kids at a food bank have no idea who it is serving them. But it is activities like these that help former addicts see other people as real human beings with internal value and worth rather than simply objects for their manipulation, enabling, gratification etc.
People become addicts for very different reasons, there's also often quite a big disparity between the reasons male and females do. Whilst it's true some are self aggrandising egoists (King babies - I think Lloyd fits in here a bit) who fail to treat people as Kant puts it as not also only means to an end, but as ends in themselves. (Think gambler who gambles away his families money, or sex addict who repeatedly cheats on his wife).
However addictions vary and some rather take the form of *self harm* particularly in opiate addictions. Many female addicts find themselves in the situation of being used, rather, because they are often too empathetic with damaged people. This often stems from disorganized attachments to the mother figure as a child and results in fearful/avoidant attachment. They feel they don't deserve love or closeness from others and is the result of abuse and trauma in childhood (I've found a strong correlation here with disorganized attachment to the mother in particular - John Lennon was a really good example of this).
This is another reason I'm not fully onboard with 12 steps for everyone. It tends to work with people who find it through the criminal justice system, for the reasons you mention. But the kind of woman you might find in a refuge, for example, needs a very different approach. She certainly doesn't need to go make amends to others.(I'm a big Alice fan, by the way) It's strokes for folks, really.
