I agree that society as a whole needs to be kinder to addicts. But as someone who has struggled with addiction, I do think there should be a balance. Addicts need love and compassion, but they also need to understand how their behaviors affect others (and themselves) so they are motivated to change. If it wasn't for the people who told me I needed to do better, I might not have changed. And I tried my whole childhood to love the addiction out of my parents but it didn't work, they remained just as drunk and violent.

Interesting. My parents were abusive alcoholics and I started drinking around 12 to numb the mental anguish of living in a violent household. Once I moved away for college I definitely drank less, but I still needed treatment because of the triggers in daily life. Veterans with PTSD struggle with addiction more than the general population, so I'm not sure about this claim. After going through life-altering trauma, sometimes a "good cage" doesn't solve everything (at least for humans). Is this applicable to humans? Our brains process memory different from rats

I've heard lots of stories about people who start with a prescription and then turn to street drugs when their doctor stops prescribing. Did they stop using because the pain was cured or because the drugs were labeled medical? If the pain was cured through medical intervention, it makes sense they would be able to stop. But for people with chronic pain, would this be different?

This makes sense, and lines up with my previous knowledge about addiction. People with trauma or who live in difficult environments are much more likely to become addicted. There have been many studies about the relationship between ACE scores and addiction, physical/mental health issues, and early death.

I don't like the structure of this sentence/paragraph. When I read a paragraph where most sentences start with "From", I expect the last sentence to start with "To". I had to re-read in order to grasp the meaning, structure feels stilted