| Nothing in your comments refutes what I wrote: > American culture is deeply individualistic. From a cultural perspective, a person who fails in their recovery from addiction is seen, ultimately, as being responsible for their failure. They'd typically be criticized for being weak and undisciplined, even if the fake kindness of American culture prevents most people from saying that out loud. If you want a stunning, quantitative example, here you go: https://americanhealth.jhu.edu/news/guiding-principles-addre... > Many Americans view poor individual choices/lack of discipline as the cause of opioid addiction: > 78% of Americans believe people who are addicted to prescription opioids are, themselves, to blame for the problem. > 72% believe that people addicted to prescription opioids lack self-discipline. This is despite the fact that the opioid epidemic was driven by pharma companies employing aggressive marketing and false safety claims to get doctors to overprescribe painkillers. https://alcoholstudies.rutgers.edu/the-four-sentence-letter-... And yet large numbers of Americans (a significant majority according to the above) still blame opioid addiction on the individuals. You can see the same general philosophy applied to issues like poverty and homelessness. https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2025/most-us-a... |