I just realized what we're all talking about is the difference between immature love and mature love:"
Great way to conceptualize it. I think that's why AAers celebrate sobriety dates as birthdays. An active addict is suspended in a state of immaturity, no spiritual, emotional growth etc. Most recovering addicts come to see their behaviors as unethical, immoral and illegal only after they have dried ou for a while, it still in there for alot of active users, but largely unconscious, repressed (not to get to Freudian). People only have power over you to the extent that you let them.