I think substance dependent people, or those with substance use disorders (I shy away from the term addict because I view it as heavily stigmatised and shame laden, imo) have a level of resilience that ordinary every day people do not have.
I graduated a law degree using meth heavily in 2016-2017, Xanax frequently and heavily in 2016 as well as codeine almost every day 2016-2017 and alcohol tossed in when I could afford it, with gaps here and there when I didn't use. Then after I went to rehab in 2018 I still drank alcohol and cough syrup a lot and used meth once or twice, 2019 used meth I think once, 2020 relapsed on poppy seed tea and used meth, 2021 poppy seed tea. So I was using for the majority of my law degree to the point at which it was a serious problem, I just happen to be smart enough that I'm working with a surplus in the brains department and I didn't fry my noggin like half the people I did rehab with. Lucky me.
And I look back at all the people I did law school with, some of whom did truthfully have their own struggles to surmount, but I would hazard a guess that not a single other student would have been able to stay enrolled dealing with the extent of substance use that I did to the level it was at, it would actually have broken them or dragged their GPA to shit and mine ended up at 5.5/7. So I did pretty well.
And I was also homeless for the first 6 months of my degree. I didn't even own a laptop so when I did essays I would typey work out on a shitty old iPad, email that to myself and try to snag a desktop on campus which wasn't being used up by some selfish asshole taking the space sitting there on their laptop and blocking me from using a computer I desperately needed. And I still maintained my GPA even though I would lose assignments when I would move between housing, be sleeping under the bridge down near the river, or simply be too high to get it done.
The thing that bums me out about that experience, and that is just the start of the issues I had during law school with many undiagnosed disabilities which impacted my ability to excell (though I did also win a Dean's Certificate in 2020 for achieving the highest mark for my cohort in one of my classes, which was my top grade ever and something not many of my very studious friends did nor the ex Dean of the faculty who wrote me a wonderful reference) is that I cannot fucking TELL anyone l, especially future employers about these issues because it isn't a good look for a junior barrister and solicitor to have a long term substance use disorder. It's just so stigmatised, even if statistically loads of lawyers do coke the thing is they're not shooting up meth and heroin intravenously. Like if I had some kind of more acceptable reason my GPA doesn't reflect my true academic potential I could shout it from the rooftops, but I'd be a fucking idiot to tell the world about this issue, no way. It could actually be a problem with getting admitted to practice as I need to be signed off as a 'fit and proper person' whatever that literally means.
So yeah like it would be nice for me to go 'oh yeah, my GPA is lower than expected because I was dealing with a severe polysubstance use disorder which almost killed me many times over during my studies and I was also homeless and unable to access any shelters during that period of time due to being trans, but I can say you should really hire me because no one else could have really pulled that off other than me, and perhaps a rare one or two people like me who exist sporadically around the world. This makes me a better choice. Because look at what I achieved through such adversity.
Nope, doesn't work like that.
