I’m glad you commented these thoughts. I’m a recovered addict who works with addicts and I commented my experiences in reply to amethystamiss too.

Myself and many addicts get clean after many attempts… and the successful attempt is usually when there’s some hope and support in the picture. The opposite of rock bottom.

It’s hard as a recovered addict to even wrap your head around how you came to be successfully sober after so much hardship and failure to do so. I can see why many just adopt the AA/NA mythology of “I finally hit rock bottom,” or “I finally took responsibility for my addiction,”… it’s an easier narrative than “my tenth attempt was good timing, a decent treatment model, and a dose of luck,” which is how it feels to me.

I’m a huge proponent of giving addicts resources regardless of their sobriety or even their intentions regarding sobriety. One of the most important messages to them is that they are still a part of society, they are not broken off from it… that there’s a decent life waiting for them on the other side.