It depends on the person with the addiction. There are people that want help, and willing to get it, and know they have issues stopping. Then there are mothers who will leave their children to go out and prostitute themselves to support their heroin addiction in the middle of the night.

Stopping can be difficult, and I don't judge a person for having trouble stopping. But where does the line draw? When does someone have to have sympathy, and then when are we allowed to not feel so bad? How about mothers(or fathers) who drive drunk with their children? Alcoholics who beat their partners while drunk? I lent someone with a heroin addiction $70 dollars (money which my grandmother had given me) because she said she couldn't afford to buy groceries for her babies. She never returned the money, and I found out she was stealing hundreds of dollars worth of merch from my store.

Don't get me wrong, I am addicted to alcohol...but judging myself for doing it is one of the ways I am able to control and stop it. If I don't judge and feel "sympathy" for myself because it is hard to stop I will drink again.