Your story reminds me of a story about heroin addicts in Russia who started taking krokodil (a homemade version that causes slow body death and decay). Addicts retreat into their addictions to hide from their problems. It gets harder and harder to break the cycle, because they don't address the core issue and they are creating more problems from themselves (physical, legal, social isolation). In the case of krokodil, stopping the drug meant dealing with the pain/shame of open sores and rotting flesh. Many people think of addiction in terms of physical symptoms and mental toughness. In many cases, human addiction is a tragedy on a mass scale. The people that work with addicts are truly doing God's work.