The 18th amendment disagrees. While there is a large "your own fault" for things like this, there is also a large "you shouldn't be allowed to do some stupid things".
The passing of the 18th was done through a highly organized and motivated cross-party political bloc that would throw an election to punish anyone that did not align with the dry agenda. This stacked the representative government in their favor, even if it did not match actual sentiment in their state.
The repeal of the amendment however, was by vote and 73% of voters favored the repeal.
Speaking as an American only a tiny number are really the hard core individualists that OP is trying to reduce is to. The majority have inclinations that way but their beliefs are much more complex and cannot be reduced that far.
I'm an American who has lived abroad for many years and married into a less individualistic/more collectivist culture.
It's very easy to see how individualistic the US is comparatively speaking when you get the opportunity to step outside it.
The 18th amendment didn't stop the sale of alcohol, but it greatly reduced those sales. It did lead to a black market, but it overall did succeed in the aims of the supporters even if it wasn't perfect. Of course the supporters were not as numerous as they thought they were and so it was rolled back.
And did the 13th Amendment prove that there was no racism in America? Does the 2nd Amendment prove that all Americans love guns?
The US is one of the most individualistic societies in the world. There is a significant amount of qualitative and quantitative research about this. Hofstede's cultural dimensions is probably the most popular "scoring" of this, but it's hardly the only reference.
There's a reason the idea of "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" originated in the US. If you've spent any time living abroad, especially in more collectivist societies (like those in Asia), you'd know how farcical it is to hold up the 18th Amendment as proof the US is not individualistic.
> 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...