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I think you’re wrong about this. Many people lean into their problems rather than out. Sometimes because - as cope - they convince themselves that they’re self destructing in order to live up to their ideals and then self-destruct harder to prove it. Sometimes because they sabotage themselves rather than risk failure with no excuse.
Mentally healthy people do not want to self destruct, no. Doing so 'as cope' is talking themselves into it via perverse incentives, but they don't want to self destruct, they want the psychological comfort of believing they are in control.
Edit: "They just want to self destruct" is a defense mechanism. It is a person saying they have tried to help in every way they can think of and it doesn't work and so they must want it. But addicts and other mentally ill people can be helped - it's just really unpleasant and hard, harder than anyone should have to go through without a salary. Which is to say nobody should be expected to do it and shouldn't feel ashamed that they didn't. But that doesn't mean that the mentally ill want to self destruct, that doesn't mean they are intent on destroying their lives and bringing everyone else down with them - that is just easier to accept than your own helplessness.
I don't literally mean 'want' as in literally 'will happily tell you that this is their intention'. I mean 'want' as in 'cannot be swayed from their path' i.e. they act as though they want to self destruct. Saying so is a defense mechanism, yes, but it's also that I have known such people and they will reject, subvert and oppose anything that will actually help them so actively that 'want' seems to be the correct word for it.
I do not think that ordinary people can help this subset of addicts and the mentally ill because that would require the power and authority to straight-up enforce 'help' on unwilling recipients, and in some cases it would take active mind-control.
But by saying they want to self destruct all you are doing is absolving yourself of the responsibility to help them by putting your failure on them. I'm saying absolve yourself of responsibility, it's not your responsibility to fix them any more than you feel is required of your morals - but don't put your failure on them. If you write people off, you probably had good reasons, but you still wrote them off. Saying you wrote them off because they made you is passing the buck. Like always, my biggest concern is personal responsibility.
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My maybe hot take is that addicts are optimists. However intolerable they find their lives and/or motivated by warped incentives they are, they choose to kill themselves one day at a time instead of permanently, always telling themselves that they're going to quit.
Speaking as an on-off alcoholic who has generally trended from "pathetic, shut-in drunk who blacks out every night" in my early 20s to "incorrigible barfly" in my late 20s, to "weekend warrior who hits a happy hour or two a week out of boredom" I guess that my tolerance for feeling like shit during the day has declined and my desire to be present instead of hungover during the day has increased as I've gotten older. I'll probably never have great impulse control as far as drinking is concerned, but I have or at least try to have better things to do with my free time. My father has been an 18 pack of coors light a night guy as long as I can recall and I have no clue how he does it in his late 50s. I'm not tough enough and/or don't hate myself enough to do that.
I'm far from a sage or any kind of example to follow but if asked for advice I just tell people that they have to find something better to live for, something better to be for. Maybe professionals can help there, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect a layman, friend, or spouse to be able to find that thing for you.
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I mean, some people commit suicide, and if that's not choosing to self-destruct I don't know what is.
A lot of it, though, occurs to me as an adolescent exploration of boundaries.
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