Thank you for such thought-filled responses so far. I like the analogy to the house with the faulty light connections, Anvil. Visuals like that really help.
To use an analogy again, I feel as though I am a plane crash survivor who goes back to the site of the crash. We see those people on TV, and they want to know exactly what happened, moment by moment, every last detail of the plane's malfunction, the pilot's actions, the weather, the angle of the descent, everything. They are trying to absorb what has happened to them which has shaken them to the core and left them feeling they cannot count on anything anymore.
Your story, Laurie, of the AA man who picked up again, after the car crash and the meds. I think we all, after a traumatic experience, want to escape. We all have the small child still in us who is desperate to be held by the mother. To be completely soothed and protected. To take all the bad away. And after the car crash, the emotional and mental trauma that would have followed....the drugs must have been like a mother's lap. And for someone whose "emotional brain" had a long history of taking over the control, it would not have taken long, I guess, for the "higher brain" to say Yes. Let's disappear.
Those of us who have been T-boned by an addict have lingering deep anxiety, I think, about anything or anyone involving addiction, for addiction brought us into contact with the dark Shadow of someone we loved. And it is much harder to handle the Shadow of a human being if it is also the person you trusted, opened yourself to, like a child trusts. It is easier if it is a thug on the sidewalk who bangs you up and steals your money.
So I find I read all the books, watch the documentaries, read SR, attend the meetings, study the science, like someone who walked away from a plane crash but still cannot believe it happened. I understood, many years ago, why the staggering alcoholic was so drunk that he ripped doors off the kitchen cabinets. It is easier to understand "raging drunk." But with drug addicts--especially opiate addicts--the damage done seems to me more like being gassed.
If I came to some peace about it, I feel I could sit in Al-Anon meetings and believe in the message of hope in the opening: "...that no situation is too hopeless...."
I know about the controversy--to shift gears--about statistics. I usually don't cite them, but the doctor had very high credentials, so I decided to include them.