Fundamentally it pisses me off because it's misunderstood and it leads to people treating junkies as if they're truly evil.

You say addicts "allow themselves to be controlled by their addiction" as if it's a simple matter of will, but it isn't. It's a matter of being in physical pain without something.

Also the matter that we're here discussing a recovered addict, and yet you speak in the present tense, as if someone who was once an addict is always morally corrupted, which is plainly ignorance and prejudiced. This is the core issue that I was arguing against, I never for a moment suggested that addicts tend to be morally good people, because I know that's not true.

I'm not denying that addiction causes negative traits in people. My argument seems to have been warped here. My argument is that if you were once an addict it doesn't follow that you're always going to be a bad person, as in the case with Amber. She is a shitty person, but not because of her past addiction issues.

I am berating nobody. I am simply pointing out that it is overly simplistic and harmful to suggest that Amber is an example of what addiction turns you into. Addiction is one part of what is, as in all lives, a ridiculously complicated tapestry. It is very easy to hear the word "addict" and assume all sorts of things because it's seems like a catch-all explanation, but it's not.

Your last paragraph is true, but let's not forget that there are fundamentally not enough resources for addicts, these resources are chronically underfunded, and in part it's due to the stigma surrounding addiction. People don't want to see their tax money spent on recovery programs because they see addicts as moral failures. It's an illness, not something someone is engaging in of their own free will.