social responsibility in return. When someone needs support to survive, but they have money to spend at a casino, I have a real problem with that. Ditto that for drugs or alcohol or whatever.
Most addicts rely on someone else to make life acceptable for them. The more “help” they are given, the less drive they have for giving up their addiction. Go to any NarAnon meeting. These are the meetings for family members of persons addicted to narcotics. There is a story with everyone there. And they all sound amazingly the same. “I took them in, trying to help. I wanted to keep them off the street. They stole my rent money, but I managed to cover it with some help from MY parents. They lied to me, stole from me, and treated me like crap. In the end I told them they had to leave. They either had to get clean or they would die, but they were not going to do it in my house any more.” At that point the stories have one of two endings. The addict went on to die on the street or they came back a year later thanking the person that threw them out. It was the best thing they could have done. The point is, as long as you are providing a crutch, most addicts will limp along. Until they actually have to take the responsibility for their own actions and their own lives, until they actually hit rock bottom and realize it, they will never get better.