That’s literally what addiction does to people. It makes them unrecognizable. That doesn’t excuse it, but it’s just the way addiction works. So many comments deriding this person’s intelligence when it has zero to do with that.
This is why addiction treatment and social services are so shitty in the US. People are so ready to insult others before trying to understand them, yet the solution to things like this require exactly that understanding. It’s like homelessness and NIMBYs. If they’re so concerned about the homeless encroaching on their property values, then they should take action to reduce its causes. But instead they’d rather blame, shame, and…expect them to disappear into thin air apparently.