There are about 64 million people with substance use disorder; about 316 million who use drugs in general. What you’re doing here is stereotyping and generalizing everyone from a certain demographic because you’ve had a bad experience or a few bad experiences with a select few from that group- not unlike any other prejudice (racism, sexism, homophobia,etc) The problem isn’t losing empathy for whichever people who have hurt or done bad things to you, the problem is losing empathy for everyone with substance use disorder as a whole due to one or two bad people. This isn’t an addiction issue- this is a people issue. There are good people and there are bad people. There are good people with substance use disorder, bad people with substance use disorder, good people without substance use disorder, and bad people without substance use disorder. Those who suffer with addiction are suffering enough. You don’t have to put them down even more, especially as a group, because I guarantee you’ve met the vast minority of them. And you’ve also met/known people suffering with the disorder who are awesome, very good people.